Pros: Practically everything!
Cons: Hearing Chris Waddle commentating throughout a game...
The bottom line: Fun, fun, fun!
Some of you might know that I am a devout Arsenal fan, and know that I am in love with the game of football (or soccer to the Americans out there). I ain't good at football or anything, but I sure as hell spend a lot of time watching football, and enjoy spending each minute of it on my television! I also enjoy playing EA Sports' EA football games on my PC, and that's why I purchased FIFA '99.

After playing FIFA '96, FIFA '98 and World Cup '98, I felt that this game must have also been pretty darn good, since the two aforementioned games produced hours and hours of fun. FIFA '99 also produced hours and hours of fun, and soon I was absolutely glued to this game.

Like FIFA '98, there are so many different game modes that you'll never be bored when playing this game! First, there is the typical Friendly Match mode, which is basically the "exhibition game" mode of this game, where you can play any team you want. Unlike FIFA '98, if your team and the other team are tied by the end of the friendly match you are playing, you have a choice of leaving it as a draw, going to a penalty shootout or win by scoring the golden goal (a goal scored in extra-time, which is about one-third of normal time). This makes the game all the more fun, and allows you to experiment with the different ways of ending a match (although you can't really say much about leaving a match as a draw!). Great fun as it usually is!

There is also the Season mode, which was also in FIFA '98. This time, however, there are 4 Season types including the League, the Cup, Custom League and Custom Cup. The League mode allows you to play with a team from a popular football league (i.e. England, Italy, Spain, Brazil etc.). I was, however, slightly disappointed to still find that they kept the American league full of made-up football players made to look as good as the best players (pitiful, you have to admit!). There is also the Cup mode (which is also new). This allows you to play in the 3 major European cups (UEFA cup, European Cup Winners' Cup and the European Cup; it should be noted that the Cup Winners' Cup does not exist anymore). It is fun to play against the big football clubs of Europe, and even more better when you get to see yourself progress to the final stages of these competitions and win! I admit I got that sort of adrenaline rush when I enjoyed myself playing these cups. The Custom League and Custom Cup modes allow you to create your own league/cup. You get to choose the teams, the number of games you get to play and other things like that. These custom features allow you to run the league/cup any way you want to.

There is also the Training mode, which allows you to practice free kicks, penalties, corner kicks or any dead ball situation. There is also the choice of playing a practice match in this mode, and this is good, since it allows you to practice whatever you want on the pitch (you can make a fool of yourself, do dangerous tackles without getting cards and allows you to practice against your own team). This mode is good if you want to practice your skills before going on to a real pitch against a real opposition team.

The Multiplayer mode in this game is also easy to use. However, I am only saying this about playing against a friend through a modem and not against 20 odd people through a network (I've never liked network modes in sports games). Connecting to another friend's computer is easy (all you need to do is save his name and telephone number, then you can connect). You can chat to your friend before your game, and the gameplay during a modem match is free of any glitches and gameplay is not interrupted by the modem (unless it is disconnected, of course).

With these modes, come 2 other modes which FIFA '98 did not have. One of these is the new European Dream League. This league mode allows you to play against the best teams in Europe in a league (not cup). This is the most enjoyable of game modes, since the idea of playing in a league where every team is a world class team is always challenging. This produced hours and hours of non-stop fun!

Another new mode is the Golden Goal mode. In this mode, you get to decide that the first team to get a certain number of goals (1-10) wins the game. At times, playing in this mode can be frustrating, since it can take a long time to get 10 goals. Despite that, this mode still creates the adrenaline rush I enjoy so much.

This game also allows you to edit your favorite player and make them better or create a team and choose any players you want. It also allows you to decide who takes the free kicks and penalties plus which players go where and who goes on the main lineup or substitutes' bench. You are the coach, and as a player of FIFA '99, you get to do whatever you want with the different teams/players in this game (these can be found in the Team Management, Edit Player and Custom Team mode). It is also very easy to save the league/cup you are playing in. Just press the "disk" button at the bottom, and you can save the game in a matter of seconds. Loading a season/cup is just as easy as saving it.

All these game modes mentioned above are supported by some excellent gameplay. There are 3 different gameplay modes: Amateur, Professional and World Class. Amateur is simple, and basically you can score goal after goal after goal, while world class is very difficult and the players on the CPU are difficult to get past and harder to tackle (don't worry, passing the ball around is not impossible!). However, in my experience of the game, I have rarely scored goals from outside the penalty area (in others words, from long range), and it is annoying when you want to score a cracker of a goal and not be able to. Despite that, every aspect of gameplay in this game is highly realistic.

Gameplay is also helped by simple controls. Playing this game on keyboard is easy! Only 10 buttons to memorize (4 being the Up, Down, Right, Left arrows!), and you're on your way to have some fun on the football pitch! However, life would be considerably easier if you had a EA Sports' Gamepad Pro or a Microsoft Sidewinder GamePad. These make it even easier, since these controllers only have about 10 buttons on it altogether (you don't have to worry about hitting a wrong key as much as you do with the keyboard!). Unlike other EA Sports games like the Triple Play baseball games and the NBA Live games, you can have more of a challenge with one person on the keyboard and another on the gamepad on two player mode (it is impossible to play two player in NBA Live games). Simple controls certainly do help make a game a lot more fun!

The graphics in this game are also quite stunning. The tackles look so realistic. The passes, moves, shots, goalkeeping and players' reactions also look authentic throughout the game. This is also helped by the greenness of the pitch, the lines, the banners and the crowd. This creates a true footballing atmosphere, which is amazing to any football fan/player. What makes this even more amazing is that without the graphics card, the graphics are still bloody amazing!

The sound is just as great. The sound of the ball being kicked around the field is always a great sound. Hearing the audience cheer when they see a goalkeeper save a shot or hearing them cheer wildly when a player scores creates a great atmosphere to the game, and it almost feels like that you are in a football stadium, going through the same experience a typical football fan goes through in a real life game.

John Motson still commentates in this game, along with Mark Lawrenson and Chris Waddle. Although Lawrenson is alright as a commentator, Waddle annoys the hell out of me! Sure he was quite decent as a footballer, but his commentating annoys me, and is rather diabolical compared to other great commentators like Martin Tyler and Andy Gray (I don't know why he's not in this game!). These guys do, however, keep on pace with what is going on in the game, but it does get tiresome after hearing them say the same things over and over again.

The game takes up about 150MB of hard disk space, so when you install this game, be aware that this game might take up quite a lot of space in your computer!

Despite these little setbacks, FIFA '99 is a football game that anyone can enjoy (even the non-football fans!). This game may be old, but it is still fun to play at any time!

Thanks for reading my review and hope you found it helpful.