Last updated 16:04, Wednesday, 08 October 2008

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SIM CITY CREATOR: Build your own metropolis

FIFA 09

Publisher: EA Sports

Price: £49.99

Format: Xbox 360 (also on PS3, PC, PS2, PSP, DS and Wii)

Age rating: 3+

BUFFED to shiny perfection, FIFA 09 is an extraordinary game. Its TV-style presentation is on a par with anything you’ll see on Match of the Day while its elegant controls enable players to pull off a fantastic repertoire of shots.

The graphics and player animations look crisper, while all the official team strips and player likenesses only add to the feeling of playing in a real match-day encounter.

A new tactics system gives players unparalleled control over their teammates, enabling them to tinker with offensive and defensive formations. More fluid and responsive controls allow you to trap and pass a ball in an instant while dribbling requires far fewer touches than before. Every shot or pass now comes with its own energy bar, too, so you can dictate just how much power is assigned to every flick or kick of the ball.

As the game begins, your playing prowess are assessed and graded, so newcomers to the series won’t be intimidated by the complex controls. The game moulds itself to your ability rather than forcing the player to compete at a level they’re not ready for.

Be A Pro mode returns after last year’s success and has been expanded from one-off matches into a stats-building career mode, although it’s sadly limited to just four seasons – not really long enough to cement your standing as a club legend. Despite that, there’s also a 10 vs 10 multiplayer mode that enables 20 people to connect online to play a single match. At the time of writing, this option wasn’t live, but it certainly sounds like a lot of fun. Gamers will also be able to form or join their own user-controlled clubs.

Saving the best for last, Adidas Live Season is a new subscription-based service that tracks and alters players attributes based on their real-life performances. EA Sports intends to update player information on a weekly basis, taking into account a player’s form, whether they’re injured or not or if they’ve been transferred to another club.

It’s an intriguing idea, although we’re not sure how we’d feel about losing our best player just because his real-life counterpart has tweaked a calf muscle.

After years of living in the shadow of Pro Evolution Soccer, FIFA 09 looks set to finally reclaim its long-lost crown as the number one footy game.

Score: HHHHH

Prey the Stars

Publisher: Koei

Price: £29.99

Format: Nintendo DS

Age rating: 7+

THIS quirky Japanese game involves hopping around a cartoon town eating everything in sight. Its four insatiable stars – Gabu, Chuchu, Pero and Bari – have bottomless stomachs and the more they eat, the bigger and hungrier they become.

Gobble up smaller items such as fruit and veg and you’ll grow in stature so you can polish off even larger objects, like chairs and desks. In no time at all, you’ll be munching your way through entire city blocks – and, ultimately, each other.

Bites have to be timed to follow a rhythm and bonus items litter the map, but this isn’t a game for the solitary gamer. It’s meant to be played using the DS’s Wi-Fi connection, ideally with four players stuffing their faces simultaneously.

Score: HHHHH

SimCity Creator

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Price: £39.99

Format: Nintendo Wii (also on DS)

Age rating: 7+

THE age-old formula remains blissfully the same: players have to build a burgeoning metropolis from scratch, carefully placing residential, commercial and industrial units next to each other, hoping your township will have all the right ingredients for economic success.

It requires scrupulous attention to managing budgets, a police force and, at times, rebellious citizens.

With a wave of the Wii remote you can pencil in new roads and train tracks and generally invest in your city’s infrastructure, while fighting off rampaging dinosaurs, giant robots, tornadoes, aliens and meteor impacts.

You can fly around your three-dimensional creation in a helicopter or plane and chose from 13 different styles of architecture, including Egyptian, Roman, European and near-future themes. Slick and exciting as ever.

Score: HHHHH

Pipe Mania

Publisher: Empire Interactive

Price: £19.99

Format: PSP (also on DS and PC)

Age rating: 3+

AS PUZZLE games go, Pipe Mania is certainly one of the most addictive, with a lineage that stretches all the way back to the Amiga. Trouble is, it’s also one of the most copied games ever, so the chances are you’ll already have a version of it under a different name.

Players have to lay down a series of randomly presented pipes across a tiled grid in order to divert some gushing water to safety. It sounds simple enough, but it’s all against the clock and the water flow increases as you progress through the levels.

This latest incarnation does its best to provide value-for-money with more than 300 levels to master, but nothing much has changed since the game’s heyday.

Score: HHHHH

Games News

ABBA fans will no doubt be warbling into their microphones this Christmas when a karaoke game featuring the band’s greatest hits is released.

SingStar ABBA lets players sing along to some of their best-known songs and then scores their performance accordingly. If you fancy belting out Thank Your For The Music after the Christmas pud you’d better own a PlayStation 2 or 3, as the game is exclusive to those consoles.

BANJO the bear and his wise-cracking companion Kazooie return in a new adventure in November. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is an Xbox 360 exclusive and pits Banjo and friends against evil witch Gruntilda as they battle for control of Spiral Mountain. We’re promised loads of returning characters – including Mumbo Jumbo, Bottles and Captain Blubber – plus many new faces.

DESIGNED to delight the inner-child in all of us, Nintendo’s Wii console will host an exclusive sandcastle simulator early next year.

Sandy Beach provides one or two players with all the virtual tools they need to build the biggest and most elaborate sandcastles ever envisaged. You can then decide to wage war against the local crab population as they seek to overwhelm your fortifications.