I have an admission I must make before I start this review. I have struggled with football games ever since the jump to 3D.

Call me a dinosaur but the speed and tactical play in the top down classics Kick Off, Goal and the daddy of them all Sensible Soccer just could not be replicated by the over animated new breed dominated by EA’s Fifa series and latterly Pro Evo.

Fifa 15 ends that once and for all. The blood boiling frustration of having to watch your player spend precious seconds finishing of a unintended pre-scripted animation sequence before you get control of him again is mostly gone meaning players actually react the way you want them to.

Does this mean this game is a genre defining game changer that will alter the way we look at football games?

No, of course not, but now we are at a stage where the game flows at a much more frantic pace, without sacrificing strategy. Remember this is the annual update we have all come to expect but the level of polish, and if they can’t get the basics right by now what on earth have they been doing all this time, is second to none and sits rightly among the pinnacle of sports games; Madden and NHL.

There is a level of depth to this title, both in the gameplay itself as well as the options, that bring to mind the then enormous Sensible World of Soccer. The player career mode, where you guide a young pro from hopeful academy product to would-be world star, sits nicely against the traditional career mode where you run the fortunes of a team.

Of course, if you pick the player career mode you can also take up management once your time chasing the ball is over.

This is detailed a simulation with deep tactical options and formations. Players look and feel like real stars; Mesut Ozil not only looks like the Arsenal and German World Cup winner, but he moves and strikes the ball like him. Spotting the players from they way they hold themselves is not just great fun but also plays a role in how you play. And that is the beauty of this game. It's fun to play. You don't feel like you are playing a complex sim. It's just as fun to pick up and play.

And that’s what I did. With my boy. Who is just old enough to be getting into these sorts of things. We had a great time playing together taking on all-comers. Him happy to be shooting from 50 yards out, me happy to be playing alongside him.

Great game on so many levels, especially when your bagging hat tricks with Danny Welbeck in his Arsenal jersey.