Ah, EURO 2008 is upon us and EA Sports have released their customary cheap cash-in game….or have they? After the complete atrocity that was the EURO 2004 game, EA Sports have come good with a EURO game that not only features all the expected tournament-specific fanfare, but also features a host of notable gameplay improvements that make this game a very strong consideration for football fans.
Graphics: 85
The graphics in EURO 2008 aren’t much different than those in FIFA 08. Player models are largely the same however there are a few new animations and transitions between seem smoother. The new user-controlled celebrations are a neat idea in theory but I find the context-specific and more varied celebrations in PES 2008 to be far superior.
Lighting effects are improved and games played at dusk often look stunning. The game also features rain effects which also affect the pitch creating puddles in certain areas and also affecting the way the ball moves.
The game features all the stadiums that will be used in EURO 2008 as well as several others that are used in qualifying and friendly matches. The total number of stadiums weighs in at 22 which is pretty impressive for a tournament-specific game. The actual level of detail in the stadiums is about the same as in FIFA 08.
The TV-style presentation is solid with decent cut scenes and trophy presentation. I also like the overlays featuring scores from concurrent matches. This feature was in World Cup 2006 and I wish it was in ‘regular’ FIFA games because it increases the sense of immersion by reminding you that your match isn’t the only one going on at the moment.
The game also features lots of close-ups of real-life coaches/managers though these start to get old after you see the same 3 or 4 animations over and over. I wish there were more pitch-side details and substitution animations still need to be improved (a new addition is that almost every player getting subbed off throws a hissy-fit which is a little unrealistic).
Audio: 70
Clive ‘That Night in Barcelona’ Tyldesley and Andy Townsend take to the commentary booth in EURO 2008 and do a fairly decent job. There is a wide selection of individual player and team-specific comments which help draw you into the experience. Unfortunately, the authenticity is dampened when you actually stop to listen to what’s being said during the commentary. Much like in FIFA 08, the commentary duo often make inaccurate and completely contradictory statements. My favourite has to be the oft-occurring line ‘Oh, they say a team’s most vulnerable after they’ve scored and it proved true then!’ This line may apply when a team equalizes within a few minutes of conceding, however, I’ve heard Barcelona-boy yell it out 30 minutes after the first goal was scored……Similarly, one second you’ll hear Tyldesley criticize you for missing an ‘easy’ chance, but right after Townsend will state how difficult it was. Perplexing.
The crowd-chants and National Anthems, however, are better with a decent variety of team/nation-specific chants and some decent crowd reaction to the action on the field.
The musical selection is the weakest part of the game with a host of really unremarkable and forgettable songs.
Options: 80
The major modes of play are; Kick-Off (Exhibition), Captain Your Country, EURO 2008 (play through qualifying or skip to the finals), EURO Online Knockout Draw, Story of Qualifying, and Xbox Live. Permeating each mode is the ‘Battle of the Nations’ ranking that has you selecting your favourite country at the start of the game and then any game you play (online or off) accumulates points that go towards your selected nation. Battle of the Nations rankings are updated daily.
The Story of Qualifying mode is a neat scenario mode that allows you to re-enact (or rewrite) real-life European qualifying situations from the past 4 years. My favourite has you controlling Scotland in their match against Italy last November – this time you come in at the 90th minute with the scores tied 1-1 and have to pull out a win. A nice touch is the option to see what really happened in each scenario….which may not be so nice for Scotland fans in the aforementioned match. Manuel Mejuto Gonzalez is not mentioned. I also like the fact that the scenarios use accurate/historical rosters for each of the matches.
The EURO Online Knockout Draw has you participating in a 16 player knockout tournament. What’s neat about the mode is that you don’t have to play each of the matches in a single sitting – you can come back at any time and the game will search for another player who’s got to the same stage in their tournament. Hopefully, this is a feature that EA Sports include for knockout tournaments in FIFA 09 as it adds a little flavor to random ranked matches (even if you do end up playing the same 2 or 3 teams over again).
