Pros: Many options, Realistic, Highly playable.
Cons: Need the CD in your drive to run.

Fifa 99 has to be the best football (soccer) game that has ever been produced. It has all the things you could possibly want from a game.

The graphics are excellent, the gameplay smooth (AMD 450Mhz and 8MB AGP 64MB Ram) and the options are endless.

When you start the program you are greeted with a gameplay video (love it or hate it), but you can bypass this by just clicking the mouse. You need to have the CD loaded or it will not play. Next comes the options screen where you can practice, play a full league from many countries, a friendly, an international or a Cup competition.

The players featured in the teams are real players from the time that this program was written. The skill levels are set for these players on the opinion of god knows who, but are accurate (there are some you may disagree with). You can buy or sell players to other teams, but I can't see the point of this feature as it takes away the realism, unless you are updating what has happened in the "real" team.

You have three play levels. Amateur, Professional or world class. The amateur level is the level you will start at to get used to the game and is fairly comfortable to use after a couple of days. There is quite a jump to the Professional level i.e you may beat teams 12-0 on amateur but may find it difficult to score at the Professional level. The world class level I have not played yet.

Other options are to turn off the offside rule, injuries, who takes free kicks, corners, penalties and you even have options to change the strictness of the referee! Don't let all these options put you off the game thinking that it is complicated. You can start the game and hit the friendly button, pick your team and an opposing team then off you go.

To add to the realism, a match starts and you hear the commentaries from Gary Linekar, the legendary John Mottson "mottie" and many others who cover the BBC games in the UK.

Now the game is about to start you can change your team formation from say 4-4-2 to 1-4-5 or whatever you think is the right for that particular game. The whistle blows and away you go. You can use a gamepad (recommended) or the keyboard to control your team. The tackling can be quite rough and if you have a strict referee watch out! Oh! and if you ever trip the goalkeeper then your player takes an early bath.

The games are played pro rata to the time of the game you have chosen. If you have chosen a four minute game then the clock ticks fast etc. You can play against the computer or another player whether it be on your PC, over a network (IPX/SPX protocol only) or over the telephone line via modem.

To summarize, I have played this game for over none months and have never tired of it. The options are plentiful and the game realistic. If you have a few dollars to spare (just $15) then this is the game for everybody!