2010 FIFA World Cup (Nintendo Wii)

After my ten-year old broke his collar-bone, I was looking for something to make his enforced downtime a little easier. Saw this game advertised, and it certainly was topical. He readily mastered the interface, so I have to say it's intuitive. Gameplay has been quite enjoyable for him and his brother. Has definitely made the healing process go a little quicker for him. (He can control the nunchuck part of the controls with the thumb on the broken arm side, leaving the larger motions for the good arm.)

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It's a decent, arcade-ish, multiplayer-oriented soccer game, but it suffers from being far too similar to FIFA 10 (if you already own FIFA 10 you're getting just slightly more than a re-skin of it). The game features unrealistic physics and some crazy-insane slow-mo effects (very Matrix-like) to really bring out the all-important "cool factor," however, it eschews realism in favor of fast-paced fun.

The rest of the gameplay feels very old school with only eight directions available for movement which makes it very tough to have effective runs up the field and even tougher to turn the corner around the defender. Other annoyances come when you try to intricately weave passes through the defense. Having through balls and standard passes on the same button is a real mistake. You can no longer hold down the pass button to determine its power, as holding it down now triggers a through ball. Too often the player I'm trying to pass to was too far away for the game to realize where I was trying to go with the pass. Instead of it auto-detecting the distance and delivering a slightly faster-paced kick, all I got was a tap of the ball that then rolled five feet in front of my player. If you have a Classic Controller, I'd recommend using it. The results are much better than what you'll get with either the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combination or just the Wii Remote.

This game will appease younger gamers who just want to go kick the soccer ball, hear unrealistically loud noises when players take a shot and see lots of bright colors.

If you want to just finish a match with incredible scores and using fantastic tricks, this is your soccer game. Those looking for a realistic soccer game won't find it here, you'd still better stick with Pro Evolution Soccer, far deeper and more satisfying.

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Whenever a video game is released to correspond with a current athletic event that is taking place there is a risk that the game might have been hastily thrown together simply to be able to market the game to those overcome with the excitement of what is taking place. Perhaps it is just some memories of old school Nintendo games that were released at the time of the Winter and Summer Olympics that brings back those horrible memories, however, with a vast market of people now wrapped up in World Cup fever a timely release of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa for the Nintendo Wii has truly bucked that trend.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa is a great release that allows the user the ability to join in the excitement of the World Cup in the comfort of their own video gaming chair. With several different options to play, there is no shortage of ways to mix it up while playing this game.

Users can select from both all of the World Cup qualifiers as well as countries that did not make the cut and select from various different game scenarios to enjoy this game. Single matches between teams ranging from Slovakia and Peru or Australia and Trinidad could be set up and played either head to head or against the computer. The single match option is great if you want to try playing some strange matchups and perhaps learn a bit more about some of the other nations' clubs that are out there that perhaps do not get as much air time as those who either qualified for the World Cup or who are perennially recognized as a soccer powerhouse.

The option to actually play a World Cup is of course one of the highlights of the game. When selecting this option, the gamer can choose one of the nations that actually qualified for the World Cup and then play in the actual bracket that they were grouped into. For instance, if you were to choose the United States as the team that you wanted to be, your initial group games of England, Slovenia and Algeria would be the first three games in your group before you were to move onto the next round. There is an option to change around the groups should you wish but as a traditionalist I like trying to get through the rounds as they were structured in real life.

Another great way to play 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa for the Wii is with the online option. By selecting the online play, users are able to play through the internet against other gamers all across the globe. Personally, the best way to try and play the online version is in the 1 on 1 ranked area where you pick a team and a competitor picks another team and you play a onetime match against that person. There is an option for rematches when played this way but the beauty of playing the ranked option is that you will find the quality competition of those out there to be a good challenge.

One of the nice things about 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa is that the quality of the detail paid to the game was clearly heightened during the creation of this game. While playing an actual match, players actually have their real names and the skill sets of those players comes across to be rather accurate. That said, it is much easier to play a match as Spain or Germany against one of the other powerhouses than it is to play that same match as Barbados. The game play of the match itself is very fair and there is a good nature to the action that actually does not call for every slide tackle to be considered a yellow or red card as some previous soccer video games might have called for.

The game play commentary does not offend as some other sporting video games might and there is not the same level of redundancy to the narration that unfortunately serves as a detractor for a lot of games. If you are just about to go nutty from hearing vuvuzela's in the real World Cup than be prepared to hear them again as there is a more than occasional vuvuzela being blown in this video game that adds a certain level of authenticity to the whole World Cup experience.

I have found that the best way to play this game is with the Wii Nintendo Classic Controller Pro. By having the ability to play this game with the more traditional Nintendo controller, the game seems to be a bit smoother to play via this option than if the regular Wii controller was solely utilized. For me, having the ability to be able to play this game utilizing the classic controller is a huge plus and one of the best benefits of the game outside of the actual game itself.

Released by EA Sports, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa is Rated E and is a fine game for soccer fans of all ages. One of the true benefits of this game is that it is not so time specific that after today's final match you will have no interest in playing this game. 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa is certainly a game that can be played right up until the next World Cup takes place in Brazil.

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