Captain your country with pride
You could of course play EURO 2008 like you do every other football title and put the ‘Battle of the Nations’ to the back of your mind. If you do decide to concentrate on the bigger picture however, you will not only help to push your nation to glory, but there’s also another reward for your efforts, which may delight those skilled gamers who don't often get rewarded for their efforts. Now, this message flashed up on screen very briefly, but I believe that the top 250 players each day will receive a virtual trophy, which can then be displayed in the trophy cabinet; a nice idea.‘Battle of the Nations’ could be brilliant, but I’m not going to lie and say it definitely will be, because at this moment I have no idea how things are going to pan out or whether the system in place is rigid enough to prevent point-boosting; all I can tell you that it has made me think intently before simply choosing England time and time again in each of my matches. Instead, I’ve experimented with the weaker teams such as Kazakhstan, Armenia and Scotland (had to get that one in), in order maximize my point tally. If the ‘Battle of the Nations’ system encourages people to experiment, like I have, it will broaden the game experience, and ultimately make online matches more varied.
Though I can’t be confident in predicting the reaction to ‘Battle of the Nations’ I can be extremely confident in predicting how people will react when they play the new ‘Captain Your Country’ game mode. In word one it’s, brilliant.
When you enter the mode, you have the option to create a player or choose one from the team you decide to play as. You play this mode with one player - you don’t control anyone else on the pitch - so you need to choose a position on the field, be it defender, a midfield Lothario, or a forward. There are some decent, fairly in-depth customisation options, such as hair length, height, skin colour, the option to sport designer stubble or wear gloves to keep your ‘pinkies’ warm.
You then need to choose three other positions on the pitch, which are filled with either AI or, if you wish, human-controlled players. As well as trying to beat the teams that you’ll be playing against, each of these fours players is also playing for the captain’s armband for the next match. In total there are 8 levels, or 8 matches, that you work your way through from a ‘B’ International right through to the UEFA EURO 2008 final.
In each match there is a real-time rating system displayed on four boards at the bottom of the screen, showing the ratings (1-10) of the four main players in the team. These ratings change throughout the match depending on how well or badly you play (passing, dribbling, tackling, shooting, scoring etc).
The result is that ‘Captain Your Country’ mode adds a whole new dimension to the game-play, because not only do you want your team to win, but you also want to be the best out of those four players. The reward for gaining captaincy is that you are then allowed to change team tactics, formations and make substitutes, giving you more control over the result and performance, which often proves extremely crucial later on in the tournament. It works brilliantly and spurs you on to perform to the best of your ability, for example, when there was 10 minutes to go and I only had a rating of 6.4, yet Sean Wright-Phillips had a rating of 7.9, I battled much harder for the last few minutes, going into tackles hard, making sure that every one of my passes counted and ensuring that I got forward frequently to get myself into a goal-scoring or assisting opportunity.
The game mode just wouldn’t work if the action on the pitch didn’t flow as well as it does, but thankfully the AI is exceptional and more than adept at spotting your runs into space and executing a pin-point through pass.