2014 Fifa World Cup Brazil: I might be biased, but...

This is more of a rugby phrase, but full credit - yes, a glorious full credit - to Electronic Arts for persisting with the always risky tactic of putting out a specific World Cup football game every four years.

 

2014 Fifa World Cup Brazil

From: EA Sports

For: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

For stars (out of five)

 

I say risky, but not in any financial sense. EA has the dollars to do a good job, and the loyal fan base to be confident the title will sell.

It is risky because the weight of public opinion still matters, and if the company does a half-hearted job with the World Cup title, it will hear about it.

The last few World Cup games have been a mixed bag.

The 1998 game was great for its time, 2002 was limp, 2006 was spectacularly good, and 2010 was ... hmmm, must have been neither magnificent nor munted, for I can barely remember it.

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil is just 40-odd days away - no All Whites, sadly - and here comes the accompanying game.

Only on two consoles, oddly, and nothing for the new generation, even though the PS4 and Xbox One have been out for six months.

Still, there is plenty of life left in the present generation, and you will quickly see that this is no rushed project.

As usual, the game looks lovely.

Menus are bright, and they and the soundtrack are laced with Brazilian themes.

The stadiums (all 12 that will be used in the tournament, plus some others) look magnificent, and the general atmosphere of the game is infused with the World Cup buzz.

There are cut scenes during the action to show fans watching on big screens in cities around the world, and the crowd reacts better than I have experienced in a football game.

Mind-numbingly, all 203 national teams that took part in the qualification process are in the game.

The rosters seem accurate, too, if the All Whites' line-up is any indication.

Recognising that any World Cup game needs to be bigger than ''just'' the tournament, EA has gone and crammed this title with modes.

The pick, for me, is Road to the World Cup, where you can take any of the aforementioned nations through a full qualification process and into the finals.

If that seems like too much work, you can simply jump straight to a World Cup.

There is also Captain Your Country (create a player and build him up to the point he is picked to, er, captain his country), the Story of Qualifying (recreate key moments in qualifying around the world; great fun) and the Story of the Finals, which will be available once the real tournament starts.

Online players will hook into Road to Rio de Janeiro, which will allow players to compete in an online tournament across the 12 venues of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Ah, but what of the gameplay, you ask. Fair enough, too. There have been a few tweaks to the physics from Fifa 14.

Most noticeable is the attention paid to heading. You can now rise over a defender much easier to direct a full-blown header in the direction of your opponent's net, or clear away from your own.

Passing feels slightly less smooth - and that's not a bad thing, because it makes you think more about where you want the ball to travel - and the midfield is all hustle and bustle as players push and bump for possession.

I realise, as something of a Fifa-aholic, I am bound to say this game is marvellous and any fan of football games must buy it and Raheem Sterling should be a regular for England blah blah etc.

But I do think this is good value.

And as a warm-up for the big festival of football in Brazil, there is nothing better.