Off the Shelf: FIFA 08
If ever there was a game crying out to use the Wii's innovative controls, it's arcade football. Forget about pressing a button to shoot - the only way mere buttons allow you to control the power is to keep the button pressed down longer, delaying the shot itself. Rubbish! What you need is to swing the Wii Remote with plenty of vigour. Want to do a finesse shot rather than a blaster? Then swing down, not upwards!
The system works extremely well, even if my current string* of victories are showing a certain lack of scoring flair: "1-0 to the Wycombe" is becoming a familiar chant on the Adams Park terraces (fear not, non-Wycombe fans, you can choose your own team - and the skills of your individual players will reflect the team's talent in real life too). But that's because I've only dedicated about three hours of my life to FIFA 08 so far, and I'm only starting to scrape this game's full potential ...
I'm not talking about the usual your-opponents-tend-not-to-run-away-from-the-ball-so-often sort of advancedness - in terms of pure AI, I'm sticking with Amateur, which is more than tough enough for starters. I'm talking about the Nunchuck. This adds a whole new level to the game: chip shots, lobbed through passes and actually taking control of your players' movements. And, should you ever get that good, trick moves too.
If all this sounds horribly complicated, that's for one simple reason: it is horribly complicated. I still feel like I haven't yet reached Sunday league status in terms of my ability to handle the Nunchuck's controls. But I also feel confident that given time, a few Eureka moments and quite a lot of patience - plus many repeated visits to the training sessions that are accessible from the home menu - I'll get there. And the reward should be infinitely superior gameplay to previous football simulators.
So, in the meantime, how have I managed to get those 1-0 results? Simple: the "Family" mode. This just uses the Wii Remote, so all I need to worry about is passing, shooting and tackling. I'm fully aware that this isn't exploiting FIFA 08's full potential, but it does mean I can master the basics before being subjected to more esoteric key and movement combinations.
FIFA 08 includes numerous other praiseworthy features too: the player animation is surprisingly realistic, the grounds look vaguely like the actual grounds they're meant to represent (even if Adams Park has lost a couple of stands), and there's reasonable if quickly repetitive in-game commentary from John Motson and Andy Gray. You can also choose to do everything from play a one-off challenge match to manage your favoured team through numerous seasons.
It all makes for an entertaining, diverting game. If you've enjoyed arcade football in the past, you'll love the Wii spin.
-- Tim Danton
*By string, I mean two.
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