During their PlayStation tenure, EA have become the most prolific producers of football games. Last year's FIFA '99 was the best yet, but they're not about to blow the whistle on this franchise... No sir.
Steve Bradley

This is some gravy train, eh?
You're not kidding. It's a gravy train that's hauling a selection of band wagons, and EA are travelling on the lot of them.

What's this 'STARS' business? And must we spell it with capital letters?
Stars. Is that better?

Yup. Thanks. Anyway...
EA have decided that Stars is such revolutionary concept it demands both capital letters and a trademark to boot. Basically, it reads thus: you represent a Premiership team and using your dextrous joypadular skills, the task is to win football matches and earn your players 'stars'. The stars make the players more skilful in 10 areas.

Which are?
Control, heading, speed, agility, tackling, passing, shooting, power, strength and stamina.

Is that it?
Not quite. As well as customising your team, you can also use stars to purchase players from other teams.

How much for Harry Kewell?
Just 27 billion stars to you, sonny.

So it's FIFA '99 with 'stars', then?
Strangely enough, this has actually been coded in Blighty so it's a bit different from its illustrious predecessor. The frame rate is a mite jerky and it leaves you rather disorientated. Visually, it doesn't appear to be quite as hot as FIFA, either.

That's not good, is it?
No.