2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa – PS3 & Xbox 360 Preview

By James Hamblin on March 9, 2010

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa - PS3 & Xbox 360 Preview  | read this item

Let’s face it. If you do end up buying 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa it’s unlikely that you’ll do so completely of your own free will.

Every time one of these major sporting events looms on the horizon, many people suddenly seem to lose their purchasing autonomy; shuffling down to their local game retailer in zombie-like fashion and drooling over the appropriately licensed box as they carry it to the counter. Such is the pull of this tournament Electronic Arts might just have well put subliminal messages in their adverts, or replaced Gary Lineker with some jug-eared hypno-robot for all the self-control large numbers of us will display as June 11^th moves ever closer.

So if you do allow yourself to become mesmerised by this very attractive piece of official merchandise, what kind of value can you expect for your money? Especially if you’re the kind of hardcore fan who’s already emptied their wallet once this season in order to play FIFA’s beautiful game, and is now planning to purchase 2010 World Cup so that they can indulge in a spot of footballing polygamy that the President of the host nation is almost certain to approve of.

Well, obviously, you get the complete, and fully licensed World Cup experience – 199 national sides, all the qualifying groups, the play-offs and the finals tournament itself. So if you’re a Republic of Ireland fan wanting to erase Thierry Henry’s infamous ‘Hand of Frog’ from the annals of time and change history for the fairer, now you can. Squads vary in size to try and anticipate any surprise inclusions, like Diego ‘Madman’ Maradona deciding to try and role back the years (but unfortunately not the pounds) and name himself player/coach, or Wayne Bride having a last minute change of heart and leaping into John Terry’s arms, Love Actually-style, at Heathrow Airport just before the plane to Johannesburg is about to take off.

In an attempt to capture that unique, World Cup, party atmosphere, the presentation has also received a comprehensive overhaul. So along with the carnival-esque big-game build up provided by showers of confetti, blaring music and thousands of blinking flashbulbs, you can expect TV-quality production values that including official on-screen graphics, shots of managers reactions to on-field events and the now ubiquitous cut-aways to people in the crowd, when the camera’s gaze often mysteriously seems to fall on a young Brazilian beauty who looks like she’s got Pele and Zico’s heads stuffed up her top.

The visuals in general have been a real area of focus in 2010 World Cup, with the introduction of a new lighting engine and more realistic looking pitches, whose patchy makeup shows the ongoing battle between the baking South African sun and some desperate, retaliatory over-watering. Improved detail in the previously inconsistent player models means that Peter Crouch should no longer look like some giant, cartoon man-gerbil and will now look like a giant, real-life man-gerbil, and even the advertising hoardings are now of the hi-tech electronic variety.

While the sight of fireworks bursting over the Moses Mabhida Stadium arch in a crystal clear Durban sky may be a very appealing one, it’s the pyrotechnics on the field people will be most interested in. And while EA really brought out the big guns for FIFA 10, some did have a tendency to miss-fire from time to time. Top of most player’s hit list was the way goalies frequently seemed to turn into baseball cap-wearing kamikazes, recklessly dashing headlong at incoming strikers who then simply lobbed the ball over them, and the good news is that the 2010 development team have taken steps to try and restrain them, as well as sharpening up the animations for controlling aerial balls so they don’t render players rooted to the spot, and carrying out some interesting experiments with altitude. With a handful of the World Cup stadia, such as those in Bloemfontein and Pretoria, located at over 4,000 feet, teams can expect the reduced oxygen content in the air at these venues to make their players tire quicker and balls move faster and bend less – effects that the FIFA team are attempting to subtly include in the official game.

In keeping with the current EA Sports manifesto, 2010 FIFA World Cup is set to have a strong presence online, with its Battle of the Nations combining the win/loss records of players from all over the world to produce country-by-country rankings, while the World Cup Online mode will allow you to play through the finals whenever you fancy a game, by matchmaking you with randomly selected rivals of a similar skill level. Whether these features and all of the other exclusive content, will be enough to sustain interest in the title once the actual trophy has been lifted on 11^th July is a big ask; but until that day arrives 2010 FIFA World Cup will enjoy its golden age, with its official status alone making it an extremely enticing package which may will feel compelled to pick up.

Tags: 2010 FIFA World Cup, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, EA, EA Canada, ea sports, Electronic Arts, FIFA World Cup, PlayStation 3, preview, PS3, The World Cup