EURO 2008 INFO

Let's get this out the way - over the past couple of years, the PES franchise has found itself in stasis, with last year's Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 showing all the signs of a series that has fast run out of ideas. Yes, it still plays one of the meanest games of football, but it's becoming an increasingly weak crutch to lean on when its nearest rival FIFA continues to embrace the current generation of hardware with such endearing conviction. FIFA 08, while not quite the measure of PES on the pitch, came replete with so many bells and whistles it made a quite deafening din as it provided one of the most comprehensive windows on the footballing world to date.

Euro 2008 picks up where FIFA 08 left off, furnishing the gameplay with some canny flourishes and bringing the football sim well and truly into the online age with some of the most impressive multiplayer options in any sports title to date. But is it enough to bring the football crown back to EA?
Ljunberg, with a worrying glint in his eye.

On-pitch, it's a markedly faster affair than its predecessor, with matches played out at a much more pressing pace. After the overly defensive stagnation that sometimes dragged down FIFA 08, there's now a more convincing argument for pointing a player at the back line and charging through, with defenders now more prone to leaving spaces for attackers to exploit.

Of all the additions in the game, the most welcome has to be Captain Your Country, a mode that goes some way to realising the promise of FIFA 08's Be a Pro mode. Whereas in its previous incarnation players were only able to participate in single matches, now there is the option to take a player and work up the ranks of an international squad, starting from the fringes of the B squad and, with the right display of skills, progressing to full captaincy. It's what everyone was hoping for from the latest FIFA installment, and it proves mightily impressive.

An added bonus is the support of multiplayer in this area, with up to four players being able to take charge of individual players and battling it out amidst the squad for the captain's armband. Unfortunately, this still feels like a work in progress, as the developers have yet to come up with a camera that ably accommodates true co-operative play. Another nuisance is the fact that if a team of two want to take on the Captain Your Country mode, computer AI will fill the other slots, which detracts more than a little from the competitive thrill.

Player controlled celebrations are a cute addition.

Of course the game is meant first and foremost to represent this summer's big tournament, and you couldn't hope for a more multi-faceted portrayal of EURO 2008 and all that surrounds it. A number of scenarios plucked from the recent qualifiers are included, with players being tasked, for example with taking charge of David Healy and providing the hat-trick that helped Northern Ireland defeat Spain. In the straight campaign, the qualifying stages have been the subject of much attention, with as accurate a representation of the less glamorous side of the preliminary stages as has ever been witnessed in a videogame.

Take England to Macedonia and you'll be met with a pitch riddled with divots and a vocally hostile crowd, cat-whistling your every moment in possession. Updates on events elsewhere keep the tension at fever pitch, and lower teams will often employ deliberately cynical tactics, putting 10 men behind the ball and creating a near-impenetrable wall to try and break down. Whilst these desperate methods do accurately convey their real-life counterpart, it does naturally lead to frustration and can seem a little unbalanced in that putting one against a team such as Andorra can be an infinitely greater challenge than scoring against on a more established football nation such as France.

Graphically, it's hard to notice much of a step up for EURO 2008 from the series' last run-out. From a distance it's easy to be fooled into thinking you're watching a match-day broadcast, but get close-up and some of the character models look downright odd, with players still sporting the buttery skin that makes them look like they've just emerged from a vat of Vaseline. Likewise the manager models that punctuate the action are riddled with deformities, though they do serve to bolster the atmosphere. Steve McLaren in particular – who we're assuming will be replaced by the more dashing Fabio Capello come the game's first online update – looks like a corpse that's been freshly hauled up from the muddy depths of the Thames. The build is also susceptible to some pretty unsightly frame-rate dips, but thankfully these are infrequent occurrences that rarely blight the action.

There's now more emphasis on attacking play.

Being an EA Sports title, the front end is obviously polished within a pixel of its life. Loading screens dazzle the player with statistics, such as the fact that Carlos Roa, Argentina's keeper in the 1998 World Cup campaign, tendered his resignation in 1999 in order to prepare for the apocalypse, before sheepishly returning in 2000 having realised the error of his ways. Actually, that one's not in there, but you will be reliably informed of top scorers and winners of all previous European Championships amongst other useful tidbits.

Like previous FIFA titles the commentary is superlative, this time being provided by the team of Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townshend. It's one of the only occasions that we've actually turned commentary up in a football game, with the two pundits providing sound-bites that are relevant and rarely repetitive.

It's in the myriad online options that EURO 2008 really excels, however, as best witnessed in the Battle of Nations feature. Upon first booting up the game, players are asked to register their home nation, and after any game in EURO 2008, be it on or offline, points are acquired that are then accredited to that country, with the eventual top nation being declared at the end of the real-world tournament. It bolsters the already excellent online mode of the FIFA series, though its shelf life looks to be limited to the timeframe of the tournament itself.

Some players looking positively delighted to be representing their nation.

And that proves to be the fundamental problem that underlies EURO 2008. Whilst there's no disputing that it's not only a comprehensive package, but also a definitive take on the tournament as well as a fine football game, there's still the nagging knowledge that this is merely a stop-gap before FIFA 09. This isn't just the embittered whinings of an England fan with a reduced interest in this summer's tournament, but a concern that as a half-way house EURO 2008 doesn't justify its full-blooded price tag, and for all the promises of the online mode they could well prove redundant within a matter of months.

Closing Comments
EURO 2008 is undoubtedly a step forward for the FIFA series, bringing it tantalizingly close to dethroning the once all conquering PES. Play zips along with a responsiveness previously unseen in the series, helping it come closer than any other title to fully representing the beauty of the game of football – and all this wrapped up with some trademark EA presentation. As a companion piece to the tournament it’s unsurpassed, but as a halfway point between FIFA 08 and FIFA 09, and at full price, it's only the hardcore that need apply.