UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 review

EA Sports' FIFA 2005 is a great game. It brought together excellent gameplay dynamics with superb presentation and surprisingly good Xbox Live implementation. The game offered a wealth of game modes and options and is one of the best football games you can buy.

But it does have some rather annoying flaws - one might even call them things that didn't get fixed as the development team ran out of time. After all, EA likes to hit its release dates, you don't often here of delays from this publisher. So there were things missing such as onscreen acknowledgement of substitutions, amongst other annoyances. So one might expect to see this new game as FIFA 2005 1.5 and hope to see some of those issues fixed.

Huzzah

There goes the familiar fanfare of the Champions League, the competition between top European clubs and perhaps the highest accolade for any club manager.

It's clear right away on the first menu that UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 (from henceforth referred to as CL) is no replacement for FIFA. It's not that the game is cut down, just that the focus lies in other areas. We have the Season option, more of which later, and game modes such as Practice, Create a Tournament, Create a Player or Champions League.

Yet while you may think that all you're getting here is FIFA with lots of sections cut out, this is not the case. If you want to play a league season with the 20 English Premiership clubs you can still do so. It's just the teams outside Europe that don't appear here or the more in depth domestic career mode from the last FIFA.

A tough season ahead

Career mode is replaced by something called Season and initially at least it seems a work of genius.

Here you begin your managerial career at your chosen team on the last day of the domestic season, with one match left to win to qualify for the Champions League. You begin by creating the look of the manager, who will be seen fretting upon the sideline in match replays and picture-in-picture asides.

And so the season begins and in an unusual, but not unwelcome move, the gameplay here is mission based. The owner of the club will set targets, such as winning the first game to qualify for the Champions League, or score a certain number of goals. Failure to meet the task means you are fired, but there's the option to replay failed tasks.

So far so good. The presentation in Season mode is the best I've seen or heard in a football game. The newspaper headlines really add to the atmosphere, especially as your name will appear in them. The real stroke of genius though is the radio phone in that runs all the time while you are within the Season menu structure.

Our next caller is…

Here the presenter and former Ireland international Tony Cascarino will discuss football issues together, your team's performance or the next game. They are joined by fans phoning into to talk about diving, player wages, referees and your performance as a manager.

It's like you are entering the world of your very own BBC 606 phone in, with normal guys and girls phoning in to say you should be sacked, or made the wrong tactical choices.

It's amazing stuff, with superb voice acting and very convincing performances from all concerned. Yes you will begin to hear the same things over and over, but as a first attempt I love it. I hope the next generation of FIFA includes this feature and expands on it. And it's a must for future management games.

Full support of the board

However the Season mode is let down by the stupidity of the missions that then unfold. A coach's progress should always be based on results on the pitch, not on some odd abitrary tasks.

I picked the team because I wanted to use those players. Yet the owner in one mission will order you to sell three players then buy replacements. Or you may be told to play in a certain formation.

Now I'm no Harry Redknapp, I'll take a bit of stick from the chairman, but the way the wwner bosses you around isn't convincing - it just doesn't ring true of real football. A mission system would be fine if the tasks were believable, but they're not, and all that atmosphere of real football built up by the phone in, is destroyed by the quality of the missions.

On the pitch

Take to the pitch though and play a quick game, or choose the regular Champions League option and those silly missions are soon forgotten. Just watch an AI player make a dummy shot to ground your keeper then run round him, for example, and you'll be thinking happy thoughts.

CL plays wonderfully, FIFA 2005 may have been good, but this game has been tightened and tweaked in the last few months. It's tougher to score now with the ongoing tactical war shifting slightly in favour of defence. It's noticeably tougher too. Gone are the days when a simple through ball would be all it took to break down a defence.

The ball is easier to lose, the opposing defenders much more intelligent. Running with the ball is much tougher now even on lower difficulties as it's all too easy to have it stolen. But your AI team mates make intelligent passing moves possible with good use of space.

The controls are the same as the last FIFA, so if you are already handy with the right-stick first touch system, then you'll feel right at home here. One noticeably change is the way set pieces play out. Both corner and free kicks have a new system. There's a choice of play followed by more control when you come to kick the ball. It's possible to play short corners now, unlike in FIFA 2005. Free Kicks require a more delicate touch to score.

Slick presentation

If FIFA 2005, with its John Motson/Ali McCoist commentary team, made the game seem like a BBC production, then CL is like a switch to Sky Sports.

The presentation is ultra-slick. The commentary from Clive Tyldesley and Andy Gray is much better than the aforementioned Motson/McCoist team. It seems less forced, more natural and authoritative.

That slickness is there in the visual sense too. The use of replays is very intelligent. In football games past, events tended to be replayed right away. So a saved shot going for a corner, a fowl resulting in a card or goal might be shown immediately and then at half/full time. Here replays of recent events are shown during breaks in play such as throw-ins and it really adds to the atmosphere.

What's more interesting is the intelligence with which these are chosen. You may get to see an offside position given previously when the commentators disagreed. And shots don't have to have been saved and punched out for a corner to be replayed.

At one point I fouled a player and no free kick was given, play carried right on. Both Gray and Tyldesley said it should have been a foul and the ref made a mistake. And at the next throw in, a replay was shown of this event, even though it had not stopped play at the time. Great for multiplayer games and bragging/arguing.

But the presentation, the gorgeous graphics, the replays and the whole visual presentation in spoilt because someone somewhere in EA Sports towers has made one hell of an idiotic decision. No matter whether you play in 16:9 or 4:3 the actual play area is only a small part of the screen.

A tale of woe

In 16:9 mode the play area is a 2.35/1 ratio area - just like watching a Star Wars DVD. In 4:3 mode the play area is 16:9. The score details appear in the black bar at the top of the screen, the player names and fatigue bars appear in the black bars at the bottom.

I have one question. Why? Why take some gorgeous graphics and smooth gameplay from FIFA 2005 and cut off the top and bottom? It's clearly a style rather than technical choice, and it the choice of a real idiot. It does make for dramatic screentshots, but is a waste of TV real estate.

I can cope with the awkward Season mode, but this just takes the biscuit really. What on earth possessed EA? It's rather telling there are no official screenshots showing this, all the screens in this review I grabbed myself. I'm guessing EA Sports knew it was a dumb idea when it was too late to change. And yes, the PC version is just the same.

Final whistle

So it's a game of two halves then isn't it? Super gameplay, stunning presentation and some great new innovations are hampered by one of the Season modes being a bit odd and some halfwit adding black bars to the top and bottom of the screen.

The Xbox Live play is as good as FIFA and as a two-player post-pub game it's even more fun than FIFA thanks to the commentary team and use of replays.

Are the black bars and odd bossy team owner deal breakers? Not for me. The actual quality of the play on pitch, the radio talk show and the return of Andy Gray to EA Sports football mean that I've had (and will continue to have) great fun with CL. The quality of the on-pitch play deserves a high score, I just held back a little with the total because the overall package has been tainted by those odd choices previously mentioned. It's a case of an excellent game, but with a few flaws that hold it back from greatness.