European Football Championship video games

Not unlike other sports events, the UEFA European Football Championship has its own video games licensed from European football's governing body, UEFA. Four games have been released so far, with the first game released in 1996.Originally held by Gremlin Interactive, like many other licenses it's now held by Electronic Arts in their EA Sports label.

UEFA Euro 1996

Euro'96, by Gremlin Interactive was the first game to replicate the European Football Championship, and using all the hype behind the Football is coming home campaigns, the Sheffield company modified some parts in their Actua Soccer title, including the 16 teams present in the final stage with accurate rosters and stadiums, as well as Euro 96 mode, Exhibition Match, Practice Penalties, and Practice game.

It was sold for both Windows, DOS, and the Sega Saturn, which had a well-known bug where crowd blocks flickered or disappeared.

UEFA Euro 2000

After EA purchased the license, it was expected the game would be as good as World Cup 98, a major hit two years before. Euro 2000 uses a modified version of the FIFA 2000 engine,

One of the major flaws credited to the game was the lack of the official groups: while it had all teams and allowed to play in the qualifying stages, there wasn't a predefined setting to choose one of the teams present in the final competition, and skip the qualifying stage (except the organizing teams, Belgium and the Netherlands). The same flaw (plus uneditable players) was pointed in the......
Read More