Changes abound
Player movement has undoubtedly improved. As well as being slightly faster, turning with the ball feels less clumsy and more realistic. The result is that you seem to be able to create more space in midfield and have more time on the ball to pass to a team-mate.AI defending seems to have been cranked up a notch and it now requires a little more work to take the ball past defenders. In FIFA 08 I'd often run from kick off, weaving in and out of defenders and getting a shot on target with little effort. Now, you need to work around the defence, time your one-twos and work at opening a space.
A major improvement is that you no longer feel ‘locked’ in a position when you go up to head the ball and you can now jostle and get in front or behind your man when the ball is in the air in order to get a solid contact. Ultimately, this means there’s more timing and skill involved in heading that perfect pass or getting a shot on target.
There has been a small change to the goalkeepers as well. In FIFA 08 one of the things that annoys me is that the goalkeeper sometimes doesn’t release the ball quickly enough when he kicks it and you have to wait a few a seconds giving the defenders the chance to shuffle back into position. In UEFA EURO 2008 you can kick the ball up-field almost as soon as you pick it up. If you’re quick enough and you catch the defence scrambling back you can create yourself a gilt-edged opportunity up front.
You’ll also notice that players have stars above their heads: bronze, silver and gold. This refers to their rating in the game and these stars can change throughout the match. Basically, this lets you to see who the opposition’s star players are (the ones who are causing the most damage), so you could use the system to change your tactics accordingly to mark a decent player. I’m not sure how much people will take notice of the stars, I tended to forget they were even there, but nevertheless it’s a neat addition that may come in handy during an important match.
One change that I’m not totally convinced with is the corners. Although defending from corners offers you the same angle as FIFA, when you actually take a corner the camera seems further away and therefore it’s more difficult to spot runs in the box. I’ve played dozens of matches on EURO 2008 already, yet I still haven't scored from a corner, but I have scored from plenty of wide crosses.
In FIFA 08, I’d regularly cause a near miss, score a goal or make the goal keeper pull of a save, but something has changed here that I can't quite put my finger on. The new camera angle certainly doesn't help, but even if you change the view from the menu, it still doesn’t seem to make scoring any easier. There does seem to be slightly less movement in the box than in FIFA, but it could just be that EA has upped the difficulty by giving defenders a slight edge. Alternatively, it could just be that the new heading mechanic is going to take a little bit of getting used to. The change could be seen as good or bad thing. In one respect it makes corners more difficult to score from then FIFA did, and let’s face it, we all score a fair few goals and concede them in FIFA 08, but perhaps this way corners actually feel more realistic.
