You remember a few months ago in September when 07 came out? Did you rush out and buy it only to get it home and despair at how you couldn't accurately re-create the wonders of the official Champions League experience within its otherwise impressive interior? If you did then those nice kind people at have created this new one just for you. If however you were more than happy with FIFA 07, have serious reservations about a world where it's possible to release almost the same game every six months just by swapping the licence on the box between FIFA, Champions League, World Cup and European Championships depending on the year and tend to worry about the potential limitations of a spin-off game apparently devoted to one single tournament then you may be wondering what else is under the bonnet to prise the cash from your wallet. The question on everyone's lips is can this really be any more than a cynical re-branding of the most recent FIFA game with a new licence slapped on the front and some of the non Champions League'y bits taken out?

The answer, as is so often the case, is a mixture of yes and no. Once on the pitch there is an unmistakable air of FIFA 07 about things, and there has indeed been some content removal to fit in with the licence (no lower leagues, no non European or international teams for a start). However the rest of the package has had far more added than you'd initially expect. Uppermost among the new ideas is the Treble mode. On the face of it this new mode looks like a simple attempt to lengthen the potentially fairly short Champions League experience somewhat. The aim is to take your chosen team and try to guide them to the elusive treble of domestic league and cup titles as well as the full on Champions League all in one season. However, rather than simply being a way of adding more games to the fixture list, the really rather nifty part is how the game gives the whole season a sense of drama with the addition of a continual stream of objectives. From the simple need to win a game or rest a certain player to the more pressurised snatching at least a draw from the jaws of defeat or ensuring that a particular striker grabs a hat trick in the next game the objectives keep things interesting and stop boredom and repetition setting in over a long season. Passing these objectives will unlock bonuses like new balls and kits but more importantly, along with the constantly updated in-game blog that charts your season's progress, helps add a sense of drama and narrative to things. It's not all good though, for all the variety it offers it does at times feel a little contrived, as if things have been taken out of your control a tad. Being asked to rescue your team from a defeat with a fair chunk of the game already played may well be exciting on the one hand, but on the other it's plain annoying to think the computer let you go behind in the first place when you're confident that left to play the whole game on your own such a defeat would never have been on the cards in the first place. The forced transfer objectives are little weird too, quite why you should be forced to sell a favourite player and replace them with someone else is anyone's guess and could quite happily have been left out.

Away from the hunt for the treble the classic Champions League matches offer the chance to jump into memorable situations from the competition's history giving you a chance to either live up to or rewrite history. It's such a simple idea and yet with real world scenarios like Manchester United's last minute heroics in the 1999 final to play through its one that offers a serious amount of fun with the added drama of knowing how it played out for real helping to ratchet up the emotions. Of course this being an official Champions League game you can dispense with all the padding and just play the main tournament from beginning to end as God intended although it's both a testament to the new Treble and classic match modes and a criticism of basing a game on a single tournament that this standard Champions League mode is probably the least interesting way to play the game despite it being the licence the entire game is pinned on.

Online and offline is also catered for, the well thought out Lounge mode from the FIFA series returns here allowing up to seven players to battle it out on the same console with full results history and statistics being kept for prosperity with unlockable power ups available to add some spice to the mix. It's a fantastic idea and one that helpfully removes the need for pen and paper to keep track of those late night party session results. Take the game however and things aren't quite so well implemented. You're able to partake in one off single games as well as four or eight player tournaments as is to be expected but there's regularly a niggly amount of lag and the whole experience is often disrupted by dropped games either through a weakness with EA's servers or sulky gamers not enjoying imminent defeat. Proof once more that online never really worked despite the best intentions.

When it comes to the on pitch anyone who's spent time with FIFA 07 will instantly see the similarities and it would be entirely fair to say this is more of a tweak than a full overhaul to that game's proven engine. One thing of note is the speed the game plays at, it's a much nippier game than anyone used to playing on 07's easier levels will be expecting but otherwise not much has changed. The addition of "Quick Controls" sound good in theory, enabling you to take a quick free kick or throw in to catch the opposition off guard, but it never really works in practice as well as it should not only because it's simply never that much quicker but also because the opposition have a knack of managing to always appear back in position however fast you restart play.

Graphically it's a bit of a mixed bag; it's a PS2 game so one shouldn't expect any next generation wonders but even so things do sometimes look a bit too low resolution even for Sony's last gen platform. For the most part though it's more of the same in the looks department with not much changed since FIFA 07. A proper widescreen option is a nice thought but noticeably affects the frame rate which naturally puts you off a bit. The addition of minor but pleasing touches like players wearing gloves in cold conditions as well as all the official pomp and majesty EA could cram in to warrant the official licences of Europe's greatest club tournament means that the whole package comes across with that reassuring sense of quality that EA do so well.

The FIFA v Pro Evo argument will continue to rage but there's no denying that FIFA 07 finally put the two series on a similar level. UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 carries that position over with an if it aint broke don't fix it mentality that means if it didn't drag you away from Pro Evo six months ago then it's unlikely to in this new guise either. The game's main selling point, despite the licence on the front, is the new Treble mode with its unique objective based gameplay, rather than the actual Champions League tournament itself, so how much that kind of structure appeals or not should ultimately influence your purchasing decision. It's a hard market out there for football games and however you feel about EA's decision to release yet another football game at least this time they're offering something original for our money and that alone deserves rewarding.

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By Paul Newcombe

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  1. clare Unregistered 2 years ago

    will uefa 06/07 play on the ps3?

  2. ezzo Unregistered 1 year ago

    i will playing