First off we all know the basics. 'A' is pass the ball and 'B' shoots it towards goal, you can lob, kick a through ball, tackle, slide tackle and do pretty much everything else one would expect from a game of football. If you have played any FIFA game in the last 5 years you will be able to pick this up and run about effortlessly. Free kicks and corner kicks have been drastically changed, instead of choosing the direction and the spin put on the ball its a matter of picking a certain package and then selecting who you want to control to receive it. The actual kicking is similar to the old golf games, hit the button to start the charge, hit again to select power, and then hit once more when it gets between the two green bars. It's ok, but it makes the actual free kicks and penalty shots a lot harder than previous versions.

So what have EA Sports tried to add to the game modes? Well, firstly those looking for Exhibition mode might take a few minutes to realise that "Play Now" -- which has always been there and has always been redundant -- is exhibition mode. You've got the Practice mode, the Tournament mode and the brand new Career mode, which is finally the inclusion of a semi-management game that most football fans have been craving for years. Take the role of a team manager and see if you can last a full 5 years on the job and take your team through to being the best in the world. Most of the teams are there -- 350 in total -- but yet again we see no sign of the All Whites.

Presentation of the game is finally at what it should be. The menu system is perfect and the music that plays throughout the menus could easily be released as a FIFA 2004 soundtrack disc. Team selection is heaven -- EA Sports have listened to the complaints about multiplayer selection and the two teams can be selected simultaneously, no waiting here, not anymore. A small addition, but a welcome one nonetheless. Unfortunately the load time is a bit dodge. There isn't much of a load time once the game has loaded up, but when you select whether you want it in 60Hz or not the waiting starts. A small soccer ball floats across the screen whilst checking your memory card for available space (and will then complain when you don't have 140 blocks free for all types of saving available) then disappears to show the licensing screens, which you can't skip. Two of these come and go, and then it loads up the EA Sports logo, which is unskippable and then the intro movie kicks in. Once you decide to skip this it then loads the main screen where you have to wait another 5 seconds for the "Push any button" to appear on the screen. It becomes a small chore just to load up the game, which is one downfall for what is easily the sexiest layout for a FIFA game yet.

Graphics are a mixed bag. Yes, there is a 60Hz option. Yes, you can recognise most of the characters just by looking at them. But there is nothing new. It is just a slightly prettier version of last years attempt. New animations are the big excitement here for graphic whores. Players will flawlessly jump into the air with excitement as their team mates score, referees will call players back over to them to discuss the booking and fans will get outraged, jump out of their seats and boo the ref when their favourite player is sent off with a red card. Sure most of them are pre-scripted and may repeat relatively often, but they look good. As do replays, when they work. Many times we have watched a replay of the latest goal only to find that the camera is targetting the wrong goal posts, therefore allowing us to see nothing but the scoring team's goalie sitting around doing sweet F.A. Not major, but a shame nonetheless.

Many different stadiums are available in FIFA 2004 -- although frame-rate problems might steer you away from the bigger ones -- and of course the option for night or day matches. But what about the evening matches and what about the snow/rain matches? Nothing. Not there. It seems there is a down to every up with this game.

The game comes with Dolby Pro Logic II automatically turned on and considering there are no options to turn it on or off we are not sure if many people will be missing out on much if they only have Stereo/Mono sound available to them. Either way you will be served some of the best sound a football game has to offer. There are 35 or so rock/pop songs from different countries throughout the menu navigation and over 300 new team chants. There is also some of the most confusing commentary to hit a game - "This is going to be such an evenly matched game" followed later on in the piece with "The score shouldn't be this evenly matched." What the? There are also blatant stuff ups when they mention that the goal attempt that just missed would've made it a 2 all draw, when in fact the score is currently 0 - 1. These stuff ups don't happen too often but do detract when they occur. A positive is that it is nice that EA Sports have added a "small talk" library of comments. It is rather amusing to hear them talk about the upcoming Euro 2004 when there isn't much action happening on field.

Multiplayer is where the game shines. The FIFA series has always offered good singleplayer action, but nothing is more fun than sitting down with a friend and playing for a solid 20 minutes only to then go through Golden Goal time and end in a penalty shootout!