I remember buying my first every Fifa game. It was Fifa International Soccer in 1994(?) roughly. And when you look at the progress made between that game, and this, you realise how much the new games improve each time.Fifa 2003 is the best in this series of football games so far (I am excluding 2004). I felt that 2002 was a bit of a disaster with annoying traits, and guaranteed scoring angles, but I found this to be a massive improvement.
The Gameplay:
This has been improved much from the previous games, but not necessarily in all fields.
-On previous games, you could always guarantee scoring from a certain angle, or in a certain way, and I understand that before this might have been unavoidable with the limits on console power, but this problems seems to have been removed.
-As far as I know, this is the first Fifa game to include off-the-ball runs. By pressing or tapping L, you can get a player to make a run infront of you, and, using the through-ball feature, you can attempt to pick him out, hopefully leading to a goal.
-The free kick styles have been improved, and now involve some skill, instead of the various old ways of doing things, which would almost always result in a miss. However, it is now very clear cut whether it is going in or not, and it is still hard to create beautiful set piece movements.
-A step back from some of the previous games is the lack of training features. When I owned Fifa 98 (another of the better games) I could sit for ages attempting move after move, playing little 5 a-side matches, and generally just practising the things I wasnt so good at. I dont like the fact that this has been removed.
-Once you have played the game for a long time, and I do mean a long time, to the point where you have really mastered the game, you start to get annoyed. The players do still sometimes seem to pass to no-one, or straight to the opposition, and when playing human opponents, you realise how much the slide tackle is overpowered as you can slide across huge distance and intercept passes. But you really have to have played for a long time before you get really annoyed.
-I don't really understand the heading system. I have never really worked out how this involves skill to win the ball, and what I usually end up doing is tapping Y to head, as this seems to be the best way to do things. It isn't very clear in the manual. (If anyone actually knows the best way to head, could you drop me a note? :-))
Gameplay Conclusion:
A definite improvement from the previous versions, most features are improved and there are only some steps back. The new features added are also good, and will probably improve in subsequant games.
Graphics:
-Again, great improvement, previous games were blocky, the ball jumped towards the players feet, and the players themselves were unrecognisable.
-The players faces are nearly always recognisable, and there is nothing more satisfying than fouling Man Utd players, and seeing how miserable they always look when they stand up (sorry Man U fans).
-Smooth ball movements. Obviously, there are times when, if you watch the slo-mo replay at the slowest speed, you can see the ball not take a natural path, but this is inevitable, and I feel it looks alot better than it has done before, and better than it could have been if they hadn't smoothed it off.
Sounds:
-Classic commentary. I love it, my favourite comment is: "You woulda put your house on him scoring from there."
-On the negative side, the commentary doesn't always fit, and I've had "One on one with the keeper!" when there are 3 defenders left to beat, and "You would really expect him to score from there!" when you shoot from 40 yards out. But in general, commentary is good.
-The crowd sounds are good, they celebrate when you score, boo the referee when he misses a foul, and oooh and aaah in all the right places.
Conclusion:
Gameplay - 8.5/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sounds - 9/10
Features - 7.5/10
Overall - 8/10 (this is not an average)
A good game in general, but will occaisionally have you screaming at your TV set.