FIFA 2002, by ZIO Interactive $29.95
Reviewed June 2002

How would you like to play soccer as Rivaldo or Beckham or London Donovan? Well, you can do just that in ZIO's newest Pocket PC title FIFA Soccer 2002! Personally I enjoy it more when a sports game has stars for players. This game has all the stars from 32 countries and over 100 soccer clubs from 6 regions, and they are world class! Ported from the EA Sports' title, FIFA 2002 for Pocket PC is easily one of the best soccer titles on Pocket PC.

FIFA 2002 lets you design each game the way you want to play it. Not only can you select a team or a club and a player you wish to be, you can also choose your language (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and Korean), a pitch condition (wet, soggy, normal, hard or random), wind, half length (1-8 minutes), CPU and GK skill levels, goal replay and more. There are three types of game you can play in FIFA 2002. The Practice game has only an opposing goalie, no other opponent players. You can hone your passing, formation, attacking skills in this game. Single Game mode has two teams playing a real match. In the World Cup Qualifying mode, you will need to select a team, which will be in a bracket. If you won you advance. Before the Single game and World Cup game, you will have a chance to select a playing style: Defensive+, Defensive, Moderate, Attacking and Attacking+.

The game is played in aerial view. When the a game begins, you'll see the teams running on to the field, and their names are displayed in the bottom left and right corners. You control the players with the stylus and pass or shoot the ball by either using stylus or the A and B hardware buttons. There is an instruction file to show you the controls. I find the controls very easy to learn and get used to. The stylus and hardware button combo works the best for me. Anytime in the game, you can change the tactics or put in subs, just like the real game by clicking on the EA icon on the top right hand side. You can look at your game stats any time during the game, including: possession and territory percentages, number of shots, free kicks, corners and passes. This is a very nifty feature that gives you a realtime game play feeling. The only thing I couldn't get it to do is to get a yellow card.

The graphics are very nice and the movements are smooth. You can see the audience in the first few rolls, though in a very rough outline. The ball movements are very smooth and clear, which makes the game play fun. The music is upbeat to compliment the game play. You can hear the cheers from the audience, but you won't hear anyone shouting "GOAL" when you score.

FIFA 2002 is a worthy port of the EA title, adding a good sports game with great depth to the Pocket PC platform. While it is probably flying off the shelf in Asia and Europe right now (especially during the World Cup), the US market is still among the soccer enthusiasts for this game. While I enjoy the world-class star power, fun game play and nice graphics, I wish that there were a landscape display mode. When I set up my 5-3-2 formations, I can't see the wing players. The game runs nicely on the Toshiba e310, and it takes up 1.6MB space.

Playing Hints and Tips
Practice the control before playing matches. I find that using the stylus to control player movements and hardware button to control the ball movements work excellent.

My favorite soccer players: Beckham, Donovan, Mia Ham (she isn't in this game, though).