FIFA 07 (Game Boy Advance) Review

I picked up this game and thought to myself, no way is this serious. It has to be a joke; that or the game is unfinished. FIFA 07 looks absolutely atrocious. People may say that the Game Boy Advance is far too weak to pull off the proper FIFA experience, but that argument is totally unjust in this particular case. Why? Because FIFA existed across the MegaDrive and Super Nintendo 16-bit formats without too many hitches and certainly did not look like someone had just vomited on the screen.

The camera follows the game perfectly well, unlike its 16-bit brethren, however this is only because the pace of the game has been vastly reduced to something that can only be likened to that of a snail going at full pelt. Try to imagine play football underwater and you will get the general idea. And if you think maybe the crowd atmosphere will alleviate some of the pain, then think again as guess what? There is no crowd atmosphere! Yes, amazingly enough games are played in practically a miserable state with silence for prolonged periods and then random annoying noises that are meant to be cheers, and other than the odd little sound effects of the ball being kicked there is little else to talk about. Woeful...And the selection of tunes played on menu screens is equally limited, although this was to be expected as the GBA could hardly cope with many real songs. Yet the looping seems far too frequent...

But that could be forgiven if the game itself was good enough, right? Possibly, but this is not the case for FIFA 07 on the GBA anyway. What is the point of having a choice of 510 teams when the game itself plays so slow, proves to be ridiculously easy and only has a handful of playing options and a two-player-only multi-player mode? For £29.99 you would certainly expect something of a decent quality here, but unfortunately Exient fails to deliver, despite the teams supposedly improved work on the 07 DS build.

It is quite unforgivable how EA has had several attempts now at doing football on the little portable, yet never seems to upgrade the game in any discernible way. Even Konami's efforts on the GBA so far have been miles better overall, and it ditched the platform for its football games a long time ago. So what IS on offer? Well, there is a quick play option where you dive straight into the matches, or a career mode that has you become a manager for five years, trying to hit certain targets, gain 'prestige points' and basically just play on and on and on...and on until the end (or until you collapse from sheer boredom). Can you gain enough points by the end of the season whilst only being able to change the formation and line-up of substitutes? Without any real hands-on management of player transfers, scouting, amendments to the skill levels of player or even staff management, do you really care? The answer is likely to always be a resounding 'NO'!

The one inclusion that could have been spectacular is that of the challenge mode, which is just like the option that Konami's ISS series used to have

Finally there is a tournament that can be played through, with twenty offerings from around the world. Again, there are limited choices for what can and cannot be done. So, as with the career mode, you will likely stick on the simulate matches option and just not bother doing much, since there is no point. And with the computer-controlled teams barely putting up any challenge, no matter what level they are supposed to be, you might as well use that simulate option. Oh, and here is another kick in the teeth