Reach for the cup of life cause your name is on it. Do you really want it? The much-awaited Fifa world cup, which comes once every four years, is ready to heat up the sentiments this summer. Amidst the most worshiped sports event of all time, the charisma of favourite team’s Jersey in conjunction with soccer video games ought to bring the zeal of the football lovers to a pitch.

Gaming sites have already examined the nerves of crazy fans and so are using different tact to hook up the gamers 24X7. Recently, a contest was organised to celebrate the launch of a football game site stryxa.com. As a promotional tact, the UK gamesite owner gave gamers the opportunity to compete for a £10,000 prize fund on Fifa 10 using PS3 or XBOX 360 consoles.

The passion for the soccer game was such that 9 out of the total 10 final participants set the Guinness World Record for the longest football videogame marathon on the United Kingdom’s premier football computer game. “I absolutely love FIFA 10 so was confident going into the challenge that I’d breeze through 24 hours playing it. I even thought I’d broken the record before at home in my bedroom,” said Gaz Deaves, a gamer, who set the record.

In a similar manner, The Carphone Warehouse, Europe’s largest mobile phone retailer, is conducting an in-house soccer gaming event for the FIFA 10 ‘Supreme Gamer’ starting next week for particular cities in UK including Manchester, Oxford, Brighton and Hanley.

Back home, many online games sites are joining the feast by offering football- themed games. Although football is a less popular game than cricket in India, it has its followers in every part of the country. Indian sites are familiar with this and so are putting the games on social networking sites to gather gamers from across India and abroad.

Head of publishing at Games2win.com Dinesh Gopalakrishnan said, “We have already launched a game on soccer called Football Kick Off and you may find it on Facebook. The game offers two modes – single player mode and the challenge mode. A player may play either as a striker or a defender. And according to positions, he or she can strike or defend as many goals as desired. In the Challenge mode, a gamer can kick 5 goals from numerous chances and then bring in a friend online to save at least 3 goals to win the challenge,” he said.

Gopalakrishnan said that the upcoming Football World Cup in South Africa may probably fuel the football lovers to test their hands on football-themed games. However, he don't expects any other soccer game by games2win.com by the mid of the year.

CEO of Dhruva Interactive Rajesh Raor said, “Event-based videogames usually attracts huge fan followings. Games based on soccer are liked by all age groups and a phenomenal rise in sales of such games especially ahead of the major events such as World Cup is a normal trend.” The developer said it was not contributing to any ongoing global project themed on football.

Revert to the world, EA Sports, the world renowned game developer and publisher specialised in developing soccer games. It plans to launch 2010 FIFA World Cup for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in Asia from April 30. This may be the first time when a videogame will serve as an authentic online World Cup tournament. For fans of nations, such as India that failed to qualify for South Africa, this may be another chance to write a possible Indian glory. The game offers the journey from qualification to the final tournament with home and away strategies for every country, situational tactics in-game, and elevation effects that fatigue players faster and even impact the flight of the ball. Time to kick up an excitement.