2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa

Once every four years, EA Sports gets to release two soccer games in the same year on account of the World Cup. Because of that, this is the third soccer video game I've played in as many months. This game is feels very much the same as FIFA 2010 to the point where it almost seems like it would have been better as downloadable content. Considering the fact that FIFA 2010 has the world teams as well as all the important league teams to choose from, there is no reason to justify buying this one over FIFA 2010. Still, I definitely had more fun playing the road to the world cup in this game than I did playing as Chelsea on a road to the English Premiere League Championship.

The difficulty in this game is much more balanced than in Pro Evolution Soccer 2010. Now, playing on normal is pretty challenging when you are the United States and you must face the likes of Argentina and Brazil. In PES, playing on normal resulted in winning games 8-0, whereas playing on hard resulted in losing 1-0. Those games were never fun. In this game, as we advanced in the tournament [from friendly matches to group-play matches to the sweet 16 (not sure what it's called in soccer) matches], the difficulty became gradually harder. As the USA, we were able to trounce teams like Guatemala, but were in nail-biters with Argentina, France, and Portugal.

These nail-biters are worth talking about as they were the last three games of our tournament. Let me start by saying that Tim and I (playing together) swore that we would only play the world cup once. If we lost, we were done for the next four years. This oath we took makes our performance so much more memorable. In the quarterfinals, we won against France 3-2 with a clutch header in the 85th minute. In the semifinals, we won against Portugal 3-2 with a clutch goal in the 120th minute (the last possible minute we could have scored in before penalty kicks - we did not know how to do penalty kicks and as such, would have lost horribly). And finally, in the World Cup game, the United States avenged a loss and reigned supreme over Argentina (the only team we failed to beat in group play) in the 90th minute with the most beautiful goal you'll ever see. With a final score of 2-1, the United States was finally able to establish itself as the greatest soccer country in the world. God bless America.

This game is awesome, but get FIFA 2010 if you want more replay value.