Electronic Arts recently released FIFA 13 for iOS and it is very interesting how the title compares to FIFA 12 which raised the bar for mobile soccer games last year. The developers concentrated on improving four aspects of the game: The integration of a multiplayer-part, the EA Sports Football Club, better controls and nicer visuals.

Probably the most important new feature of FIFA 13 is the multiplayer-part. It is the first time in a FIFA-game for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad that you can play with friends. In FIFA 13 you play with friends by choosing "online" from the main menu, multiplayer works over EAs Origin-service - Apples Gamecenter is not supported. If you want to play with a friend you just have to choose him from a list. After that you can change the conditions like weather, duration, stadium or the teams - its absolutely simple. Unfortunately the values will not be saved, so you have to enter them again for each match. Besides that multiplayer in FIFA 13 works really well. Additionally the developers integrated the EA Sports Football Club, which you can access over a button in the upper left corner of the main menu. In the EA Sports Football Club you can see all your Origin-friends and compare with them - even if they play FIFA 13 on PC or console. You will gain experience-points for playing the game and your level will rise - so you can see how well your friends did playing the game.

EA also improved the controls in FIFA 13. You still have a virtual analog stick on the left side of the screen and some buttons on the right - and they are still context-sensitive depending whether you are in possession of the ball or not. But the developers added some new features to the controls. For example: If you are defending you now can call a second teammate to assist you to get the ball. This works surprisingly well. Further the developers integrated a new special move button, while you are in possession of the ball. If you use the button and slide your fingers in some directions your player will do some tricks with the ball. How successful you are with your special tricks depends mainly on your timing. Thanks to the touchscreen you can also simple tap on a player to change the controlled person or to pass. Same goes for Throw Ins and Corner Kicks - just tap on the player and he will get the ball. The longer you press a button the stronger you will shoot or pass. Also important: The buttons have multiple functions depending if you double tap or slide into some direction, so you can crossplay or lift the ball for example. Sounds complicated and it is complex - but it works quite intuitive and you are teached a lot of control-skills during the loading-screen before each match and in tutorial-matches.

FIFA 13 features - as usual for the series - lots of licences. The game features over 30 leagues with over 15.000 players and even Javier Martinez is already playing at Bayern Munich. You get team-updates without any cost via download and a great thing is, that you can identify the players visually. The stadiums and the animations are also done really well. But if you know FIFA 13 from PC or console you will be disappointed, because there is still a huge difference in terms of graphics. But in the mobile sector FIFA 13 really is presented very very well. The commentators are in english and really frenetic, but you can disable them of course. The stadium-atmosphere is also done very well with lots of football terrace songs. But they are not always fitting to the playing teams and it is very noticeable that only the home team gets cheers - you can really hear that when you disable the commentators. So here is some room for improvements!

Watch the video for the whole review!

FIFA 2013, iPod / iPhone / iPad, $6,99: http://goo.gl/ZKKHh -

Please check out the apps of a friend: https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/manuela-puder/id882170289