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Brent View Drop Down
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    Posted: 04-14-2008 at 6:08pm

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/866/866261p1.html

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.

IGN UK Ratings for UEFA Euro 2008 (X360)
Rating Description
out of 10
8.5 Presentation
Typically of an EA Sports title, the front-end dazzles.
7.5 Graphics
Odd character models and occasional slowdown blight an otherwise impressive engine.
9.0 Sound
From the bespoke crowd chants to the superlative commentary, EURO 2008 is an aural treat.
8.5 Gameplay
It plays better than any FIFA before it. And it almost trumps PES.
6.0 Lasting Appeal
You can't help but escape the feeling that this game will be redundant in a matter of months.
8.0
Impressive
OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)


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Post Options Post Options   Quote Brent Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-17-2008 at 7:51pm
Eurogamer - 8/10

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=132477



So, if money's no object, or you simply missed out on FIFA 08, by all means pick up Euro 2008. With the added bonus of Captain Your Country, and a host of welcome tweaks and additions, it's a Russian linesman away from being given 9/10, and only the inevitable absence of club teams and other FIFA-level content get in the way. Overall it's a great game now, but it should be an even better one when FIFA 09 comes out.

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Post Options Post Options   Quote GB_Simo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-18-2008 at 8:40pm

Money is an object, and I didn't miss out on FIFA 08, but I forgave myself for going and buying Euro 2008 on release day the instant I started my first Captain Your Country match and heard Clive Tyldesley say, "And here's Simpson..."

Couple of quick observations based around a few games on Professional (3 star) level:
 
- I've noticed no gameplay changes from the demo.  It all feels about the same as that.
- The slowdown and lousy frame rates in cutscenes and replays is gone
- There's some slowdown at corners on PS3
- Even if I can't craft a face that looks like mine on the in-game editor, having a virtual me, with my name on his shirt and my name in commentary, laying on Jermain Defoe's winner during a man of the match performance against Italy is bringing me rather more joy than it perhaps should
- Save for a couple of phrases out of place, the commentary is marvellous
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Post Options Post Options   Quote GB_Simo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-18-2008 at 9:01pm
Ah, a couple of other things while I'm at it.  My Captain Your Country player is a central midfielder, but in the three CYC matches I've got through so far, I haven't once been selected in that position.  I've been on the left of midfield twice and on the right once.  Given that McClaren is England manager in-game, I can at least say they've got his tactics spot-on.
 
CYC is a co-op mode but if you're playing alone, as I am, you select three CPU-controlled players to act as your rivals for the captaincy.  Don't do what I did and pick someone like Defoe thinking that they'll never play - if you pick them as a rival, they'll play.  Do, however, pick at least one full-back as a rival, because it's a very difficult position to score highly in.
 
Story Of Qualifying should add some mileage to the game too, for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, if you like scenarios (I do) you'll find a bundle of them to work through in this mode, with points available for completing the main task and some bonus objectives.  Secondly, it's bloody hard.  I've only tried a few so far, but I had an idea of what to expect when the first available scenario involved scoring twice in 10 minutes as Bulgaria to salvage a draw.  Haven't tried that one yet.  I saw off France as Scotland after a few attempts, and then thought I'd ease myself in with a San Marino vs Germany game.  Germany, already 9-0 up when you take over, are tasked with winning by at least 12 goals and have a quarter of the match to score the required amount.
 
San Marino are not what you'd call a footballing powerhouse*, while the current German outfit is pretty special.  Despite this, it took me 75 minutes of restarts to score the necessary amount of goals, and the game in which I won the round (matching the real final score from that match, 13-0) was the first time I'd scored more than once in the same effort.  San Marino scored more goals through all the restarts than I did.  They were shocking defensively but for some reason, good enough in possession that I could never get the bloody ball off them.  Very strange.

*I know, 1993...the final World Cup qualifier, and England needed to beat San Marino by 7 clear goals and have Poland beat the Dutch to make it to USA 1994.  We didn't make it, because Holland beat Poland and because the start of our match drew this commentary from Jonathan Pearce, covering the match for Capital Radio:

"And they've just kicked off...welcome to Bologna on Capital Gold for England versus San Marino with Tennent's Pilsner, brewed with Czechoslovakian yeast for that extra Pilsner taste, and England are one down!"
 
