It's that time of year again - FIFA time! I'm a fan of many, many things and football is not one of those things. However, I've ironically played plenty of games recently that were based on things that I'm not a fan of - Dragon Ball Z, Sudoku and The Godfather to name a few. This brings me to FIFA 07, the PSP's latest football game courtesy of the sports monopolising folk at Electronic Arts. Now I won't lie to you - I've never really liked FIFA - I've found Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer series to be a far more accessible and entertaining football game. However, seeing as how open-mindedness is the new black (not really, I just made that up), I was more than willing to give FIFA 07 a go.

I'll continue my trend of being brutally honest and tell you that, in my opinion, the sports genre in videogames is cashing in on the gullible fans of competitive outdoor tomfoolery at its best. The fact that the same game in each franchise - be it FIFA, Tiger Woods, NHL or whatever you like - essentially gets re-released every year with minimal differences or upgrades made to the overall package makes my blood boil. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't stop the games from being good (sometimes anyway), but it'd be nice to have a developer making some sort of groundbreaking and truly intuitive move in an effort (a successful one if they can manage it) to enhance the gameplay instead of making the mere obligatory and titular graphical or roster tweaks each year. FIFA 07 doesn't come on in leaps and bounds with regards to improvements over FIFA 06, but it's still an impressive and highly entertaining experience for footie fans on the move.

Actually playing football in FIFA 07 has both good and bad points; the latter I'll focus on first so I can get it out of the way and tell you why you should buy this if you're even remotely into football. First up, the shooting is terribly hit-and-miss. All too often I find myself making a run, breaking through the defence, lining up my striker perfectly with the goal and then cursing like a sailor as he misses the goal entirely, the ball sailing miles above the net and probably knocking one of the virtual spectators into a coma. Secondly, too much of FIFA 07's gameplay is focused in the offensive zones of the pitch - making a five second run and a pass or two if you're lucky in midfield before having a twenty second scuffle in the box is a common occurrence. In addition to the seemingly low level of strategy involved when compared to Pro Evo, the PSP's lack of a second analogue stick means that EA completely did away with things like signature moves and fancy manoeuvres, which causes the gameplay to veer further back into the arena of a frantic arcade kickabout rather than the deep simulation that it's been working its way toward for the past few years. Having said that, FIFA 07's fast pace, responsive analogue controls (something PSP games often fail to pull off this well) and notably challenging AI (resulting in a true sense of satisfaction when you do manage to score) all add up to make the gameplay exciting and enjoyable, despite the aforementioned flaws.

Alongside the standard exhibition matches and country specific or international tournaments and leagues, FIFA 07 sports a Manager mode that allows the player manage just about every aspect of their favourite team's rise to superstardom, including player transfers, contract negotiation, sponsorship deals and ticket pricing, among many other things. Also, to add an extra dose of authenticity, you're presented with newspaper headlines as you progress and fulfil certain criteria; each newspaper used exists in real-life and is specific to your country (The Sun: we love it! *cough*). Handily, players who own both the PSP and PlayStation 2 versions of the game can transfer their manager career data between the two versions, should they desire to sell some players or perform daylight robbery on fans regarding tickets while they're on the train.

FIFA 07 also supports two players in exhibition matches, either locally via ad-hoc or online via the handheld's funky infrastructure mode. However, herein lies FIFA 07's big annoyance - its online play is broken, something that in all probability would not have presented anything even closely resembling a problem if the game had nothing whatsoever to do with EA. I don't know what it is about them, but EA seem to be physically incapable of making any game that works hassle-free, properly or even a little bit smoothly right off the bat, seemingly more interested in shoving their own brand of server and forum plugging down consumers' throats than actually working to make the games work online. [They are making progress though; notorious for problematic online play on Xbox, Burnout: Revenge on 360 is hassle-free and indeed one of the greatest joys online for the console thus far. Burn-Ed.] As is the case with the majority of EA games, getting online in FIFA 07 can be an extremely arduous and tedious experience, frustrating somewhere near the level of being behind a transparent wall with a hole in it that you can't quite fit through, knowing that you're mere inches away from a swarm of soapy, wet, naked Jessica Alba clones. To put it bluntly, you'll spend what will seem like an eternity entering in names, passwords, age and gender details and reading reams of legal jargon regarding usage, only to be confronted by at least one of the following possibilities - a) the game lags like crazy, b) the game has no end of trouble keeping you connected to the other player, or c) connecting to someone else just won't happen, full stop. Do yourself a favour and just find yourself a few friends who own the game as well; you'll connect easier and you'll be able to prod and nudge them until they drop their PSP's and lose the match (score!)

Fortunately, FIFA 07's front end is reasonably impressive. For starters, the framerate is rock solid - not once did I encounter even a mere hint that it might decide to start chugging like a locomotive (ouch, sorry).Visually the game is aesthetically pleasing, boasting lush, detailed pitches and clean presentation to go alongside its disturbingly ugly player models; seriously, if football players were this honest-to-god grotesque in real life instead of L'Oreal plugging pretty boys, the sport would have died centuries ago. The sound is exceptional; alongside the atmospheric ambience of crowds chanting anthems unique to their teams and the bog-standard EA Trax nonsense that we've all come to know and loathe, the commentary is superb, which is something I've rarely experienced in a sports game; it keeps up with the action sublimely and only seems to falter concerning goals being missed or scored, where it seems to take the game a second or two to realise the ball came close to the net.

Despite some shortcomings, FIFA 07 fits the bill nicely in terms of interactive football for people too lazy (or rubbish, if you're anything like me) to go outside and kick a ball around. Sure, it's got its fair share of irritating quirks, but what game doesn't? And if it was perfect, EA would have even less reason to release FIFA 08 this time next year (I'll genuinely have a heart attack if they release no football game within the next twelve months). FIFA 07 is a fast, accessible and lengthy game that I ultimately enjoyed for a good while which, coming from someone who'd usually rather poke himself in the eye with a rusty spork than play or watch football, is certainly saying a lot. If you've been playing FIFA games for years and have grown tired of the franchise then you'll find absolutely nothing here that's going to win you back. However, if your love for the beautiful game is still as strong as ever or if you've never played a football game before and are looking for a PSP game to quench your budding thirst for footie, then FIFA 07 is as good a place to start as any.

Reviewed by Mark Reece for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).