By Mat Prior

Over the next few weeks I'll try to give you an in-depth look at our new FIFA 09 Ultimate Team mode for FIFA 09, so check back regularly here for updates.

FIFA 09 Ultimate Team will be available to everyone who owns FIFA 09 on PS3 and Xbox 360. A downloadable title update will be available on 19 March so all you will need to do is start up FIFA 09 on or any time after that date and update the game. Once updated, you'll see Ultimate Team in the main menu. Selecting it will enable you to choose the language (English, French, German, Italian or Spanish) and that will trigger the download. The download will be around 1.3GB and it's free to everyone. With the download you'll receive a five-match trial of the game. If you like it, you'll be able to purchase it at the end of the trial.

Ultimate Team enables gamers to assemble and manage their fantasy team by collecting virtual cards in about 30 different categories. One of the card categories is Gameplay, which will provide a unique variation to FIFA 09. The Gameplay cards influence on-field proceedings and add a fascinating new element to the existing gameplay. There are over 80 different types of Gameplay cards that can affect anything from the length of throw-ins to the composure of your opponent's keeper. It's important to note that none of them are so powerful that they can make the game completely unbalanced. Even with the most powerful cards applied, it's still down to the skill of the two gamers.

All the teams and leagues in FIFA 09 are available to play as opponents and feature in the 36 tournaments that come with Ultimate Team.

Here are the specific leagues - and their players - that will be available as cards:

English Barclays Premier League
English Coca Cola Championship
English Coca Cola Leagues 1 & 2
French Ligue 1 & 2
German Bundesliga 1 & 2
Italian Serie A & B
Spanish Liga BBVA
Belgian Pro League
Norwegien Tippeligaen
Scottish Premier League
Austrian Bundesliga
Swiss Axpo Super League
Korean Republic K League
Mexican Primera Division
Australian A League
PLUS: 11 Rest-of-the-World teams, including AEK Athens, River Plate, Panathinaikos and Boca Juniors.


Getting More Cards
With your free download you'll receive a starter pack that features your first squad of players, your first home and away kits, your first training arena and home stadium, the Create Captain card and a few Gameplay and Training cards. You'll get 28 in total.

After that, each pack of cards you receive will feature 12 cards. From the starter pack you create your best squad, taking into consideration the composition of your team, the formation you want to play, the nationality of the players and a variety of other factors that impact Team Chemistry. Each time you play a game, win or lose, you'll earn coins that are the in-game economy and the means to buy more packs. The better your performance, the more coins you'll earn, but even losing will get you some coins. You'll also earn more if you play online, so you should have enough coins to purchase your first bronze pack in no time.

Bronze packs obviously don't contain the best cards, so if you want to get the best, you'll have to save up for Silver or Gold. It takes six and 12 games before the Silver and Gold packs are unlocked, respectively. If you don't have the time to play games to earn the in-game coins, you can use real-world cash or Microsoft points in the Sony/Microsoft stores. It's important to point out that the use of real-world cash is only a shortcut and won't buy you anything that you can't already earn in-game - it's simply a shortcut for those who want to use it.

Trading
There is a new trade-card system that enables you to post any of your cards for trade with other gamers. You can set the minimum price, a 'buy-now' price and the trade expiration date. In addition to coins, you'll also likely be offered swaps for any of the cards you post, so checking on the status of your trades can be very interesting. You can check the status of any trades by going to your trade pile.

In addition to trading away unwanted cards, you can also put them in your collector's album. Putting them in the collector's album will award a coin amount based on the quality of the player being put in. For example, put in a 75 gold-rated player and you'll get over 400 coins back. Complete an entire team in the collection and you'll get a big coins bonus, so astute use of the collection can be a very useful way to help fund the building of your team. If you don't want to trade the card and already have it in your collection, you have the final option of discarding it and even this will get you a modest coins award, so every card has value.

Once you have created your team then you can start playing in league matches and tournaments, both online and offline, against CPU controlled teams in FIFA and fantasy teams assembled by players like yourself around the world. I should also mention that Skill Points are the means to unlock tournaments. After each game you'll be awarded Skill Points based on your performance. Play better and you'll earn more Skill Points to advance to more difficult tournaments.

Achievements and Trophies
For Xbox gamers, FIFA Ultimate Team features 10 Xbox achievements that can earn 250 points. As for PS3, updating FIFA 09 on or after 19 March will provide access to Ultimate Team and will additionally install trophies for the PS3 version. It will install 47 trophies for FIFA 09 itself and 10 trophies specifically for Ultimate Team, so it will give gamers plenty of new goals to achieve. A lot of the FIFA gameplay trophies can also be earned by playing Ultimate team.

That's an overview of what to expect from FIFA 09 Ultimate Team. Watch out for more articles, when I will detail the types of cards available, different strategies for developing team chemistry, look at our cool Create Captain customisation feature and at the leagues and tournaments.