By Oo Gin Lee

SUCCEED where Alex Ferguson has not - getting Ronaldinho and Ronaldo to be in the same team. While you are at it, why not throw in Henry, Torrez and Owen too.

That is the magic of Fifa Online 2 (FOL2), a massively multiplayer online soccer game (MMOG) where you can create your own dream team and take control of them in the field as you battle other real gamers from the region.

Every ranked match that you win earns you points which contribute to your total score. At the end of each 12-day season, the top three leaders walk away with US$450 (S$671) worth of prizes.

Next year, a major competition is in the pipeline which will draw the best players from Asia to Singapore to take part in a competition with prizes worth tens of thousands of dollars, including cash, up for grabs.

Creating the dream team is not as easy as it sounds. You start off by choosing a name for your manager, a league to play in, then your team. Each player has 23 different attributes like ball control, tackling and finishing, and each player has a maximum potential score in each attribute.

However, your initial team of players will have their attributes at only about 40 to 50 per cent of their potential, which means you have to keep playing with them to increase their skills.

As the game progresses, players from other teams within the same league will appear in the transfer market for purchase. However, you will not be able to access players from other leagues.

So to get Ronaldinho and Ronaldo together, you must start with one of the leagues, say Barclays. Get all the players you need from that league, then switch to the Italian League. Looking for players from Real Madrid too? Just repeat with the Spanish League.

The crux is that you need lots of time and planning to create your dream team. In the single-player mode, you are playing against the computer to build your street cred as a manager and to form your team. When you think you are ready, send your guys to the arena to challenge real players online.

The database of the teams and players are updated regularly, with the latest update good to Sept 10 this year. So if you are hoping to kick off with Ronaldinho, do choose AC Milan and not Barcelona. Select from 30 different leagues including the Barclays Premier League, Italian Series A, the Spanish Liga BBVA and the German Bundesliga.

FOL2 is based on the Fifa 07 game engine but it is, in reality, a totally different ball game.

While you spend half your time controlling your team during the matches, the other half is used to scout for new players, creating formations to maximise the strengths of your players and talking strategies with friends via online chats.

Playing skills is still the main criteria for winning games but between two equally skilled gamers, the guy who has his star player skills maxed out will trounce the gamer who has them at only the 50-per-cent mark.

Download Fifa Online 2 for free at www.easportsfifaonline2.com

This story was published in The Straits Times Digital Life on 17 December 2008.

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