Review: Fifa World Cup Germany 2006 sports simulation game

Unless you've recently woken up from some kind of freak Rip Van Winkle-type experience, you're probably already aware of a little something known as the World Cup.

For those of you who need a bit of background, the World Cup is an extremely exciting ball-based event, where countries from around the globe pit their very best football players against each other, while cynical profiteers attempt to take advantage of everyone else's enjoyment by selling them useless tat with the words 'world' and 'cup' printed on it.

That's not to suggest that EA's FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 (or FWCG '06 for short) is, in any way, useless tat. It is, of course, an officially licensed World Cup tie-in product of the highest quality.

If we were scoffing, misanthropic killjoys then we might perhaps suggest that, in terms of gameplay or graphics, the game isn't much of an improvement on its most recent predecessors (EA's Fifa 06, for example, which came out just over six months ago).

And if we were feeling particularly humbug we might even criticise the way that the computer-generated versions of all our favourite sporting heroes look like they're dead behind the eyes.

But the truth is that it's the World Cup and, naturally, we're thrilled to be a part of it in any small way we can - in this case, either by dipping in for a quick kick around, or by taking one of the 125-odd international teams available through the game's tournament mode, or even by thrashing the pants off other people online.

So, as we sit here in our cheap knock-off World Cup beer hat, weeping every time we pass the ball to a slightly spooky-looking but otherwise fit virtual Wayne Rooney, we find it extremely hard to level any kind of rational criticism at FWCG '06 whatsoever.

System requirements:
1.3GHz processor
256MB of Ram
900MB hard disk space
DVD-Rom drive
Windows 2000/XP