EA has been doing well with their FIFA soccer games, even in the US where the sport has never really caught on like it has in the rest of the world.  (Us yanks always have to be different, don’t we.)  Though FIFA 07 was released just a few short months ago, Electronic Arts decided that there was enough demand to create another soccer game for the Xbox 360: UEFA Champions League 2006-2007. 

For those who are new to European football (aka soccer), the international football regulatory organization is FIFA (the Fédération Internationale de Football Association).  To make their job more manageable they have broken the world into six regions or confederations, roughly one for each continent.  The UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) is the largest confederation and it, as the name suggests, oversees Europe.  The biggest competition that the UEFA oversees is the Champions League, a yearly event that culminates in awarding of the European Champion Clubs' Cup, one of the most prestigious awards in the sport.

Now with EA’s newest soccer game, players can gather a team and wind them through the preliminaries and final rounds to earn the coveted Cup.  This game boasts a very solid game engine, some fun soccer play and something unique:  a trading card element.  Like Magic: The Gathering and other CCG, UEFA allows player to ‘buy’ packs of cards in order to get better players, managers, and equipment.

Gameplay:

This game boasts a tricked out version of the engine that EA first used for FIFA 07.  What’s so new about it?  With this engine the ball and the players are treated as separate entities.  In the older engines the ball was always ‘tied’ to a player.  Sure, the player could pass the ball or shoot it, but while dribbling down the field one set of calculations were performed to model both player and the ball.   That’s no longer the case.  Now the player and ball are modeled separately which gives the game a more realistic feel and look.  The physics engine used for the ball is particularly good.  When that sphere is kicked high across the field it falls and bounces just like it was being controlled by gravity.  This does mean that when shooting, the ball goes where you send it, not necessarily where you want it to go.  Shots have to be lined up with a certain amount of care.

Other aspects of game play also work well.  Dribbling and passing the ball are easy to do, as are the other basic moves.  This is good because the instructions leave something to be desired.  They are very basic and don’t explain a lot, leaving players to puzzle it out for themselves.  Another area that this game could definitely improve in is the tutorial.  Like the instructions this section is too limited and needs to be fleshed out a bit.  Happily, even novice soccer players (like this reviewer) will find themselves holding their own after only a moderate amount of time.

The controls don’t feel sluggish and players on the field react quickly and precisely.  That’s not to say that everything happens just the way player wants.  The engine still has those pesky physics encoded into it so stopping when at a full run takes longer than you would like.  Try to turn too sharply and you’ll often find that you no longer have control of the ball.  Even with this, the game performs in a realistic fashion which the play quite exciting.

The game itself has a few different modes of play.  In Challenge Mode you can recreate matches (from the qualifying rounds to the finals) that took place in past UEFA Champion tournaments.  Hardcore European soccer fans will probably enjoy this.  Not so much the casual American fan will likely have no idea, or care, who originally won the second round qualifier in 2001, or how it effected the rest of the tournament.  Still, this is an easy way to jump into the game, with a pre-selected team and it can be quite fun even if you don’t know the history of the league.

Lounge Mode is where you and up to eight friends (with each team having four player controlled footballers) can play matches.  The game keeps track of your statistics and records.  The game is Xbox live enabled too in case you can’t find anyone in your area who is keen to play.

The area where the game really shines however is in the Ultimate Team Mode.  This is where EA has merged playing soccer with tradable card games.  In this mode players start with a modest selection of cards which represent players, trainers, managers, and cards that can modify a players stats or the game itself.  From this they build a team, admittedly a weak one, with which to compete.  Other packs of cards can be bought with credits that are earned by winning matches and successfully fulfilling objectives and challenges in games.  The cool thing is that you don’t have to play with your starting team.  Credits are earned in any of the games modes, and the harder the challenge, the more credits you can earn.  Players start off only being able to afford bronze packs which have the weakest cards.  Soon however, silver and gold packs will be available for purchase and with them more powerful cards.  Card that you don’t want can be sold online (for credits) through a relatively simple process.

Making your team in Ultimate Team Mode isn’t as easy as picking the strongest staff and players.  There’s more to it than that.  You have to worry about Team Chemistry.  Have players from the same country improves Team Chemistry, while putting a player in a position he doesn’t favor lowers it.  The Team Chemistry rating has an effect on your entire team, so it’s important to keep careful tabs on it.  Moral plays a part in how well the team performs also.  When the team is playing well, their moral climbs.  Watch out though, since a team with poor moral will play badly, which will cause their moral to fall.  It can be a vicious cycle.

Once you have your line up the way you like it, you just can’t forget about it either.  Players and staff have contracts and if a contract expires, that person is gone for good.  Contract cards will allow you to extend a good player’s time with your team, and it’s nice to have a couple in reserve.

The card collecting aspect of the game sounds hokey when you first hear about it, but it can be fairly addictive.  The fact that even a weaker player, if he meshes well with the rest of your squad, can improve the entire team’s play means that you are not stuck always searching for the most powerful and rarest cards.  This adds another dimension to the game and is a vast improvement over other soccer games.

Graphics/Audio:

The 1080p HD image looks very good and is sure to please.  The frame rate was good and never slowed down, even when the action was hot and heavy with several players on the screen at the same time.  The animation is smooth and realistic.

CGI has come a long way in the past few years, especially when modeling people, something that’s rather hard to do, and this game does a good job of creating players who look like real people.  Of course it’s not perfect; the skin tones have a slight sheen that makes the players look plastic, but this isn’t distracting especially when you’re dribbling the ball down field wondering how you’re going to make it past a group of defenders.

The Dolby Digital audio track suits the game just fine also.  The crowd cheers and sings, and players grunt and sigh and the ball hits the turf with a satisfying thud.  This all serve to put the players in the middle of the action and makes it easy to forget that you’re just playing a game.  The only complaint I had was that the commentators would get irritating after a while, but that is like real life too I guess.

Conclusion:

UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 is a fun game with realistic and accurate play.  The instructions leave a bit to be desired, but even novice soccer players will be able to figure out the mechanics of the game without too much time and trouble.  The thing that sets this game apart from other soccer games is the card trading element.  It is fun and addictive, and earning packs is almost more fun than winning the matches themselves.  With a strong game engine and good graphics, this game gets a strong recommendation.