 |
Publisher Electronic Arts
Developer
Released: April 24, 2012
|
Supported Features:
|
Review Scores: (?) 5 - Gameplay 10 - Graphics 8 - Sound 3 - Value FINAL SCORE:
|
|
|
UEFA EURO 2012 News flash: EA finally figured out how to leverage the DLC value of their sports games! This has been talked about for several years – it just doesn’t make financial sense for EA to crank out yearly refreshes for Madden, NHL, NBA, and FIFA; especially late in the lifecycle for a console when they’ve pretty much pushed the limit for graphical improvements. All those league and team licenses cost big bucks. For years, EA has used a pretty steady cycle of soccer game releases with disc based FIFA Soccer, FIFA Street, FIFA World Cup and UEFA Champions League. But they finally figured out that people were not so thrilled paying $60 for a full disc based game several times a year. The fact is they can probably make a lot more money releasing DLC’s of various tournaments and game types. DLC’s mean no disc production costs and no middleman like Wal-Mart taking a large chunk of each sale. I have to wonder; what took them so long to figure this out?
Once you download the DLC from Xbox Live or PlayStation Network, the DLC alters your FIFA 12 menus to include UEFA Euro 2012. You are then treated to some new animations, stadiums and commentary featuring the Poland/Ukraine hosted tournament. The menus are: Kick-off (immediate single game), Expedition (you build a custom team and take on UEFA teams), UEFA Euro 2012 tournament, Challenges (game scenarios where you try to duplicate or reverse classic games), my profiles, my settings, and Xbox Live. The teams available in UEFA Euro 2012 include Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, FYR Macedonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and Wales. It didn’t take me too long to realize that I was so used to FIFA having all the licensed teams and players that it took me a few minutes to realize something was wrong. Of the 53 European countries, only 29 have authentic players, teams and uniforms. One of the messed up teams is Ukraine – also known as THE CO-HOST OF EURO 2012! UEFA Euro 2012 tournament mode is where most people will probably want to play. It’s also one area that EA botched. I would like to tell you what it’s like to win the UEFA Euro tournament, but I can’t because the game locks up after the second game of the group stage. I’ve tried to resolve this issue but EA is “looking into it”. If this were a $60 disc based game there would be heads rolling at EA Sports Canada. UEFA Euro 2012 costs 1,800 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live and $19.99 on The PlayStation Store. It is certainly on the high side for DLC’s and given the bugs I would certainly be upset paying that much. A lot of people are complaining that there is no qualifying tournament (you just jump straight into the tournament). It certainly would not have been too difficult to include the qualifying tournament in this DLC, and I can’t imagine why EA choose not to include it. UEFA Euro 2012 has the appearance of being a very halfhearted effort from EA. The bugs are numerous, and nearly half the included teams are not accurate. While I applaud the idea of DLC updates over disc based entire games, EA’s execution of this strategy leaves a lot to be desired. Like wishing I could get my money back. Screenshots 
|
Genre: Sports
UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) is the largest of six soccer confederations under the realm of FIFA (the world soccer governing organization that makes official soccer rules and runs the World Cup tournaments). The USA is part of the CONCACAF confederation on this continent. UEFA is the strongest of the six confederations with most of the worlds’ top players and 15 of the top 20 national teams. UEFA Euro is a competition of national teams taking place every four years (there also is a UEFA Champions League for clubs). The winner of UEFA Euro goes to the 8 team Confederations Cup in Brazil next year. It’s no coincidence that the World Cup is in Brazil too.
