The annual battle of the football games comes round again, and this time the competition is fiercer than it's been in some years. What a year, then, for the longest running of them all to play its trump card and put in its finest performance to date. For with new added features, and a general all-round polish, FIFA 2004 becomes a must-buy.

The big innovation this time round is the off-the-ball feature, and this really is a stroke of genius. It's fiddly to get to grips with, but basically when attacking, you can control a separate player as they run into space, ready to take receipt of a killer pass that splits the opposition defence open. It takes a little working at, but when it comes off, you'll be smug beyond belief. The feature itself genuinely adds an added tactical edge to a game that used to be wrongly dismissed as an arcade-style kickabout.

On top of that, there are the things that FIFA does better than anyone. The presentation, audio and visuals are superb from top to bottom, and the improvements to the club management side boost the game's longevity--as does a promised link up with Total Club Manager 2004, where you'll be able to import teams from that into FIFA 2004.

Most importantly of all, at the heart of all these improvements is a highly playable football game that's very easy to get into yet suitably challenging to master. And in multi-player mode, it's even better. --Simon Brew

There are some good aspects to the latest FIFA game but it has some annoying bits.
* The 'shadow' caused by the stands makes the penalty area so dark that you cannot on many occasions even see your player try to take a corner. Even at maximum brightness it remains dark. EA sports left the brightness controls out.
* The menu is hopeless
*Viewing a league table in career mode is tedious. You have to scroll through meaningless stats. Do they not know what a league table looks like??
*What is the point of the practice mode?
*The 'off the ball' thing is hopeless. Either that or I need several sleepless nights to master it.
*My players were too slow especially off the ball. The defenders can barely run!
Apart from that, the game is ok. A lot of work needs to be done to improve some of the above aspects.

i thought this game was good but there were a few missing parts includingthe play offs only top 3 goes through in nationwide league as play offswould be good also intertoto cup not there and i think unlimited seasonswould make it good apart from that a good game. try fifa 2005 it should bebetter i hope.

We have 2002 FIFA World Cup, FIFA Football 2003 but this is the best of them all.
Good points:
* Movement of the players are much more realistic.
* Corners are much better - you can curl the ball in and an attacker can time his run and produce a spectacular diving header.
* Career mode is great - you can be both manager and player and take your team through 5 seasons if you want !
* Choice of so many teams - you can even take Swindon Town to the Premiership with a bit of hard work !
* Addictive - my 7 year old son and I just can't stop playing it (after 6 months, that is !)

Bad points:
# The practice mode is not that good - but didn't buy the game for that anyway.
# You are sometimes forced to take shots from very acute angles (not often though)
# The play is a bit slow - you can't adjust this
# The gap between semi-pro and pro is enormous

EA have long had a reputation among computer games fans of milking the market with the FIFA series. Y'know, nice graphics, slightly tweaked each year, poor gameplay. In my view the FIFA series has NOT got better each year though. FIFA 98, FIFA 1999 and FIFA 2000 in my opinion are better games.

Faults with FIFA 2004 (PC version) are:

1. no editor with the programme, and the downloadable one can only edit player names
2. no variable weather - every game is played in glorious sunshine, or under floodlights. no snow or rain possible.
3. career mode stops after 5 seasons making it a bit pointless
4. graphics are NOT that good.
5. can't create custom competitions
don't waste your money!

Fifa returns for another year to battle it out with Pro Evo 3. It has all the licences blah blah blah and reading some reviews I decided to have a go with Fifa and the off the ball controls which would be interesting to use.
Fifa has made a decent effort on the graphics. They aren't perfect but you can see a similarities between the top players. I am an Arsenal fan so I can't comment on the lower leagues.
The shooting is not very challenging. Just tap the shoot button when at the edge of the ball and the ball seems to go right for the bottom corner as an unstoppable shot.
The skill button doesn't do any skill. From my point of view even with the best players you can't skill up a player. I am also finding it boring that Fifa seem to have this facsination with step-overs and are not interested in other sorts of skills such as lollipops and such.
The off the ball control I will admit was a nice addition and I hope that Fifa will expand it with 2005. I also hope that we might see a counter offer in the transfer market, so you can hassle a club for a player. It was good to see that a club can reject you so you cannot make the absolute dream team with Zidane, Ronaldo and Henry and co which means winning the league is more challenging.
The gameplay has been critisized. It is actually quite fluent at times and you can put together some good movement and put through great through-balls.
Overall: Fifa have improved this model from previous editions. I think that the online play was a nice idea and the off the ball play was too. I do however hope to see an improvement in the little bugs that there still are in Fifa. I'll give it 4-star despite the bugs because for big football fans it can be addictive.