FIFA 09 Ultimate Team Preview

The FIFA franchise at EA Sports is about to take a step in another direction, one that should please those who wish to do a little more than playing the core game.

For FIFA 09 Ultimate Team, the EA Sports dev team is introducing virtual cards that will open up a host of new gaming options. The game will be a strategic downloadable element that goes live on March 19 for $9.99 or 800 Microsoft points. It will be available on both the 360 and the PSNetwork and is an add-on to the FIFA 09 title.

How the cards come into play is that they will allow players to open player packs that also have gameplay cards that could improve training, formations, will offer contract extensions or give speed boosts and other match elements.

Because nothing is guaranteed with the card packs, the pricing on the cards has been kept low. As players build teams, they will have to pay attention to different elements, such as team chemistry. Three ways to affect team chemistry is to play athletes in the proper position, play the formation that players like to play, or play several players from the same country. When it comes to formation, if you have players that prefer the 4-4-2 formation, a player that favors the 5-3-2 formation will disrupt team chemistry. Therefore, you can go online and trade off players that do not help the chemistry or trade for players who do.

Other features include:

• The ability to collect every element to build your ultimate team.

• There are 30 types of cards to collect that include: Players, Managers, Staff, Player Contract, Advanced Training, Injury Healing, Formations, Tactics, Team Talk, Arenas, Crowd, Celebrations, Stadia, Kits, Badges and more.

• New items for use in customizing your created player that include new hairstyles, tattoos, and bandanas. 

• You earn coins by playing games and use those coins to acquire new cards.

• There are new leaderboards and new tournaments. There are six new online tourneys and six offline tourneys.

This is a bit of a new direction but one that fits seamlessly into the FIFA title and should bring a new element to the game that gamers have been looking for. The Ultimate Team element was on display at the EA Sports Season Opener event held for the media in San Francisco Thursday. While there was no real hands-on available, the entire aspect worked very well and seemed to run seamlessly on the 360 display unit.