00:01 to match end: Lots more goals. Briefly, you flick the skill setting from its default to its highest echelon, two notches further up. The CPU becomes outstandingly capable: consummately precise during tackles, direct in its choice of tactics and sharp beyond measure in front of goal. It's beatable and, to a certain extent, challenging, but in a frustrating fashion. "Off! Off! Off!" cry your living room crowd. But no regulation-defying challenge has been made and the ref is nowhere to be seen. What on earth could they mean?

FIFA 2000 uses an enhanced version of a four-year-old engine. Back then, it was moderately sophisticated, although tactically naive. You could enjoy a few games against CPU opposition and its multiplayer credentials were obvious. But now? No chance. The PlayStation version, labouring with the strain of enhanced visuals, judders from frame to scant frame like a 1950s stop-motion dinosaur. The PC version doesn't, but its depth of play (shallow) and representation of real-life play mechanics make it no more beguiling. It is, and here's the rub, a flawed, decidedly average football game.

From the new ISS to the love-it-or-hate-it Actua 3, from This Is Football to UEFA Striker, FIFA 2000's competitors offer a far more engaging representation of the world's favourite sport. They, too, understand the need to balance enjoyable action with sim-like authenticity. To varying degrees, they achieve that goal. FIFA 2000, by contrast, is an over-fast, unwieldy, chimerical example of its genre. Which rather begs the question: which football league do its developers watch? And, in viewing it for research purposes, do they actually grasp the underlying mechanics? Playing FIFA 2000, you can't help but doubt.

It will, of course, sell. FIFA being the brand it is, this release will doubtlessly enjoy mainstream success. There's a simple fact that videogame critics often forget: that casual gamers can be remarkably less discerning than their more experienced, long-term gaming counterparts. For someone who hasn't enjoyed the subtleties of ISS, or the stylised, Sensi-sired intensity of Actua 3, FIFA 2000 may be a perfectly adequate kickaround.

Consider this, though: if you were raised from birth on a diet of dung, would it taste bad? And on that note...