England wins World Cup!

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It seems anti-climatic to announce the winner of the 2010 FIFA World Cup before the hallowed event even kicks off today but the results are in: England is world champion.

According to our highly scientific and completely (completely!) unbiased panel of experts playing on Electronic Art's Sony PlayStation 3 offering 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa,($70) the Three Lions squad led by Wayne Rooney demolished Brazil in the final game 3-1. We, er, they, also beat Germany in a second run through.

And lest you for one minute believe there was any favouritism simply because two of three panelists were born in England and the third thinks he's English, let me assure you doubters we've run this simulation several times and in all cases the opponents were defeated by the men in the red and white shirts, though Germany did give us a bit of a scare in one quarter final round. The storied Cristiano Ronaldo also pulled a few tricks out but his slippery skills were not enough alone to lift Portugal to the final.

Really. Well, it felt real enough and there were points where my heart at least was pounding as I drank in the crowd's adulations on scoring what turned out to be the winning goal. I pointed to my name on the back of my jersey just to make sure my agent and the managers he's been negotiating with for my next contract remembered.

"Apart from slight improvements in the actual game play the most striking thing is the way they encapsulated the pageantry," adds Justin Lubbock our co-panelist. "I liked the expanded news screens and all the statistics. There are also more cut-aways of players, referees and, even more so of managers -- they've certainly captured Fabio Capello very well!"

Ah, yes, footy fans, if you liked EA's FIFA 2010, you're going to love this one, which updates the version released last October and which is the world's best-selling sports game.

"The most significant improvement is that the players now move in an even more natural way, which actually makes controlling them a little easier," says Lubbock. "The other big improvement, at least for me, is on crossing. In FIFA10 when you hit the 'O' button to cross, the ball always goes far too long. Now it's much more realistic and you can get a good feel of how hard to press the button in order to hit your target. I also like that they've stopped giving Peter Crouch that ridiculous Tin Tin haircut!"

As for me, what I really liked was the new player mode because this game is getting so complicated you need to be a die hard to get the most out of it and the learning curve was getting steeper than The Faroe Islands' chances of hoisting the trophy.

The two button control let me pass and shoot without inadvertently turning on a trick or back heels and that's a good thing because truth be told, unlike my 20-year-old son, Jonathon, known simply as Brazilian-style as "Jon" when he's playing midfield for England (and Toronto F.C.), I don't have the luxury of spending a gazillion hours in the man cave honing my skills. (Neither does he officially, but that's another story.)

As football aficionados well know, the June-July tournament is the last round of games in which 32 finalists compete. They are the winners of a process that started some two or three years ago, where 199 countries set out on the road to South Africa.

The game models all this and, if you find yourself with time on your hands, you too can play through the group qualifying stages to emulate that path. Your panel of testers, being assured of England's supremacy with the round ball, simply went straight to the finals.

My panel mate Mr. "oh, ref, never!" Lubbock also likes the 'Captain Your Country' option, which let him import his avatar from FIFA10.

"You start off playing B-Internationals and build up your reputation with each performance," he enthuses. "As you progress your player plays in your country's actual World Cup qualifying games and eventually (hopefully) you end up captaining your country on to South Africa. I, of course, scored the winning goal in the final for England against Germany the first time I tried that!" (Indeed, well done on that one, sir! Payback for Euro96)

Like its league-based sibling, FIFA 2010 has similar player attributes and style of play but bumps it up a notch with the renderings of the 10 South African stadiums where play will be held.

Just like the real deal, there is heartbreak too, including the dreaded penalty shots where for this version of the game EA has tweaked the classic 'keeper vs shooter' contest into a game within a game.

I have to go now. I'm sure Fabio Capello is calling me any minute.