Considering the last soccer video game I played was Pelé’s Soccer on Atari 2600, I’m probably pretty easy to impress. “Awesome!” I couldn’t help shouting after I put the game in. “The players have legs now!” So I’m probably not the target market, but neither are you, most likely. In the U.S., where we hear things like, ”I meant real football, like with a helmet,” a Union of European Football Associations game is a niche item for sure. American soccer nuts have a similar title, FIFA Soccer, but EA’s double-dip into the nonhelmet-football market is more than a quick cash-grab. Not only do we get pretty, pretty graphics, but the gameplay is so deep and complicated that trying to describe it would no doubt make me sound like an uncultured dumbass. (“You know that thing where they kinda flip over and kick the ball in the air? You can so totally do that!”) Mastering the controls isn’t easy unless you’re already familiar with their mostly identical FIFA counterparts, especially since there’s no playable tutorial included. Besides the quick-match option, you get several involved league-play options. You can choose either a typical franchise mode, or an “Ultimate” mode that allows you to build a dynasty with trading cards, sort of like Pokémon with rioting. There’s also a mode allowing you to replay famous UEFA matches, but the less I try to discuss this the better. As far as I’m concerned, it might as well let you re-create famous battles from the Peloponesian War, but for true fans, the possibility of managing the 1974 Bayern Munich squad is probably shorts-soaking exciting.
This article appears in April 20 • 2007.