You and your buddy are sitting in your gaming chairs 3,000 miles away. As you race down the pitch you see him streak toward the goal, splitting two defenders. Sliding the ball along the ground you hit him perfectly in stride. He fires it into the upper right hand corner scoring the equalizer. Your brother, his friend and your old college roommate hoot and holler. As you probably heard, this type of situation will be a reality around the country, and perhaps the first step toward an entirely new way of playing sports games.

FIFA Soccer this season will feature a sports gaming first - the ability to have five different players compete online as a team against five other players.

Lets face it. It's not very often there's a potentially revolutionary new element added to a sports title these days. We have gotten pretty used to paying $60 for some nice graphics, a roster update, and a few gimmicky gameplay changes or other features that really lack substance. Really excuses to slap a full price sticker on the box more than something gamers are clamoring for.

This isn't one of those kind of features however. Lets just think of the dynamics first. Communication will be key. By this point most of us are programmed to watch the little digital players run around and react. Now we can talk to our friend, anticipate his move and strike much more realistically. On defense, if you aren't on the same page your opponents will be left with some pretty easy scoring opportunities.

Ever play one of those guys who does the same thing over and over, abusing the computer AI to give you heartburn? Well against five humans it will be a lot tougher to pull off those kinds of moves.

Perhaps the biggest change will come moving away from the ball. For decades we've been programmed to always be the one in the control. What's it going to be like now that we're moving without the ball. And what is going to happen if we find out our good friend is a ball hog?

Moving into other titles things will get even more interesting. In NBA and NHL you are basically the entire team on the floor, taking the computer AI completely out of the equation (except for the goalie). For Madden and NCAA you're going to need to have players running perfect routes, know their assignments on defense, and do things almost on heard of like lead blocking on a sweep.

Looking even further into the future things could really get interesting. EA's UEFA Champions League title this spring included a feature where you'd collect cards of players and mix and match your team. Combining that with this feature would result in you picking one player out of your deck to play with - competing against a number of players who do the same on the other side of the ball. You want a great team? You better find somebody who plays striker, a couple of midfielders, and some top notch defenders. No more switching off people.

Or what about an MMO-style sports title? You create yourself as a point guard and as you compete online you get more points to spend as you move from 60 overall to a 90-overall superstar.

Regardless of where this goes, its an exciting time for online play.