By contrast, I found New Star Soccer 2010 to be one of the most confusing experiences I've ever had. To be fair, I'll say that this genre of game -- the sports team management genre -- is just not my cup of tea. Chances are this might be a great game to people who really get into the minutiae such games offer, but I had a difficult time making any kind of sense of it all. But I thought I'd give it a try regardless.

You start out choosing some basic attributes, like name, nationality, age, etc. But very quickly it gets into specifics that hardcore soccer fans might care about: preferred foot, preferred position, preferred side, preferred squad number among them. Then you can choose skin color, hair color, and eye color. When choosing your player's physical stats, you'll find that altering height and weight directly affect his maximum pace, maximum acceleration, and maximum strength.

Then you'll move on to assigning points to three different areas. Fitness points: pace, acceleration, strength, and stamina. Tactical/Technical points: positioning, vision, flair, and weak foot. Skill points: passing, shooting, dribbling, crossing, heading, control, set pieces, and tackling. I only understood about half of those attributes, so I just assigned them at random, hoping that once the actual game started, it would all become clear.

Before that happened, though, three questions came up that took me aback: What is more important to you? Friends and family, a successful career, or a balance? What's the most important attribute for a footballer? Good skills, good understanding of the game, or a balance? What character describes you best? Party animal, true professional, or balance? These questions are optional, but their inclusion is odd.

Finally, you're asked to choose your club -- meaning team -- from a list of countries. Then you choose your favorite club, then your disliked club. For each of these, you'll choose from nation, division, and then actual club, like England's Arsenal (which was spelled "Arsinal" in the game. There are many such misspellings, which is unfortunate, like "Wurld Cup" and "Chempions").

You then get to choose which nations you'll play against, up to eight in total. Then you'll wait a couple of minutes while all of your choices populate the game. And then the real bewilderment begins.

The next screen shows you a bunch of stats about your player, including attributes like Ego, Flamboyance, Intelligence, Health, Energy, Free Time, Confidence, Gambling, Alcohol, Enhancers, Injuries, Current Earnings, Sports News, Messages, and that's just the first default tab out of a total of eleven tabs.

Other tabs include Training, Player Profile, Club Profile, Competitions, Relationships, Finances, Casino, Horse Racing (?), Awards, and the Online Leaderboard. And finally, once you've gotten past all that, you can actually play. And then you discover that you're controlling a terribly slow and awkward-moving tiny avatar, on the field against opponents who are faster, more agile, and more aggressive than you are.

All in all, I have to conclude that this is a game for people who love to get right into the nitty gritty of each particular stat, and who care about the minutiae of the sporting life. If this is you, check out New Star Soccer.