Preview: Euro 2012 for FIFA 12
Often when it comes to the big football tournaments discussions are more about off the field antics than the actual football, and this Euro 2012 downloadable content (DLC) is no different. There's no need to mention the football because we already know what we're getting; in a nutshell, it's FIFA 12. But that's certainly not all there is to it.
For starters, EA have impressed a lot of gamers by finally making Euro 2012 an expansion as DLC to the main FIFA game, rather than a standalone. It's almost as if the gaming experience came first and money making came second. Yes the DLC will be substantially cheaper than a game like World Cup 2010, which seemed to take a step backwards in the FIFA march of progression.
In terms of what's new, we have a nice new look to the game. Menus are made more colourful – if it were any more purple it would look like a box of Quality Street – and more visually aesthetic. As with other tournament games you can play the Euro 2012 format to your hearts content, recreating group stage run-ins and final 16 shoot-outs to your hearts content. And as always you'll have access to brand new tournament stadiums along with all 53 countries at your disposal.
But the real innovation comes in the new 'Expedition' mode; sort of like fantasy football combined with Risk. You begin by choosing your captain from any squad you like – this will be the leader of your squad, and most probably your best player, on starting the campaign. You're then assigned another ten players at random to make up the rest of your squad. From here you take on whichever country you like, harvesting players from defeated countries to build up a dream tournament 11 to finally take on the likes of Germany or Spain.
You know what you're getting with tournament football games, and Euro 2012 delivers all that it should do. EA could quite easily have got complacent and just offered the bare bones of tournament play, but it didn't, and that's what's really heartening about this DLC. The innovative 'Expedition' mode makes this worthy of a download and is a creative way of adding to an already packed game in FIFA 12. It finally feels like, as both a gamer and a football fan, I'm not being seen as a walking dollar-sign, but as a valued consumer.
