Great game but there is still a lot of room for improvement.
First of all, the gameplay is, for the most part, fantastic and is a decent indication of what a real life football match would be. The implementation of 360 dribbling was a massive step forward in the franchise and this is extremely evident when playing older versions of Fifa that have the 8-point directional movement.
Graphics are good as usual, there are a lot of teams to choose from (the Holland national team is finally in the game!) and a good variety of game modes which means a lot of replayability that will leave you satisfied with the purchase.
Now for the bad part - the negatives. For all you MM (manager mode) lovers out there, Fifa 10s broken version will leave you wondering what on earth the developers were thinking when making the game mode:
- Random "form" that will tell you that your players haven't being playing well lately even though they have won 4 games straight and have bagged a ton of goals, for example, is a common occurence.
- Most of the games you will play will be either be night matches or overcast/rainy, having you think the end of the world is near. I have just finished my second season with Everton and I can honestly say I've played no more than 3 matches in the sunlight.
- Ridiculous team choices from the computer AI are a very, very common occurence. Strikers playing as midfielders, midfielders playing as strikers, centre backs playing as wing backs and wing backs playing as centre backs. For example, I just played against Chelsea with John Terry at LB, Bosingwa at CB and JOE COLE at RB!!!!. I know Ancelotti is hard to understand at times, but seriously, c'mon EA.
- Unrealistic expectations from the board. As you know by now, I have been using Everton. After 10 league matches I was on top, I then went on to lose to Arsenal and was knocked off top spot, making the board's confidence in me plummet. I then got knocked out of the league cup and was on the brink of being sacked.... the only thing that saved me was changing the game difficulty to amateur and battering a few teams.
And now the gameplay and online match negatives:
- The introduction of a new sense of physicality has revolutionised the way Fifa 10 is played. For the most part this has been a positive implementation, but I feel that EA have slightly overdone it. Holding the ball up is now near impossible seeing as how even when your back is turned to the defender they will just run straight through you and get the ball. This makes online play an extremely frustrating experience, as people are constantly throwing wave after wave of player at your attacker with essentially no consequence.
- The goals you concede online will a lot of the time have you thinking to yourself "wtf" and leave a sour taste in your mouth. The extent of unavoidable richochets that magically land in the path of your opponent's attacker is extensive. A lot of the time you will make a tackle on a striker only for the ball to bounce off you and leave them clean through on goal.
- The amount of times you hit the post is even worse in Fifa 10 that it was in Fifa 09. It's not uncommon for you to hit the post literally 4-5 times each match. Some may say this adds an element of excitement to the game, but I strongly disagree.
- The goalkeeper AI will have you pulling your hair out. So often will your keeper decide to rush out and leave themselves open to be chipped when if they stayed on their line the situation would've been kept under control. The keeper will also parry shots into the path of an attacker when it's an unbelievably easy save and a lot of the time will dive the wrong way when a striker takes a shot..... it has to be seen to be believed.
- EA, for some reason, decided to remove the online filter that was in 09 which would find opponents that live nearby to you so that the connection is as good as possible. I'm constantly versing people from the other side of the world with unbelievable lag... I never had this problem in Fifa 09. Again, you really have to wonder what EA were thinking.
To conclude, I want to reiterate that I am NOT a Fifa 10 hater. I've played the game every day since its release and still think it's a great game (hence why I gave it a good rating), but the problems I mentioned (and there are more that I don't have time to talk about) are really holding this game back from reaching the heights it could and probably should have reached.