A new year, a new FIFA game. They keep coming, year after year, with the inevitability of... something particularly inevitable. An inexorable tide of digital gaming football, surging forward in an ever engorging vortex of monolithic proportions. It sucks an unwary sporting public into its preponderous maws, swallowing them down every single year as they helplessly succumb to each and every iteration that floods out of the great gates of EA. It has no mercy, relentless in its endeavour to subdue every gamer in its path. Yes, this is FIFA 08. Prepare the Pro Evo guns, and load the cannon with old copies of Sensible Soccer, because we're going in.

As over a decade of regular FIFA games has passed by, their trail of domination leaves a mixed wake. Many starry-eyed keyboard-fondlers do obeisance in the temple of FIFA daily, offering up their gaming souls to the great gods of EA, whilst others scorn the giant, mocking its devotees and snickering at their adoration of what they consider to be a vast, ugly monstrosity. They shun all contact with it and content themselves with other forbidden footballing treasures, muttering fervently about 'fluidity', 'fluidness', and 'fluidosity'.

To say that FIFA is the bestest game ever, or that FIFA is a naff piece of junk, is not a decision that can be made lightly. Every football game strives ever harder to achieve the most realistic recreation of our beloved sport as possible. No game has managed that yet with total success though, so each game simply has to be judged on both how close it gets and how much fun it grants us in the process. Let's examine the finer details.

FIFA started off as a pick-up-and-play title. Anyone could pick up a controller or keyboard and pull off reasonably fluent moves within a short space of time. Now things have moved on, to the point where FIFA actually requires you to slowly develop skill in order to play. A few idle button taps won't secure you victory any more, using the same old routines; each and every goal is worked and sweated for, and each is unique. This does mean there is a steeper learning curve, which makes the game just a bit less accessible to the average casual gamer. However, that means the devoted fanbase will savour many, many more hours of enjoyment and satisfaction from mastering all the subtle nuances that the game has to offer.

In earlier titles, it was obvious that each had a number of exploits that could easily be utilised by geeks who spent far too many hours playing the game. This has now been fairly efficiently remedied, as rarely will you score the same goal twice during the game; instead you build up your gameplay to create as many opportunities as possible and hope that when you do, you'll be able to summon the panache to take them.

FIFA has often been criticised for its somewhat robotic gameplay, which until now has certainly been less of the magic word we like to term 'fluid'. Gameplay would fall into ruts and couldn't match the freestyle ethic of other titles, mainly of course FIFA's nemesis, Pro Evolution. This has been addressed in recent years and now we have something that truly tries hard to be as free and loose as possible, attempting to replicate the sometimes random nature of the real game. Balls bounce off legs and bodies at odd angles and sometimes go right through the legs of an unwary player. Passes and shots can be taken no matter what the ball is doing, whether it is stationary, moving, or bouncing. Obviously you will have less accuracy on a moving ball, but that's all part and parcel of making the game more fluid. The problem is though, it actually turns out a bit too stodgy. It feels like your players are wading in treacle half the time, especially when you don't have the ball. Off the ball players under your control are an absolute nightmare and, rather unrealistically, they frequently run much slower than the player who has the ball. If somebody breaks through your lines then you'll have a hellish job catching them up again. Plus, if you slide from behind you'll be penalised, so you have to try and actually overtake the player to get a conservative tackle in, which takes far too long when you're tailing a player.

Conservative tackles seem largely random, with your guys sometimes executing them perfectly and other times missing completely, allowing the attacker to run past almost unhindered. Sliding tackles are extremely unrealistic too, in that they let you slide about two inches forward before stopping, rendering them fairly useless in most situations. This does hark back to older FIFA games, where sliding tackles ruined the gameplay through overuse though, so restricting your slide is EA's way of countering that issue. But if something is broken then fix it - don't just break something else to even things up. The result is that the game plays less like a game of football and more like EA's pet dog.

The game automatically selects which player it thinks you would like to be using, but sadly, this can be one of the most ludicrous elements of the game. Imagine there are two defenders chasing an attacker. If you have control of the defender below the attacker then you'll be running diagonally upwards to intercept him. But then the game may suddenly decide to switch your control to the upper player, in which case you'll suddenly find yourself running away from the attacker, rather than towards him, and thus he scores an easy goal. Stupid selections like this happen all the time, not just on occasion, which could ruin the game. Fortunately you have the option to scale down how sensitive the player selection is, so notch it down significantly and you should be able to tolerate it.

As for game formations, they always err on the side of being too defensive. Again, rather than being realistic, this is actually an attempt to balance the gameplay from favouring the attackers, so you'll always have plenty of men behind the ball, even when trying an all-out attack. Yet again this shows that EA are trying to balance the game by breaking things to match other broken things, rather than fixing all of them. At the end of the match the scores may be realistic, but that is only because EA's artificial gameplay has ensured this, not because you have played a realistic game of football.

Other gameplay issues include the fact that keepers are far, far too good, handling shots with ridiculous reflexes and skill. Also, skill shots and shots from distance are way too inaccurate, with such a low percentage actually on target that it seems worthless even trying to shoot an overhead kick or standard volley, or indeed anything outside the area. The free kicks initially show more promise than previous iterations, with no visual aiming devices to help you place your shot. However, this starts to fall apart the more your practice, as skilled players can score a very high percentage of free kicks simply by knowing the weaknesses of the free kick setup.

There are plenty of game modes to keep you entertained during your FIFA 08 career. All the usual seasons and cups are in place, plus plenty of extra options, such as where you only play one player on the field, or maybe you just control one of the tactical lines (defence, midfield, or attack). These are certainly interesting additions, especially in multiplayer, where players can focus their talents on their chosen area rather than spread themselves around the pitch. The visuals are as pretty as ever, to the point where you'll recognise the faces of famous players easily, but without being too uncannily realistic. Indeed, the presentation for FIFA 08 is very much as expected; the usual forgettable commentary from Motty and Gray, the fluid and lifelike animation to which we have become accustomed and palpable atmospheric sound effects and chants throughout all the varied stadia, despite the same cloned crowds that have been ported over from past versions of the FIFA series.

EA are improving things, slowly but surely. However, the problem is that they are also degenerating in certain areas too, in their efforts to balance gameplay issues. And there is a deeper problem too - earlier versions of FIFA are actually more enjoyable! To make a successful football game, you need to make a game that combines realism with really good fun and while previous FIFA iterations weren't very realistic, they were damn good fun. FIFA 08 offers plenty of advanced gameplay, but that doesn't make it much fun, or help it to achieve a fantastic degree of realism either. Balance is essential in a game, but you need to find a way to balance the game without bending and folding other gameplay elements to fit around it. FIFA is still a surging whirlwind of popularity, but it is gradually leaving more and more jaded fans in its wake. Let's just hope that EA go back to the drawing board and pull something truly special out of their digital hat for FIFA 09.

Reviewed by Adam Shirley for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).