We'll keep this short, mainly because there's not an awful lot to say.  It's the new FIFA game, and we've become long accustomed to what this means.  It's a flashy, well-presented and reasonably well-crafted football sim, which differs very little from the series' previous offerings, but which still hits the mark in all the right areas.

Big changes are thin on the ground.  Player animations are greatly improved, particularly where collision modelling is concerned, giving the game a more credible feel.  The engine seems to function in a rather similar way, albeit with the mandatory graphical overhaul, which adds some nice, shiny sweat to the players' foreheads among other things.  And the commentary seems to make more sense in given situations, which is certainly welcome.



Other than that, it's the usual affair: updated squads, kits, leagues and sponsors, and not a whole lot more.  If that's the reason you buy FIFA every year, that should be as good a reason as any to add the latest version to your collection.

The thing about FIFA of late is that it gets an awful lot right, but seems to mess it up with shoddy opponent AI.  When in possession, few sports titles feel as solid and genuine as this one, but the minute the other team gets the ball, it tends to go to pot.  The computer plays a game that's far too regimented and direct, and much too focused on specific skill moves.  The slow-burning, patient passing it so positively encourages becomes lost in a high-speed charge for your goal, and it can at times involve mere frantic button-bashing in order to regain possession.

The polish of the PC version takes a bit of a nosedive the minute you try to reassign key-bindings on certain controllers.  Even if your pad is listed among those fully supported by FIFA 09, you may still find yourself completely unable to assign anything at all to 'keeper charge', for example.  There's a community-created patch to fix it, but come on.  Perhaps EA focused too heavily on the new mouse/keyboard control option, but then you wouldn't know it, horribly unintuitive and broken as it is.

FIFA 09 is indeed the beautiful game at times.  But it's the beautiful game tarnished by AI that's been taking tactical advice from the local pub team.  Against other humans, it's predictably lovely, if disappointingly unchanged from last year.