Uefa Euro 2008 Demo is out!!!
The demo is out on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Check Xbox Live Marketplace for 360, Playstation Store for PS3 and I will give you some links for the PC:
Uefa Euro 2008 demo release tomorrow (27)!!!!!
A corrupt demo was released yesterday, typically EA SPORTS. A new demo will be available tomorrow for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC 
The teams in the demo will be England and Germany.
Uefa Euro: Offline hands-on impressions (NG)
Expect emotion and select your team …. The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, will take place in Austria and Switzerland, from 7 June to 29 June 2008. Pick up the official game prior to the actual championships you can play the main event in your living room in April.
Essentially based on FIFA 08 (build on the same engine) features some new ideas. Amongst the graphics changes include; dynamic weather effects (rain/mud/wet hair), the 7 official Euro 2008 stadiums, improved generic stadiums, team managers and of course the new version of the Henri Delaunay Trophy is included when you take home the trophy!
All the new kits are in the game but unfortunately not all of the the teams will be licenced (Netherlands, Wales, Faroe Islands, Iceland are all missing in action). Overall the game looks good (animations and player models) and with the confetti it does catch the atmosphere we all hope for when the real things kicks off in June. Of course all the 8 official stadiums are in the game.
New stuff
You can add spin to the ball on corner kicks. Press the left stick back to add backspin on forward for topspin. The corner kicks are improved and works well in the game. You can also add curl to your free kicks. Penalty kicks are a slightly different … not by much; but the angle is new. In FIFA 08 it was impossible to save the shots, in Euro 08 it it possible. Throw ins and kickoff remain the same. You can also control your goal celebrations. Watching Ballack doing the robot dance is quite frightning!
It´s in the game
All the standard modes are in the game; play now and the main event. The tournament mode is much like manager mode in FIFA 08. The players need to play well in order to keep it´s form before the start of Euro 2008! Your squad counts 40 players but needs to be trimmed down to 23 before your country heads over to Switzerland/Austria. Captain your country is a fantastic addition and works really well. In this mode you can recreate yourself, and line up for your country. If you don´t play well you will get cut from the qualification games … Had tons of fun playing this mode and after playing loads of games as an attacking winger I finally got to captain my country in a friendly game. The last offline mode is Story of Qualifying, where the player replays certain games during the Euro Qualification. Win the various missions to unlock shoes, balls and other Euro stash.
Overall Euro offline is a excellent game and more balanced than FIFA 08. This is not version 2.0 with national teams; but a whole new game with some nice rewards. If you are not connected to Xbox Live or Playstation Nation, the game will keep you busy until the start of Euro 2008 and maybe even until the release FIFA 09!
The Good
Captures all the magic
Captain yourself for your Country
Tighter defense
Dynamic weather and ratings
Set pieces
Blame Steve McClaren if you don´t qualify with Three Lions
The Bad
Missing countries
Goalie throws
It rains almost every game during the qualification
Goalies making a mess with the help of the defense
Interactive celebrations
Steve McClaren is still in the game
Euro blog: User Controlled Celebrations
For Euro we set out with the goal of innovating wherever possible to really try and capture the excitement and passion that the UEFA Euro tournament generates. For a long time now sports games have taken a similar approach to the post goal celebrations; The gamer scores and then an animated sequence is shown of the player and teammates celebrating. This has been fine up until now but we thought it really didn’t capture the passion of the moment and did not allow a Gamer to celebrate the goal the way they wanted to so that’s where the Gamer Controlled Celebration concept came in.
When watching football you often see many different celebrations after a goal has been scored depending on the individual and the importance of the goal. Peter Crouch will forever be associated with the Robot which you can now perform in our game but in reality he only did it a couple of times. We wanted to bring some of that freedom and spontaneity to the game and give gamers an opportunity to really celebrate a goal in style and with an individual flourish. We also wanted to add another level to multiplayer & online games by giving gamers the opportunity to really rub it in after scoring a goal . There is nothing quite like scoring a last minute winner and then running the length of the field doing the airplane and finishing with a double somersault.
