Edition #3-Euro 2008 PC Review By Vivek A. Radhakrishnan- BE CE

Euro 2008 is the second football game released in the year 2008 by EA Sports. It is built for both the play station as well as the PC platform and has eluded the eyes of many FIFA fanatics also part of the engineering college due to its release during the examination period.

The mid-year games released by EA, like EURO and FIFA WORLD CUP, generally have something new in store for us in terms of game-play.

The basic structure of EURO ‘08 is more or less similar to FIFA ‘08, the keys are the same with a few added features to the SHIFT key. The player details and graphics are same as in FIFA ‘08 and so are the system requirements.

EURO’s game-play comes with a lot of exciting new features:

·        The goalkeepers are not as sharp as that of FIFA ‘08. A normal lace shot (D) is enough to beat the keeper and you don’t always need the finesse shot (Q+D) or the chip shot (Z+D) to beat them.

·        The game physics is a lot more realistic. Now players do take some time to change directions so all those who hate defending will hate defending in Euro even more.

·        The TRIX Stick (SHIFT + direction keys) can be used for free kicks and penalties. This new feature is awesome and set pieces are a lot more fun now. You can actually curl the ball and “Bend it like Beckham” .

·        The star player feature has been reintroduced. In EURO ‘08, if you are trailing by a goal or more and it’s the last 10 minutes of the game, your star players’ skills increase -They get faster, more accurate and hit more powerful shots- and you can use them to win crucial and tight games.

·        The campaign mode is really long but at the same time fun to play. Campaign matches help you earn points which you can use to improve your players’ attributes and prepare them for the final competition. These points can be earned by scoring goals, slide tackling successfully, performing tricks successfully, scoring by a header, scoring a hat-trick etc. You also lose points for things like fouls and conceding goals. Hence, making the game play more interesting and finally some reward for those who play because of the flair of the game.

·        EURO ‘08 also includes manager reactions in the game which looks really funny. Also the balls used are really colourful and depend on the flag of the home teams’ nation, which is a little funny.

·        Finally, there is a change in commentary and the referee names are also given due attention.

My Rating: 3.5/5

The EURO ‘08 experience is definitely worth a try.