There's a great bit while your game of FIFA is loading, where you take control of Ronaldinho and practice your shooting. It sure beats looking at a 'Please Wait' sign and, by the inclusion of another small yet thoughtful feature, EA continues the comeback of the FIFA franchise.

Because, let's face it, it was all getting a bit dry wasn't it? Beneath the gloss of official licences, real player names and intricately-mapped player faces, the key game was being continually outplayed by Pro Evolution Soccer, and everybody knew it.

Yet things started to turn last year. Not dramatically, but there were signs of rival Konami sitting on its laurels, and EA Sports making a concerted effort to improve.

What's interesting about FIFA 08 is where the focus is now going. With FIFA games, we're used to coming up against brash new features designed with the text on the back of the box in mind. But here, the devil is very much in the detail. Okay, there's the much-mooted Be A Pro mode, that demands you be just one player on a pitch, but that still felt a little half-baked to us. But more interestingly, there's been some gameplay tuning that pays small but not insignificant dividends.

Among the improvements is the ball itself, which feels that bit more realistic and bobbly this time round. The knock on effect is that timing your moves and kicks, and choosing the right players, becomes slightly more important.

Get a player with a knack for scoring from distance - Gerrard, for instance - in the right place at the right time, and some real netbusters will ensue. Get the wrong player and screw up the timing, and you unleash the kind of shot that makes club chairmen reduce the ticket price for seats around the goal.

Not that FIFA is all about the big players, though. Ironically, for a franchise obsessed with thrusting big names in your face at every turn, it's the only football game that allows you to take a lower league club and build it up on the field too.

That's done through the management mode, which remains a delight and a real highlight of the game. Here you can pick your team and not only play as them, but pseudo manage them too. Transfers are your call, meeting expectations is down to you, and there's a lot of take-it-or-leave-it tinkering to be done.

Crucially, on the pitch, the game plays well. It flows nicely and there's a welcome intricacy to the control method that doesn't discriminate too much against amateurs, yet is keen to reward those who seek out and learn the special moves.

And pleasingly, in our games of FIFA 08, in spite of suddenly being able to score some stunning goals, the final score in most games remained modest, partly due to the increasingly competent AI of the computer-controlled players.

On the downside, it's still not moved on enough to warrant only an annual gap between new versions, and it doesn't yet feel like an outright Pro Evo beater. But make no mistake: FIFA is improving, the gap is closing and this is a good football game.

The slowly improving FIFA continues to move on and the end result is a fine, enjoyable game of football that even bothers to include a brilliant single player mode.