We gathered reference of all the various celebrations from real life footage and from that chose the ones we wanted to get. We wanted to capture a full spectrum of celebrations ranging from simple ones e.g. the one arm point that Shearer made famous to the more spectacular ones like the forward somersaults that players like Nani and Klose do.
Once we had the list of moves we added them into the motion capture shoot schedule. Motion capture (Mocap) is the process where we have real players come into the studio and dress them in special motion capture suits that capture their movements and turns that motion into animation data. The Mocap shoot incorporates all facets of the game from gameplay moves to celebration sequences but this was the first time we had specifically done gamer controlled celebrations. In order to capture the moves correctly we had to set up a special motion capture volume that was longer than normal which allowed the players enough space to make a run and perform the sequences. The motion capture session was a lot of fun as the players (we had 6 in total) had varying abilities in performing the more acrobatic of moves so to see the players try and replicate some of the moves like a cartwheel or the Robbie Keane forward roll sequence was amusing to say the least.
Once the mocap session was complete we analysed the data and the animators started to trim the sequences into cycles that would allow gamers to blend between different celebrations. The moves we captured were separated into two distinct categories ‘Running celebrations’ and ‘Finishing moves’. The running celebrations can be performed while moving the player around the field and using the right stick or face buttons to trigger the animation. These range in diversity from the ‘airplane’, to ‘blowing kisses’ and the fingers to the lips ‘Shhhhh’ motion often seen when teams score away from home. We captured 14 of these in total and you can blend from one to the other to create your own unique celebration.
The other category that makes up the gamer controlled celebration feature is the finishing move and these were the most fun to implement. These are the moves that are performed to end the celebration. We captured 26 of these and gamers can perform them by holding down one of the bumper or trigger buttons and using the right stick or face buttons. These range from stomach slides, knee slides, forward rolls, the robot, a samba dance or even a number of variations of forward somersaults.
We wanted to balance the controls to ensure that some of the more simple celebrations were easy to trigger whereas some of the more advanced were a little more complex. This gives the gamers an opportunity to show off by triggering the more complex moves while still allowing the more novice gamers the ability to celebrate. Some of the advanced acrobatics involve not only triggering the sequence but also ensuring its landed properly. If you don’t press the correct button to land a somersault at the right time you end up falling flat on your face which can be a little embarrassing to say the least. In most instances we tried to make the controls intuitive and relate to, or mimic the motion being performed e.g. rotating the right stick continually clockwise will make the player rotate his arm likewise and perform the ‘windmill’ celebration. Similarly holding the trigger button and rotating the right stick will make the player perform a cartwheel.
Because there are so many moves available to the gamer there are a lot of controls involved. What we have found is that gamers tend to find their signature move and then start to experiment with some of the others in the game. The Gamer celebrations also adds another dimension to CO-OP play which is a big focus because of our Captain Your Country mode. In CO-OP team play all the gamers can perform the running celebrations so it’s pretty amusing to see four of you running down the field all doing different celebrations.
We’ve had some great early feedback on the feature and gamers seem to really enjoy the freedom of being able to celebrate in their own unique way. We hope you enjoy the gamer controlled celebration feature as it really adds another element to the game and was a lot of fun to create.
Euro blog: Rain, Mud, New Stadia & Managers
So as Gary described in part one of the blog, the gameplay is certainly very different to FIFA 08. Most people in the office now much prefer playing Euro, as the faster pace leads to a more exciting end to end game. Goals are easier to score than they were in FIFA 08 too, although I’ve had my share of 0-0s in addition to plenty of 3-2 thrillers.
However one of my favourite changes that affects gameplay isn’t really a gameplay feature. It’s rain. Yes, at last we’ve been able to add rain to the gameplay engine and it can lead to some classic matches.
