If there's one thing you can rely on in this day and age, it's a new FIFA Soccer every year. Like all other EA Sports titles, FIFA Soccer 2004 has been promoted as the best game in its genre. Is this true? Does this year's installment deliver? Well, yes and no. How's that for sitting on the fence?

With more leagues than ever before, and very impressive visuals, FIFA soccer is definitely headed in the right direction. To play as your team is a very satisfying experience. And with the players' names on the back of their shirts, and quite a few of them bearing an uncanny resemblance to their real life counterparts, it's very easy to be completely drawn in. EA certainly make the most of the license, and little things such as the team badge sweeping across the screen as you get a throw-in or corner add to the overall feel.

For me personally, all these little touches mean a lot. I'm living a long way from home, so to see my team play is fantastic. And there's the commentary too. It's not perfect by any means, but it gets the job done nicely, and adds to the authenticity provided by the licenses and graphics.

Up to now FIFA is doing extremely well. Add to this a decent mix of music from all over the world, and you've got the potential for a very good game indeed. Alas some of this potential remains unfulfilled. Sound familiar?

When you get passed the license, graphics, music, and so on, the most important aspect of any sports sim is the game play. In this department FIFA does a decent job. But if this was a school report, I'd have to include that old teacher favorite, could do better.

Little things make playing the game frustrating at times. For starters, it's seemingly impossible to beat a defender. Constantly seeing your striker quickly caught and dispossessed can be a very demoralizing experience. Passing is I agree a key component of the game, but sending your player on a run and beating defenders is equally important.

With these limitations, you are forced to pass, pass, and pass again. But here lies another problem. The passing in the game can at times be unpredictable. The short passes between players don't always come off as expected, and the long passes are pretty hard to gauge effectively. Likewise, producing consistently good crosses is no easy feat.

Talking of passing, FIFA have made a big deal this year about the game's off the ball passing system. In theory it's a good idea, and when done properly it can be very effective. But trying to execute one of these moves on the harder levels can be very difficult. Highlighting the potential receivers, scrolling through them to find the player you want, then moving him into space is incredibly demanding when you have a super quick defender honing in on you. If you can consistently get the ball to your player using this technique, you are a much better player than me.

It isn't just the game play that can be frustrating. All the menus require endless scrolling to see the data you are after. Why can't the entire starting eleven be on one page? The same goes for the league table. And scrolling through all the players' stats is tedious and time consuming to say the least.

My final complaint with the game is its silly little flaws. Some teams inexplicably have no names on the back of their shirts. The dates players are expected to return from injury are often way out (sometimes due back before they were even injured!). The otherwise excellent in game replays are occasionally hindered by the camera filming the action from the other end of the pitch, making the whole event impossible to see. These are all niggling complaints, but they could so easily have been cleared up. How much testing was done here?

Now you might be getting the impression that I'm completely down on this game. I'm not. I'm just being brutally honest. I love the sport, and I want any soccer game to be just like the real thing. Personally I think that other game by Konami also has its fair share of problems too, so I'm not biased in anyway.

A lot of these factors help take some of the enjoyment away from playing FIFA 2004, but not all of it by any means. It's still fun to play, especially in the career mode. This new addition has its detractors, but it does a good job of balancing the playing and managing aspect of the game. A few more additions and it would have been more of a management game, a few less and it would have been too shallow. For me, dealing with the team's fitness, morale, tactics, and transfers is just enough. I'd even go as far as to say that the career mode, with its real teams and players, makes the game worth having. Frustrations and all.

And if league play isn't your thing, there's also the online option. On the tougher levels the CPU makes for a very difficult opponent, so to have the option of playing thousands of other gamers online is a definite plus. I know I'd appreciate the chance of playing somebody as hopeless as me!

Despite all its faults, FIFA 2004 is still worth buying. If you like to see real teams, leagues, and players, I'd recommend this game. As long as you don't mind the faults listed above. On the other hand, if sheer playability is the overriding factor for you, then maybe Konami's offering might be your best choice.