It seems that nothing is sacred in gaming these days. I’m sure that by now at least one of your all-time favourite games has been defiled by a horrendous remake, recently the biggest culprit having been Sega. Sonic and Mario together for the first time, and it’s in something as trivial as a multi-event sports game?
For me, the one tradition that I thought would never come to an end was the annual ‘second place’ achievement reserved for whatever football title EA happen to pump out that particular year. For years Shingo "Seabass" Takatsuka, producer of the legendary ISS/PES footie games seemed untouchable: Not only did PES look and play better than its main rival, it actually felt real, something which its rivals failed to emulate. Instead of Fifa’s glamorous overhead kicks and 10-9 scorelines, PES’ matches ranged from tense, scrappy affairs to the illustrious heights of ‘total soccer’ (and for the record that’s the last time I’ll be using that word in this review).
Only the blindest of PES fanboys (and I would have considered myself one of those a few years ago) could deny that Konami’s series has been in decline for several years now. Indistinguishable annual updates that often break key gameplay elements have finally seen the likes of PES2008 getting something of a panning in the reviews, with reviewers like me keenly monitoring EA’s efforts in the hope that they’ll be able to shock Konami into upping their game, in the same way they’ve taken on the Tony Hawk franchise so successfully with SKATE.
The footnote to this history lesson is that EA have succeeded, and surprisingly they’ve not achieved that by simply out-PESing their rival. You see, the core gameplay of EA’s latest offering is no longer the standard team format that this reviewer at least is bored to tears of. Instead, Euro 2008 has built on Fifa 08’s ‘Be a Pro’ option, fleshing it out to near Kirsty Ally proportions with an all new ‘Captain Your Country’ mode.
The focus here is on playing as just one player (as either an existing pro or as yourself, thanks to the reasonably flexible creation options) and starting out as a B-international. So setting myself up as an attacking midfielder in the England team (taking Frank Lampard’s role but without the epic amounts of fail) I found myself trying to get noticed in a reserve friendly match. The only problem being that the game also has you setting up three AI players - also controllable by other human players - in the team who are trying to outplay you as well.
Your match rating is now visible throughout the match and updates instantly depending on your action. Whilst every successful pass, dribble, tackle and shot is rewarded, you’ll also be punished every time you mess up. So suddenly taking on an entire team becomes a hell of a lot riskier if you know that getting dispossessed will scupper your stats, and in turn possibly cost you a place in the first team.