Davide Gualtieri scored the fastest World Cup goal there's ever been, we won 7-1 and that wasn't going to be enough regardless of what the Dutch did...
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Brent Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-18-2008 at 9:28pm
Sounds good so far, only a month to go for us poor Americans.  Keep us updated.


Also for those of us waiting EA Football World is up now and they did a good job removing all that flash and slow loading issues from the NCAA setup last year.

A lot of videos of games played to keep us busy as we wait.

http://www.eafootballworld.com/en_GB/videos



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Post Options Post Options   Quote GB_Simo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-19-2008 at 9:07pm

A quick note on the scenarios I mentioned earlier: some of them are played under Be A Pro conditions, and give you control of the one man expected to change the outcome of the match.  The one I've tried, as Northern Ireland striker David Healy trying to drag his team to a win from behind against Spain, is good fun and shows off some of the AI improvements, with your teammates now far more adept at spotting your runs.

England drew 0-0 with Macedonia in my first qualifying match on Captain Your Country, so at least that's fairly accurate...*sigh*
 
Tell you what, though - I played this until 5 in the morning, I was that gripped by it.  At about 4.30 I scored my first goal for England, the only goal of another game against Macedonia, and very nearly ran a lap of honour around the house.  I'm not sure that mode would stir quite the same feelings in someone prevented from having a team in Euro 2008 for geographical reasons, but hearing "SIMPSON!" and watching the Wembley Stadium net bulge, then running off for a gamer-controlled celebration in-game, was really something.
 
The only thing I'll say against the game at this point is that it is, at its heart, another FIFA and therefore contains some of the quirks that were present in FIFA 08.  For example, have you ever had a situation where you take a corner that's cleared towards one of your men on the edge of the box, and the game makes that man run away from the ball and refuses to let you switch control to him?  It happened to me a fair bit, and it does still happen every so often here, which seems a bit sloppy.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Brent Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-19-2008 at 10:34pm
Originally posted by GB_Simo

England drew 0-0 with Macedonia in my first qualifying match on Captain Your Country, so at least that's fairly accurate...*sigh*






I don't know why I take such joy in England's humiliation. probably the same feeling the rest of the world had when Team USA started getting their butt kicked in the Olympics at basketball.

Check and see if there is a doughty or dougherty in that list of names getting called. Embarrassed

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Post Options Post Options   Quote GB_Simo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-19-2008 at 10:51pm
If you stop reminding me of what happened to us in November I might.  What gets me about that picture is that it's a big pitch, a big stadium, and so it's not as if Steven Gerrard had to put himself through that, is it?  If he couldn't believe it on the pitch, then he can only begin to imagine how it was to watch at home...
 
The thing with Team USA, though, is that you were genuinely dominant.  England have never been that.  Not even when we actually won the World Cup, at home and helped by the happiness of the scheduling committee to let us play every match at Wembley, did we have any kind of stranglehold on the tournament.  We've been fundamentally rubbish, or at least unsuccessful, since international football began in earnest, so it's not as if our failing to qualify is any real shock to us.  It does, though, seem to have really caught out the players and the media, because they both really seemed to believe that we were still going to win Euro 2008 even when we looked certainties to not even make it there...
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Post Options Post Options   Quote GB_Simo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-19-2008 at 11:40pm
Originally posted by Brent

Check and see if there is a doughty or dougherty in that list of names getting called. Embarrassed


Sorry, mate - Downing is the closest match I can see. Not very close but there aren't many options beginning ‘Do’.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Brent Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-19-2008 at 11:47pm
Dang, I think WE used to have a Dougherty.  Thanks for checking for me.  If you can do me one more solid I would appreciate it and never mention what happened last year again.

Could you check out this thread and give me some recommendations for some good movies that have come out of the UK. Also some TV comedies from the UK.  Trying to broaden my horizons. Wink


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