UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 is a cross-platform soccer sports game for the PSP, PS2, and Xbox 360. This review covers the PSP version, which is graphically a stripped down version of the others. It focuses on the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations, one of the biggest members of FIFA) tournament, which is the massive championship league in the Europe region. Nations residing in Europe, as well as a few on the borders of Europe/Asia and Europe/Africa are playable in this competition for the UEFA cup.

For an overall game, "UEFA" offers addictive soccer game play. EA Sports does a fine job putting the controls together with only a couple limitations in game play. The controls are fairly intuitive to grasp the basics. However, it will take some time to fully understand the advance techniques of ball handling, passing, shooting, instructing NPCs, etc. But once the controls are mastered, the game gets really fun, although it could have been better. The soccer play feels real (at least as much to an extent a video game can be real, of course). The bottom line is that UEFA offers a solid soccer experience for on-the-go-gaming.

The game features several modes, both single- and multi-player. The primary mode is "The Treble", which is a challenge-driven story/career mode. It is strong as a story mode, but weak as a career mode. Sadly, the game does not feature a true career mode that leaves you feeling like you are actually managing a sports team. (One of the things I think EA has done very well with their recent sports games is career mode.) Instead, UEFA offers a decent story/career mode, tournament game play, quick play, and a few other options.

In "The Treble", players will pick a team, create the team manager, play through one challenge after the other, and respond to the chairman's demands. This aspect provides a challenge beyond the in-game competition. For instance, as your team progresses through the various qualifying stages, issues like poor team dynamics, raising the bar (making games more exciting for the fans), and owners wanting certain players on the field (despite the fact they suck) will occur and be something that must be dealt with. In one respect, these challenges make the game that much more interesting. Imagine, being thrown into a game, down by two with 15 minutes on the clock. And to pass the challenge, you need to avoid defeat. Or one of your top players refuses to go on the field, you are forced to play with out him, and eventually trade him to an opposing team.

The career mode is full of this caliber of challenges, which really do test your skills, but at the same time test your frustration levels--who wants to give away their best player? I surely didn't, but it is not like the game gives much of a choice! Personally, I liked the challenges and thought it was a fun way to test my skills. But also serving as the game's "career mode", it was not the kind of control I would expect. The career management is forced, because you have to do certain things to pass challenges and it doesn't feel like leading a team towards the championship as much as jumping through hoops. "UEFA" would have been better off with two separate modes, "The Treble" as the story mode and a separate career mode that allowed more player control of the team, trading, and events.

However, while I have stated the game needed a career mode, UEFA offers playable tournament version without challenges, "UEFA Champions League Tournament", a career mode-light, if you will. This mode is basically a series of games that lead to the cup. It is not nearly as advanced as "The Treble" mode in that you cannot buy/sell players, create a custom character to be the manager, and so on. It feels more like a play now feature.

Other features of the game include a "History Book", which keeps track of objectives and a point system to unlock specials (e.g., game balls, fields, and an UEFA video), "The Quiz", which is an interactive quiz that tests your skills of the game, Ad-hoc and infrastructure wireless head-to-head game play, PS2-to-PSP connectivity, which allows "The Treble" game saves to be exchanged between PSP and PS2, and "Ultimate Challenge Mode", which allows players to replay historical and key events in UEFA history--replay them and possibly change history!

As for load times, "UEFA" has its ups and downs. For the most part, load times are tolerable. They are worse when a match is loading, but once loaded it is smooth sailing. The biggest problem is menu navigation. When managing characters, every time you highlight a new character, a slight delay occurs to load the character portrait. These delays are annoying to the point that I stopped bothering with my roster and making in-game substitutions unless required by a game challenge. But since there isn't much of a career mode, player management isn't a big part of the game.

Overall, UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 is a fun game. I enjoyed it (please keep in mind I love soccer games) and was quickly addicted. However, I found faults in the game modes, which was the lack of a true career mode that gives you the feeling of managing a team. As it stands, UEFA has "The Treble", which is a decent story/career mode that puts your team in some tough challenges while chasing after the big win. In the end, UEFA made for a good soccer game that will serve soccer-centric gamers with hours of fun.