At long last, EA Sports' all-conquering football game is going to get some serious competition on the PC. With Konami confirming that the game generally regarded as the best footie title in the world - Pro Evolution Soccer 3 - is coming to the PC a month after FIFA 2004, EA's cash cow has never had so much pressure to perform.

It's pleasing to report, then, that following good improvements made in the 2003 edition, it's risen to the challenge. For above the usual spit and polish that you'd expect from an EA Sports annual update, there are some genuine improvements that make for a better game.

Chief among them is the much-hyped off-the-ball feature, which surprisingly for something so talked up, works a treat. The idea is this; when you've got an attack building, or a dead ball situation, you control a player off-the-ball who can run into the right position to receive the perfect pass to score the perfect goal. That's the theory, anyway. It takes quite a lot of work to get proper results, but that's a good thing in our book, and it genuinely gives FIFA 2004 something that the competition hasn't got.

The management side of things is another feather in the game's cap. In previous years, this has been a token gesture, as you take a club through a season on their way to honours. Now transfers aren't as straightforward, and you can take on a club job with specific objectives to meet. You'll be given a menu of targets, each of which carry a points value; for instance, winning a set number of games, or conceding a maximum number of goals. Set against that are things that will lose you points; relegation never helps in that department.

Then, at the end of each season, your points are totted up and you have to have reached the target demanded of you to be able to keep your job for the next campaign. That, combined with the numerous multiplayer options, makes for a prolonged lifespan for the game. Oh, and EA has promised that teams you create in its management title, Total Club Manager 2004, will be importable into FIFA 2004.

But what about the game? As you'd expect, given the EA Sports pedigree there's no complaint when it comes to visuals, presentation or sound. All three earn the game significant ticks. The biggest tick, though, is reserved for the way the whole game plays. While the new tricks may take some learning - and if you play the game via keyboard controls, you're going to need an awful lot of buttons - they add to some already sublime gameplay. The fluidity of the action is strong, and while the game perhaps still over-rewards attacking football, you can't deny that it works on a sheer entertainment level.

As for the impending competition? Having had a sneak peek at the Playstation 2 version of Pro Evolution Soccer 3, we can't help feeling that FIFA's still in second place. But that's not down to any performance lag on FIFA's part. It's just down to having a very strong competitor. The good news for the gamer? You can't lose with either of them. Er, not literally, mind you.

This is the best FIFA game to date, and one that offers notable improvements on twelve months previous. It's not, however, the best football game in the world. But it runs it quite close.