Believe in living ahead of the times' Take a shot at fifa 07. In recent years, Eastern Arts (EA) Sports’ FIFA franchise has done its best to give a feel of soccer madness, at least in terms of gameplay. In FIFA 07, EA has undoubtedly put together its best game on soccer.

On the pitch, FIFA 07 is fast-paced and exciting. As far as offering challenges that meet international standards is concerned, the computer Artificial Intelligence does a fairly good job. The technique of long passes is great as you can kick the ball from midfield into the corners, letting the forwards race past the defence.

The way players receive the ball has been worked upon intently. A small yellow marker indicates where the ball will land, and opponents push around for that position. In short, it’s a great mini-battle that you will wage on almost every long pass in the game, and EA’s done a great job. As for actually shooting on goal, players, often miss point-blank shots. In this case, the shot aiming system, where you shoot and then aim in the split-second before you release, would have worked just fine.

Midfield play is basically non-existent. In the middle-third of the pitch, players can run, passing the ball once or twice, unimpeded before hitting a wall of defenders. This isn’t a big deal because scoring goals is such a dynamic experience — right from the great physics of the post to the skills of the goalies and defenders. But this isn’t real soccer. If EA wants to improve gameplay in the next game, it should focus on shot aiming, and midfield play.

Visually, the players are a bit rough, but the excellent animations are plentiful and the cutscenes are as good as they get. The audio is satisfactory. The crowds chant team-specific cheers and react to the action with a passion only seen in soccer.

FIFA 07 features more than 510 officially licenced teams and 27 leagues from a total of 20 countries. There are a number of tournaments and challenges to face, then there’s the FIFA Lounge and the Manager Mode. There’s more — scouting, sponsorship, a robust transfer market, player development, ticket pricing and even real newspapers specific to your team’s country.

Among its online features, EA takes a giant leap forward with Interactive Leagues. You can choose your favourite team from the Premier League, Bundesliga, French League or the Mexican First Division. Remember, each time your team plays, you have a week to play the game. The opponents are controlled by players that have selected the opposing team as their favourite. The online performance, though, is pretty poor.

FIFA 07 is a fun, fast-paced game of soccer. EA has introduced its share of innovation with some great long passes, and the Interactive Leagues feature. Enough game modes and an average online play make FIFA 07 one of the best soccer videogames of the year.

Minimum system requirements: Operating System: Windows 2000/XP, processor: 1.3 GHz or higher, RAM: 256 MB or higher, 3D video card: 64 MB or higher, free hard disk space: 1.2 GB or higher, DVD-ROM: 8x or higher