The most lauded aspect of the game is the Captain Your Country (CYC) mode which is an extension of the Be-A-Pro mode present in FIFA 08 where you controlled a single player amongst AI teammates. In CYC you select a real-life pro to control (or you can create your own player and assign a European nationality) and then have to earn your spot on the starting roster of the national team by playing B Internationals and impressing in the senior squad. The campaign starts at the beginning of qualifying for EURO 2008 and also includes friendly matches. The ultimate goal is to become captain for your country and help them team qualify for and win EURO 2008. Your performance, and thus your promotion to the senior/starting team, is determined by the somewhat sketchy player rating system that was present in FIFA 08. I’ll talk more about the rating system later in the review.
This is concept is neat but what muddies the waters is the fact that EA Sports have decided that you also have to select 3 other CPU-controlled ‘rivals’ who are also trying to gain promotion to the national team and are also vying for the captaincy. What’s particularly asinine is the fact that these three players always make it to the senior team regardless of how crap they play. Furthermore, even when you become captain of the national side (and are able to change tactics and personnel) you can never sub off any of your ‘rivals’!
Little of this is mentioned in the flimsy manual. As a result, in my first campaign I selected Theo Walcott and decided to select Nicky Shorey, Phil Neville and Michael Dawson as my ‘rivals’. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, those three players follow you wherever you go and always start. As a result, England were starting with Phil Neville on the right wing, Shorey at right back and Dawson keeping Terry out at centre back. Your rivals also never seem to get subbed off or dropped - even when I wasn’t captain and the CPU was controlling tactics Nicky Shorey finished a match with a 3.7/10 rating and still started the next game!
The whole ‘captain’ aspect is a little silly too as you can play your ass off through qualifying, have one mediocre match and suddenly you’re no longer captain. Besides, isn’t football supposed to be a team sport?
The ‘regular’ EURO 2008 campaign allows you to either start in the finals or go through qualifying first. Online play through Xbox-Live allows you to play in single fixtures or online leagues. Unfortunately, ranked matches are still plagued by the legions of unimaginative nimrods who pick the same 2 or 3 teams (be ready to see lots of C.Ronaldo, Henry and Rooney). I really hope EA Sports do a better job in FIFA 09 of encouraging players to use lower ranked teams – there’s some aspect of that here with less points awarded when using top teams but it’s still not enough of disincentive.
Another shocker is the fact that EA Sports have removed the amazing Online Team Player mode present in FIFA 08. I cannot fathom why they would do this and the overall online experience is poorer for it.
EURO 2008 features 52 European international sides and no club teams. While this is to be expected, it still would have been nice to have a few non-UEFA national teams like Brazil and Argentina to play in Friendlies. With respect to licenses, for a game that is based on a single tournament and a single geographic region, it’s a crime that there are so many teams that are unlicensed and have either incorrect names and/or bogus players. Of the 52 international teams available there are fifteen that aren’t correct;
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- The Faroe Islands
- Macedonia
- Georgia
- Iceland
- Kazakhstan
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Moldova
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- Serbia
- Wales
Sure, you may not mind that Kazakhstan don’t have a license but the Netherlands are actually in the finals of EURO 2008 and have the most butchered roster of all – with no real players at all! Serbia are also a side with many quality players that aren’t licensed. The kits for many of these sides are also unlicensed. There are also other roster oddities with Romania’s Adrian Mutu still appearing as the infamous ‘Murgu’.
While writing this review, EA Sports released a patch that updates the rosters for the teams in the EURO 2008 finals which is a great touch. That said, I’m a bit disappointed by the breadth of the available rosters. As mentioned before, there are only 50 teams and EA Sports have a FIFA/UEFA license so I don’t know why they don’t have more than 40 players available per nation. While this may seem like nit-picking, there are a lot of players that are not included from the major nations. It would have been nice to be able to use non-established international players (e.g. include Kevin Nolan in the England squad).
The tactical menus are largely the same as in FIFA 08 and still suffer from the fact that you can’t properly see your opponent’s formation screen – you have to guess at their lineup and player positioning. There’s also no practice mode which is a pain (and not even an arena mode like in FIFA 08).
