Football fanatics: Fifa is back, and better than ever

It’s that time of year: Fifa 19 is out and ready for binge playing.

If you’ve been following the Fifa franchise for the past few years, you’ll know exactly how this one goes - realistic football matches, with crowd chants and reactions that feel like you might be watching a live action game, except for the fact that time seems to tip along at a hefty clip. The players look even more realistic than last time, the stadiums, for the most part, have as much detail as you’d see on your TV screen.

Story mode is back, with The Jouney: Champions giving you the chance to step into the shoes of the original star Alex Hunter, former teammate and rival Danny Williams, and Alex’s half sister Kim Hunter, who is facing her first World Cup. The story mode is interesting, in a soap opera kind of way, and you can switch between the three storylines.

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But the real joy of Fifa 19 is just getting stuck into the games. Game physics and player animations have seen massive improvement in the past few years, and Fifa 19 makes a few tweaks that makes it more enjoyable to play.

Kick Off mode comes with a choice of match types such as Cup Finals or classic matches, matches with unique rules such as long range where goals scored outside the box count as two, and best of, which is a three or five match series. If you really want to let loose, the No Rules mode throws refs and officials out the window.

There's a new Uefa Champions League mode too so you can let that theme tune get stuck in your head, or go back to Ultimate Team or Career Mode, which are familiar and comforting after toying with No Rules matches in Kick Off. As usual, there is plenty to get stuck into with Fifa.

Prepare to lose your entire weekend to football. Just not the kind that you expected.