On the good side you certainly get the typically smart EA presentation and menus, and everything looks ok right up until you start a game. The graphics at times look so indistinct and ermm.. muddy? That you have to check that you're actually playing a Gamecube game. The default camera really isn't good enough. It's set at a TV style height and distance but never zooms in to the far side of the pitch, meaning that it's impossible to accurately control players in that part of the pitch - which is ridiculous. We tried several other camera options, but we don't like playing up and down the screen and most are too close or too distant, and none are intelligent and pan/zoom like most other footie games seem to manage these days.

The player likenesses are poor, and the players' physiques way too stocky. The standard of the motion capture has always been a hallmark of EA sports games, and it's still brilliant - from sidesteps, drag backs and little gestures, it looks great, but when the players elaborate moves mean that you don't regain control of them until they've finished, making control and response sluggish then what's the point? Superbly modelled stadiums are the high point of what is a graphically indistinct and visually disappointing game - and it's not often you say that about an EA game.

   

A commentary by Motty & McCoist sounds good and doesn't repeat too often, but what were they thinking with the music? The Timo Mass/Fatboy Slim song is ok, and Avril Lavigne, Ms Dynamite & Idlewild might appeal to a widely varied cross-section - but what the heck have they got to do with football? - Bring back Blur!

There's a new "Freestyle" control system which supposedly allows "Total Control". You'll be surprised to hear that we don't like that either - although it does allow you to totally control passes to row Z, or the opposition consistently. The through ball and player run system seldom works either, because the AI is so dim. And when you do get a player to make a run the button response is so sluggish that by the time your player has threaded the ball through it'll probably be blocked or offside. Running with the ball is also painfully tricky - the player can knock the ball ahead but defenders always seem to nick it, regardless of how good the player should be at that particular skill (for instance, you may just as well try to go an a mazy dribble with Martin Keown as Dennis Bergkamp).

Ooooh - There's a new free kick method as well - and at first sight that looks ok… But whilst getting the ball over a well-positioned wall and back down is still seemingly impossible, you can bend the ball a ridiculous amount. Free kicks are now taken by aiming a sight, choosing how much spin and then stopping a moving arm in a green zone - which is fine if you're playing golf, or deciding how much spin to put on a cue ball, but doesn't feel in the slightest bit like football.

   

Loads of leagues, players, competitions, stats screens and half/full time highlights give the game a televisual feel, but the otherwise excellent presentation is also let down by the ridiculously memory-hungry game save option. It doesn't have a Pro Evo Soccer-style replay save option, so quite why the game requires a massive 54 blocks (virtually an entire memory card!), heaven only knows - meaning that you'll probably have to invest in another card, and FIFA 2003 becomes an expensive game indeed…

With practice (all of which has to be done during matches as there's no practice mode in which to learn the new controls) you will manage to string some passes together and create some decent moves, but it's never as slick or instinctive as certain other football games. Sadly for GameCube owners, they're on other consoles and as such this is the best football game game available on the Nintendo machine…