Gameplay: 85
In years past you’d expect an EA Sports soccer game based around a single tournament to be a cheap cash-in with little to no gameplay improvements. Thankfully, this isn’t the case and EURO 2008 plays a notably better game of football than its already impressive predecessor, FIFA 08. The major areas of improvement can be seen in response times, passing, ball physics and AI.
While FIFA 08 featured improved response times from the game preceding it (UEFA Champions League 06/07) there was still a certain degree of lag between button presses and corresponding action on the screen. This would often manifest itself when attempting to make quick one-touch passes or during goal-mouth scrambles where you’d be frantically hammering away at the shoot button without response. This has been massively improved and not only does this help with quick passing and shooting, the improved responsiveness allows you more freedom to dribble even when you’re using lesser players. You can now cut inside defenders and move to create space for yourself even when you’re not using the Christiano Ronaldos of this world.
In tandem with the increased responsiveness is the vastly improved passing. Indeed, if there’s one aspect of EURO 2008 that immediately jumps out at you after just a few minutes of play it’s the ease at which you can knock the ball around. You can now move the ball around into space far more freely and effectively compared to FIFA 08. One touch passing is now a delight rather than an exercise in frustration. There is also a passing power-bar above each player’s head and if you select completely manual passing you can have almost total control. I really can’t stress just how improved the passing is – for the first time in the FIFA series I can play true possession football and the way you can move the ball around (both in terms of quickness and utilization of space) is up there with the best that the Winning Eleven series has to offer! The ball movement is definitely far more realistic and organic than in PES 2008.
Another contributing factor to the effectiveness of the passing is the tweaked ball physics. The way the ball moves in the air on crosses has been improved with the ball feeling less ‘floaty’ (and the improved responsiveness means that when you do get a ball into the box players are more likely to get a head to it rather than chest it!). Likewise, cross-field long balls are better but still need a bit more pace to them, though I’ll still take these passes over the ICBM-like long passes in PES 2008! The ball is also affected by the weather and on waterlogged pitches you’ll definitely notice the ball slow down in the muddy areas like the centre circle.
The AI has been improved, or should I say ‘adjusted’. One of my biggest problems with FIFA 08 was that the defensive AI was far too good at cutting-out passes in the midfield – regardless of whom you were playing, the midfielders were always doing their best Claude Makalele impression. This has definitely been rectified (and the improved passing no doubt helps) and not every CPU team has the ability to choke the midfield. On the attacking side, AI runs have also been marginally improved but it’s that tweaking of defensive AI that’s definitely noticeable.
These improvements make EURO 2008 much more enjoyable than FIFA 08 and, almost like the Winning Eleven series in its heyday, it takes a definite period of adjustment when you try to go back to the previous game in the series. It’s almost because of these improvements, and because EURO 2008 plays such a great game of football, that the gameplay engine’s shortcomings stick out like a sore thumb.
Item one in the list of things that need to be improved for FIFA 09 are the absolutely useless set pieces. Corners are a crapshoot and it’s very difficult to apply any kind of swerve or dip to the delivery. Compounding the frustration is that your teammates often don’t come close for a short corner either! Free kicks are unchanged from FIFA 08, lack any sort of finesse and are woefully basic compared to the intricate free kick system in PES 2008. Finally, throw-ins are an exercise in frustration – particularly when playing online where your opponent can easily nick the ball off the player you’re passing to.
Another aspect of gameplay that needs to be addressed for the next game is the shooting. Unless you’re using the best players, keepers are still far too good when one on one – even if a player has a abilities in the low 70s you’d still expect him to score easily when one on one with the keeper, that isn’t the case here. Also, shots from outside the 18 yard box (particularly curling/finesse shots) are far less effective than in FIFA 08 which takes away some spectacular goals.
The pace of the game is also sped up a bit compared to FIFA 08. This isn’t a game breaker but the pace of FIFA 08 was absolutely spot-on so it’s a shame to see EA Sports mess with something they’ve already got right.
