Nds: Fifa 06

**WhiteX** · June 12th, 2006, 03:37

I have refined my review scheme, hope you guys like it...

Fifa 06

Fifa 06 is the first iteration of the long running Fifa football franchise
on the DS hardware, it sports a full 3D engine and a plethora of teams for you to choose
and play from the get go or onto championships and other forms of gameplay.
I know that there is a game released for the World Cup, i´ll review this one first
and use this game to compare to the other one.

Presentation/graphics 8

A very good presentation on this one, many teams to choose, weather conditions,
gameplay scenarios, interactive replays and many other gimmicks to make the experience richer.

The graphics are very well presented with a full 3d engine and well animated characters, they are not very
beautiful, but are well animated.

This game reminded me of Fifa 99 for the Nintendo 64, so expect that kind of graphic quality.

There is almost no lag even on rainy and icy fields, the players try to mimic their real life counterparts,
at least the most recognizable ones, and there are cool "TV broadcast" kind of effects when you get a replay.

Music/sound effects 7

There´s an assortment of real music, i believe that one of the songs is from Oasis and the ingame comments are
nice and very clear with a nice british accent, the crowd roar is that same old nameless team cheering, i really wanted the
ability to turn off crowds and have ingame music, but there´s no such thing.

Gameplay 6

Very easy and arcade like, B for passing, A for shooting, Y for long passing and so on...
Oh! and the ball "sticks" to the player, very arcade like.

Two things are to be let out in the open, even on the most easy difficulty setting, the Ref is extremely against
sliding tackles, you will most likely get a foul on every one till you figure a way to do it safely and there is a
stamina bar that runs under the player´s name, it depletes very quckly, so you kinda pass the ball more than you may want.

DS factor 8

There is the interactive replay controlled on the touch screen, a customizable team that you get to draw its emblem,
team tactics selected "on the fly" with the lower screen, the 3d engine, it is quite a complete package of DS football.

Learning curve 9

15 minutes to learn, 2 hours to really learn.

Lasting appeal/game modes 9

There are many teams and scenarios to keep you busy, you can quick play a match against a team of your choosing, undertake
a championship, build a career around your very own customized team or tackle a real "no win" situation that a real team overcame,
are you up to the task?

Final considerations

It is a good game, it entertains, lasts long, is easy on the eyes, it is good to revisit and it is World Cup time!

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