Once again, another FIFA soccer game has been set loose on the console with its newest release, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. Once again, the visuals maintain the consistent look that has been present since the current generation of systems has been on the market. The player models certainly aren't photo-real, but they look very good nonetheless. In fact, the coaches make an appearance throughout the game as well, and they generally look as good as the players, although depending on the lighting, the normal map on my coach from Spain looked like he had a bad skin condition that a zombie would be embarrassed of.

The stadium and the crowd shots look decent too, although neither retains the same quality level of the in-game players. Where I was severely disappointed with South Africa was in the Menu System. While the Main Menu was more than adequate with great visuals of the globe and a semi-cartoony feel, the "webpage" screens (from the Captain Your Country feature) are extremely hard to read on a standard (read: old school) definition TV.

The in-game audio and Menu music are both outstanding and appropriate, respectively. The commentators (Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend) do an outstanding job of calling the action, although in both the text and their dialogue, there's a glaring grammatical issue that drives me crazy and reminds me of yesteryear when most games were translated to English (But wait... Clive is English... hmmm). The Menu music has a bit of a beat, but is more relaxing than a lot of EA Sports titles in recent years, which is an appreciated break.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa isn't exactly much in the way of being a "new" title as much as it is an expansion of sorts of FIFA 10. It appears to use the same engine and basic gameplay mechanics of this "main" soccer title from EA Sports. In fact, when you jump into a Career mode for the first time, you'll not only be able to create a new player or use a current pro, but you'll also have the option of importing your created player from FIFA 10 (although his stats will be reset for South Africa). In addition, upon dropping the disc into your Xbox, fans of the FIFA titles will immediately see a screen where 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa auto-sets the difficulty level based on the number of achievements unlocked in FIFA 10.

What does this mean? Simply put, many of the core features of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa are a rehash of its predecessor. However, soccer fans will likely still eat this one up for the World Cup aspect of the game. As its title suggests, the game focuses on the World Cup and, in fact, offers up a full online version of the World Cup for its inaugural experience. The unfortunate side of this is that there are only a handful of stadiums to play in (although with nearly 200 teams to choose from, variety really isn't lacking).

As mentioned, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa's main draw is the online World Cup play where your team can literally take on the world. The game also features standard online play through Xbox Live and offline game modes that offer up a decent gameplay experience. Offline, you'll be able to also play through and try to overcome quite a few scenarios that will keep you busy for a fair amount of time in the Story of Qualifying mode. However, my favorite mode comes in the form of the Captain Your Country feature. Here, you'll control a single player (either created, current, or imported) in an effort to become the number one go-to guy on your team.

The Captain Your Country mode tends to be more playable for those of us who stink at fútbol videogames because you can focus on making your player fire better passes and shots, as well as play better defense instead of auto-switching as you would in all of the other game modes. You'll get constant feedback throughout the game as your performance indicator goes up and down with good and bad play, respectively. The only thing that I found a bit annoying in this mode was that none of the camera options seemed to be ideal, mostly due to the camera following your player, whose best position on the field may not be near the ball, keeping the action off-screen. However, when you do have the ball or are near the action, I've found that the Broadcast Cam actually worked great and allowed me to see the most field (when combined with the zoom out option).

Despite being a somewhat stripped down version of FIFA 10, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa does offer up another new feature that can help novice players get into the action. The game boasts a new 2-button controller option, in which most of the action is delivered through the (A) and (B) buttons. From a gameplay standpoint, newbies will certainly find the actions easier, but the overall play felt a bit too loose for my taste, especially when it comes to attempting precision passes that just didn't reach their mark. Still, I do applaud EA Canada for trying to make the controls easier for those who want it.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa offers up a variety of difficulty levels, starting from the first time that you put the game in. As mentioned, if you have FIFA 10 saves on your drive, you'll have the option of keeping the suggested difficulty setting or opting for your own. It was a bit confusing after getting into the actual settings of the game, however, because the initial settings were labeled differently, and there were a different number of levels of difficulty to choose from. Still, you can always adjust your difficulty how you see fit for playing your offline games, so players of all calibers should be able to find a challenging game without it being overwhelming.

There are a couple of things that unfortunately add to the difficulty of the game, however. The first is that while there are multiple cameras to choose from, many of them are zoomed in far too much to see enough of the field to be productive. When locking in on controlling a single player, this becomes increasingly evident as the action moves off screen. In either case, it is possible to adjust the amount of zoom, but the distances aren't great enough to make a real difference. The second factor that I've always found ridiculous is that of the auto-switching that takes place on defense. Fortunately, if you dig into the settings, this can also be adjusted but, by default, it's easy to lose your bearings as your opponent passes the ball quickly.

In all, the new two-button gameplay option does offer a bit more accessibility to gamers who may want a starting place to get into the action. Veterans, however, will want to choose one of the other two options that will ultimately give more control as you play.

Changing things up a bit, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa offers up a two-button controller option while in-game that ultimately helps players intimidated by modern sports title controller configurations get into the game with ease. The basics are that you can pass with one button and shoot with the other, although more experienced players will want to stick with one of the other "full-featured" controller options. The main reason behind this is that with the two-button option, passes didn't feel as precise and the computer had to interpolate which type of pass you intended. The other options allow you to specify normal, lob, or through passes, which makes for better overall control of what you need to on offense. In addition, you can perform advanced moves to deke the defense in an effort to get past them and work your way to the goal.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa is actually a pretty solid title, but buyer beware... at its base, it is nothing more than a re-hashed FIFA title. With that said, the online World Cup certainly offers up enough intrigue that fans of soccer may see this game with blind eyes and not really for what it is. Still, the game is enjoyable and plays really well overall. 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa is definitely worth a rent before purchasing to see if it is worth dropping another sixty dollars if you've already picked up FIFA 10. For those who have not, South Africa probably holds more value and soccer fans may want to just purchase immediately.