UEFA EURO 2008

Is there anything finer than a few mates, a few beers, and a football game on the go? It used to be a preserve of the consoles, but with the relative cheapness of controllers now and the ability to use your Xbox pad, PCs have a say in what goes on. UEFA Euro 08 hits our hard drives after a series of increasingly decent games in the football genre, with FIFA threatening to break the back of Pro Evo in its latest release, and now another in the same vein that edges them that little bit closer to stealing the crown. UEFA 08 is, unsurprisingly, the official game of the tournament, and it’s surprisingly good fun for a game of such a rank.

From sliding the disc into your drive it should take you roughly ten minutes to install, set up your profile, and get into a match, and instantly the graphical boost that the game has received is noticeable. The pitch is detailed, lighting is superb and from a distance it can seem at times as if you’re watching a match on the television. The crowds are still cardboard cut outs up-close, but, in all honesty, you’re not going to be looking at who’s cheering when Rooney slams one into the top-left corner. Controls are fluid and easily adjustable, while the normal functions of pass, cross, shoot and through ball are all present and correct, making it easier to immerse yourself more readily in the spirit of the game, which is very much worth doing so. In as much as technical points are important to your overall experience, it is the actual experience that you’re playing the thing for in the first place, and it’s a very, very fun game to play. Difficulty can be adjusted between three modes depending on your experience, but even complete novices shouldn’t have any problems putting the ball in the back of the net. EA has given the game various tweaks that experienced players will notice, such as a more competitive challenge system and an upgrade for passing and crosses. The powerbars for kicks is a little more balanced as well, so it’s not an uphill struggle to get it on target rather than sailing off into the north stand.

However, the game does have a few issues. There are moments when the frame rate slows down for no discernable reason, even on lower resolutions and graphical detail. Likewise, while the graphics are quite impressive at a distance, once you get up-close for the clips and cut-scenes they have less of an impact. Player models are lifeless and somewhat polygonal, while our rendered version of Malcolm McLaren (we assume Fabio Capello will be in the next patch) looked permanently unhappy, perhaps fittingly. That being said, the collisions worked well and there wasn’t much bleed between objects in tackles and contact moments. As we mentioned before, it shouldn’t be too hard for beginners to rack up a 4-2 win, but we found that even on the harder difficulties the matches ended on a bit too high a score for our liking. It’s great from an entertainment perspective, but if you wanted a little more realism than average then you may be slightly disappointed.

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