- Publisher: EA
- Developer: EA Canada
- ESRB Rating: "E" For Everyone
- Genre: Soccer
- Pros: Features greatest sporting event on the planet; 199 national teams; great gameplay; excellent presentation; awesome music; Captain Your Country mode; vuvuzelas
- Cons: Load times; some strangely absent options; heavy emphasis on online modes; vuvuzelas
Value
EA
Either way you feel on that, it is hard to deny that the 2010 FIFA World Cup license really adds a significant value here. It gives the game an atmosphere that is completely unlike any other soccer game out there. Everything just feels bigger and more important in this game because the stakes are so high. Every goal matters. Every miss is heartbreaking. And when you do finally fight your way through the tournament and lift the trophy at the end, it is an amazingly great feeling. This game does a championship celebration better than any other sports game I have ever played. The announcers make comments that actually really apply to your real world team, which really adds weight and importance to what you just did. You feel proud about winning a videogame championship, which is a pretty crazy feeling.
Modes
There is also a version of "Be a Pro" called "Captain Your Country". In this mode, you play as just one player out on the field instead of the whole team and are responsible for staying in position and generally using your player realistically. For those of us that have played our share of real soccer, this is the best mode ever. I know I say that in every soccer game review, but I absolutely love playing one position and getting to relive my glory days at left forward. In Captain Your Country you can choose to play as a created player or established pro as well as playing through all of the qualification rounds or just the final.
Strangely, there are some options missing from the 2010 FIFA World Cup package. You can't alter your CYC player's appearance after the initial setup. You can't look at a calendar to see your upcoming games. You can't simulate games. There are no sliders to adjust the A.I.. I'm also not crazy about the camera angle in CYC (but you do get used to it).
Gameplay
EA
One somewhat silly issue we kept running into is that sometimes the A.I. seems a bit smarter than you are. It all has to do with pressing the pass button to force the A.I. to pass the ball to you in CYC. The A.I. is generally smart enough to see that your player is open and will pass to you on its own. It isn't 100%, though, so oftentimes you'll be waiting for a pass, get impatient and press the button to call for a pass, but you were a split second too late. So instead of calling for a pass (that is already on its way) you have preloaded the pass button so you immediately pass it on to someone else. You do get used to it after a while.
