Genre : Sports
Developer : EA Sports
Publisher : EA
Release Date : May 4, 2004

Another reason as to why soccer has yet to win the hearts and minds of America…

I love soccer/football/futbol/footy or whatever you choose to call it. I recall my first real exposure to the game came in college when John Nagle, this Irish kid who moved in down the hall from me halfway through Freshman year, told me about some game called FIFA for Playstation. During spring break I saw FIFA on the rack and figured even if it is soccer it’s only twenty bucks… Thus the door was opened. I picked Arsenal as my team because I thought they had the coolest name, little did I know that I was siding with the veritable Boston Red Sox of the Premiership, but alas with the Gunners I know that I will never walk alone.

Many of you who are avid console gamers are well aware of the veritable pantheon that is EA Sports. From the mighty Madden series to the Illustrious NHL franchise, EA Sports has gone about creating a sports gaming empire akin to Alexander the Great. Perhaps lesser known than NBA Live, MVP Baseball or even Tiger Woods PGA Golf is the long running and fanatic inducing FIFA series. FIFA Soccer comes out every autumn with a new iteration and every four years a World Cup edition is produced. This past year EA has spun off a new version of this soccer behemoth with UEFA Euro Cup. UEFA is better known for the UEFA Tournament of Champions or simply the Champion’s League where the best football clubs of every major European league vie to see who is the best of the best. The Euro Cup is similar in thought only on a national level. To this end, the Euro Cup is only rivaled by the World Cup itself for prestige and thus deserving of its own game.

Fortunately if you own a PS2 or X-Box the glory that is the Euro Cup can be had on a television near you. Unfortunately that same glory is not to be found on a desktop anywhere in this hemisphere. What we have here is a direct port from PS2 to PC of what may be considered a niche sports title. It is a shame really as the PC version of the Euro Cup does very little to live up to the prestige of the real thing.

First things first, this game was built for a lo-res console and on a PS2 or X-Box it may look great but on a high resolution monitor the characters leave much to be desired, especially up close. Sure you can identify who is who by the face maps and each player moves with a lifelike grace but the game simply does not dazzle the eyes. The stadium shots are okay and the crowds are well animated but the whole package does not translate well across a desktop.

The sound is pretty straight forward. You have the vaunted EA Sport Trax sound system with all sorts of “Euro” music to go along with the “Euro” feel of the game. Thankfully the in-game commentary is capable and competent but that certainly doesn’t make for a compelling game.

On the plus side every team that qualified for the Euro Cup 2004 tournament is available with accurate rosters. It is amusing that France is the top ranked team only to be sent packing by the humble Greeks who went on to stun the world and take the cup. You can try and recreate this magic but it will be as tough as it was for the real life teams. This is because play balancing is pretty even. The computer is pretty tough but on default levels you can find gaps and move the ball into space to play some pretty easy through-balls that a capable striker can bury. The harder levels seem to make me feel like the computer is simply cheating. To get a more realistic match you can take your game online and play through EA’s matching servers which makes for good competition if you can find a worthy opponent.

Perhaps my one biggest gripe about this game has to do with controls. At best they felt sluggish. To make matters worse I could not for the life on me find a means to remap the buttons on my Sidewinder gamepad. This drove me nuts as the conversion tables for the hotkeys and the buttons were tough enough to figure out let alone establish each of their use and functionality. Playing this game with only a keyboard makes about as much sense as playing Doom 3 without a mouse. It simply doesn’t work. There are some of you who have mastered this art and undoubtably there are a few more who prefer playing this way but I cannot fathom how it is done let alone fun.

To make matters worse, navigating the game’s front end takes something just shy of telekinesis. In some menus one button does this while in others it does that and I spent more time trying to get a game set up than I did actually playing. Everything time I tried to switch an option I was brought to a “save profile” screen which would end up saving a new profile rather than overwriting the old. By the time I was through the game thought that there were five different people playing this game.

I’m disappointed in EA for this game. The Euro Cup deserves a much better product. I would think that the overall experience would be more positive on a console as this game was clearly intended for that destination, but if you’re going to port something then please do the entire job properly! Otherwise you’re simply wasting someone’s hard earned money. There is simply no reason why buttons cannot be remapped or menus cannot be fully traversable with a mouse click. Controls should be just as tight and responsive as they are on a console pad. The graphics I can forgive but the other matters I cannot. After all, the gameplay is what matters. With a new FIFA game, which will have all the bells, whistles and polish a finished product should have, out in a few months and a much superior soccer game in the form of Konami’s Winning Eleven Soccer already on store shelves, I cannot recommend this game. If you are an avid EA sports game collector then by all means, pick it up. The only other group I can see this game really appealing is the Greek soccer fan who wants to relive the glorious ousting of France over and over again from the comfort of an armchair in front of a desk. For all else concerned, pass on this one.

Score : 6/10