Real Football 2009

The days are getting shorter, the nights are drawing-in, and every time you step out of the house you're greeted by icy wind and a torrent of winter rain. Yes, the season is here. Not the season of goodwill, you understand, but rather the season of football releases. This is the time when all the big guns roll out the latest versions of their football titles and, as ever, the competition is as intense as that at the top of the Premiership table.

Not only do we have three big franchises tussling it out – Real Football, Pro Evolution and FIFA – but some of those franchises also have multiple versions of their own. Here, for instance, we have the non-HD version of Gameloft's Real Football, and though it might not look quite as swish and flash as its high-definition brethren, it still manages to offer up a better and perhaps more realistic experience as a result.

Aside from the actual play on the pitch, the two versions are nearly identical. Just like in the HD release, Real Football 2009 comes with standard league and cup competitions as well as two other main modes: the Real Football League, which uses your results in play to determine your place on an online worldwide leaderboard, and Challenge Mode where you can replay famous matches from years gone by and change the outcome.

Ironically for a game with 'real' in its title, many official team names don't make the cut here due to licensing issues (the likes of Manchester United being subbed for 'Manchester Red', etc), though players are, conversely, included. However, the experience on the pitch has a far greater take on reality than both its rivals and its HD cousin, with play harking back to classic football titles of old; Sensible Soccer and, ironically, FIFA.

A lot of that is down to the game's isometric view, which arguably encourages play to spread out across the pitch when compared to a side-on view, but Real Football 09 also has a heavy emphasis on simplicity. Simple green and grey indicators let you know when a player is ready for a pass, enabling you to pass it amongst your team with little difficulty – the only challenge coming in the form of the opposition rather than the bane of coping with the complicated controls.

Shooting is similarly straightforward, with a scale that slides from left to right and back again appearing on screen (also mirrored directly on the goal line) when the game considers you to be in shooting range. It's then a matter of stopping the gauge with the '0' key when it's in the green zone, the ball firing off in that direction as a result. While tricks are also included – the '*' key serving up a bevy of different flicks and dummies – they're not essential, and you'll spend most of your time attempting to hog possession, passing it through the field to find space and take a shot.

The one area of play where Real Football 2009 runs into a little bit of trouble is in tackling. Slide tackles usually win the ball, but unless it's dead on there's a fair chance the referee will blow his whistle and, perhaps more often than he should, show a red card. It seems especially random, too. An identical tackle just moments later wouldn't necessarily result in another red card, or a card at all in fact, meaning you do sometimes feel like you're entering a lottery when you go in for a tackle.

But, that aside, it's fair to say that problems in Real Football 2009 are few and far between, and on the whole, there isn't a better opportunity to have a kick about on your mobile phone this season. Unless you're insistent on only installing HD titles on your phone, then this version also out-trumps Real Football's HD release. Like an upset in the cup or a winning goal in stoppage time, this is the surprise package that should have its rivals scratching their collective heads and going back to the drawing board.