You see it’s not just a cosmetic implementation; the rain can have a large effect on how the ball reacts to the pitch, and how controlling the players feels. When the pitch is loaded before the match it has a map of different underfoot conditions applied to it. These areas can be normal, wet, sodden or puddle. As the ball moves around the pitch its bounce and speed is affected according to the area it moves through. So sometimes a pass will hit the sodden area and slow right down before it gets to the intended receiver. Other times the ball might skid off the surface more than it would on a dry pitch.
There are different levels of rain, and different rain maps for the pitch. Sometimes it’s only a light drizzle and the pitch is hardly affected. Other times it can be a downpour and the pitch can have significant areas of mud or sodden ground that can swiftly stop the ball, plus there are multiple splashes from the ball and the player’s interaction with the pitch.
Personally I love the matches in the mud best of all, for some reason it suits my game.. I seem to be better than most at using the slide tackle well, and so the extra length you get in the wet makes that ability even more of an advantage. Plus of course the fact I am not so good at performing skill moves is now less of an issue when the ground is covered in puddles. I get disappointed when I have to play a match on a dry hard pitch, that’s a set of conditions I never seem to win on.
Once in the wet I even had the misfortune of a goal bound shot come to a halt before it crossed the line, allowing a defender to get back to clear the ball. That was a moment of extreme frustration, but also amazement that the feature could work to such a cool level of detail.
Euro is the perfect game to introduce rain. We wanted to be able to contrast the dark, cold, wet winter matches in qualifying with the beautiful warm summer evenings of the finals. So to that end last June we went on a fact finding trip to some Euro qualifiers. We started off in the Faroe Islands to see them host Italy in probably their biggest match ever. Our time there was amazing, at that time of year it doesn’t get fully dark and it was reasonably warm. That is until the hour before the match. The heavens opened, the temperature dropped and the match was played out in the pouring rain with us freezing in the uncovered stand. Then we went off to Germany and took in a friendly between Turkey & Brazil which led to a whistling crowd audio feature I’ll describe at a later date. Finally we headed to Croatia to see and hear the renowned Croat fans in an Eastern European clash against Russia. From this trip we gathered a lot of reference material which enabled us to produce some very varied environments to play matches in.
In terms of which stadia we have in the game, we wanted a very different approach to what you see in FIFA. Of course with the tournament being in Austria & Switzerland, that meant we had 8 new stadia to build. These stadia are not that well know at the moment, so that’s a lot of fresh new content for the gamers. Then for the qualifying campaign we don’t need a lot of the grounds that feature in FIFA as each country only really needs one stadium for their home games, so instead we used our resource to create stadia and backdrops that reflect the incredible variety that is present in the 50 nations that entered Euro. So when you play away in the Faroes, you will get the small stadium with the rolling hills in the background. When you go to Eastern Europe, it may well be in an old concrete bowl style stadium, or perhaps a more quaint ground with the historic buildings of the Old Town in the background. With each ground having the sunny, dry, overcast and rainy looks it feels as if there are so many things to see each time you play.
Finally to support the national team feel of the competition we made sure that we added the team managers where our licenses would allow. Whenever you watch a Euro or a World Cup game, there are always plenty of shots of the coach gesturing to the team from the technical area, so we wanted to have some of these guys featuring heavily in the game. So if you want to see the likes of Joachim Löw, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Raymond Domenech, Luis Aragonés & Roberto Donadoni then Euro is the game for you. As for managers who have since departed, such as McLeish & McClaren, you’ll have to wait to see if they make an appearance or not…
New Fifa Street 3 themes!
Two new theme packs can be downloaded from Xbox Live. The themes include the arenas from the game. Each pack cost 150 Microsoft Points (MP)
UEFA EURO 2008 Blog
When we first sat down to talk about what it was we wanted to achieve on UEFA Euro 2008 it was clear that we wanted our focus to be on quality and emotion. Quality in that we wanted to continue to enhance the football engine that we had been developing for the previous 3 years, and emotion in that we wanted to capture the feeling and passion of the Euro tournament. In addition to this we wanted to create a gameplay feeling that was clearly different to what had already been released on Xbox 360 & PS3.
Check out the rest here: http://blogs.ign.com/EA_UEFA/2008/02/29/82287/
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