The Captain Your Country/Be A Pro mode is neat but there are two problems that hold it back from being truly enjoyable (and being as good as the Fantasista mode in J-League Winning Eleven 2008 Club Championship) – the asinine rating system and the dodgy AI.
As mentioned in the previous section, your performance in international matches in CYC is graded using a rating out of 10 which takes into account things like passing accuracy, tackling, shots, and so on. You start out the match at a rating of 6.1 (as do your 3 ‘rivals’) but then things start getting weird - if you get the ball on the wing, beat two defenders, whip in an amazing cross that’s just missed by the inept CPU-controlled forward, suddenly your rating drops down to a 4! Meanwhile, if you’d have just stood still on the wing you’d still be at 6.1!
You’re almost always punished for trying to take the game by the scruff of the neck…which is something you’ll be trying to do often because this mode definitely showcases some sketchy AI by both your CPU controlled teammates and the opposition.
EA Sports have advertised the fact that the lower-ranked teams play with more men behind the ball and while this is true, something odd happens when teams like Andorra and the Faroe Islands finally get the ball - they start passing it around like Brazil!
I’ve had many matches where I’ve been playing for England and teams like Andorra and Macedonia have had more than 60% of the possession! It’s absolutely insane! It’s also particularly annoying when you’re tied or trailing and really want to get the ball back but somehow Gerrard and Hargreaves aren’t able to tackle a bunch of part-timers! As a result you end up running out of position (thus losing rating points in the process) trying to get the ball yourself. Your rating goes up if you manage to get the ball back but if you don’t your penalized while your ‘rivals’ stand around doing nothing.
The CPU AI also continues to do a poor job with regards to tactics and substitutions. You still see some of those 90th minute triple substitutions and I’m not seeing nearly as much tactical awareness as you see in PES 2008. Also, many of the personnel changes are silly – I’ve seen France chasing the match and sub off Nasri for Makelele (keeping the same formation) and Barry come on to replace Rio Ferdinand at the centre of England’s defense!
Finally, there is also definite paucity of CPU-initiated fouls. I’ve played around 50 games against the CPU and have yet to win a penalty and I’ve gone many games without winning a single free kick! It’s also worth noting that the balance of the game is skewed towards the offensive/attacking side of play. Attackers can spin off the last defender far too easily (unless you’re playing with the heavyweights) and there are lot more shots and scoring opportunities than in FIFA 08. While this does make the matches very exciting, it’s not as sim-like as the previous game.
I know I’ve mentioned a lot of negatives but that’s only because the rest of game is just so damn good and it’s important to note that none of the negatives are game-breakers. This is the most fun I’ve had with a FIFA game and with the improved passing/ball movement I’ve had far more fun playing this than PES 2008. Kudos to EA Sports for making some great changes to the gameplay and hopefully they can address some of the issues for FIFA 09.
Longevity/Replay Value: 75
Since this is a tournament-specific game the replay value doesn’t come close to FIFA 08. That said, the Captain Your Country and Story of Qualifying modes add quite a bit of replay value. Online play is where most sports games get the bulk of their replay value (unless you’re PES 2008 and have an online experience circa 1995) and EURO 2008 is no different. Unfortunately, the almost criminal absence of Online Team Player hurts the experience, so does smaller roster of teams (and the fact that 95% of the idiots on Xbox Live don’t have the imagination to choose a team that’s not France, England or Portugal).
Overall: 85
I really like this game.
While the game met expectations with regards to options and presentation, it definitely exceeded my expectations with regards to gameplay improvements. EA Sports have done what Konami, when they were a competent developer, used to do with their incremental releases – make a host of subtle gameplay changes that, when taken as a whole, provide a superior gameplay experience from the previous game.
Even though the game only features 52 international teams, doesn’t feature Online Team Player, and is at (almost) full retail price, I’d say the improvements in gameplay make EURO 2008 very close to a must-buy.
I can’t wait to see what EA Sports do with FIFA 09.
