Of all the things 'FIFA 08' did right, the Be-A-Pro mode was possibly the most impressive: for the first time you were controlling only one player — as opposed to the whole team — and having to deal with things like positioning and running off the ball.

It is possibly the closest any soccer game has ever felt to the real thing.

The drawback with 'FIFA 08' though, was that you could only play single matches and online matches in this mode — which is where 'UEFA Euro 2008' comes in.

Apart from the Euro 2008 tournament and all that goes along with it, the major step forward is that Be-A-Pro has grown up and turned into the much more substantial Captain-Your-Country mode (CYC).

In CYC, you start off by choosing an existing (real) player or creating a new one with the game's rather decent character creation system. You pick things like your country, your preferred position, your physical attributes, and even a "commentary name" (which you pick off a long list). This "commentary name" is then used by the in-game commentators when you get the ball.

Once ready to go, you are picked to play in your country's B team. From here on the formula is quite simple: play well, and you may be selected to play for the A team; play even better and you may be made captain — do really well and you could lead your country to success in the Euro 2008 championships.

It is an excellent concept — and fortunately it is very well implemented. Things like newspaper headlines between matches reflecting on your performance and extensive statistics on how well you are doing makes it all feel very real.

The game's measurement of your performances feels remarkably accurate. Give the ball away and your rating might drop; make some passes and it creeps back up — and, of course, scoring goals always helps.

Quite realistically the game does not reward irresponsible play — defenders are first and foremost expected to do their defensive duties. Run up the field as a defender chasing goals and you will soon be dropped out of the team.

On the pitch, the game still plays a lot like it did in 'FIFA 08'. Making your passes, positioning your player, and generally just reading the game is as satisfying as before. Having it all placed within the context of a career though, helps propel it to the next level. Hopefully 'FIFA 09' will elaborate on this even further.

If controlling only one player is not your thing though, you can still play the game in the normal way — where you control whoever is on the ball or closest to it. In this mode, the game feels a lot like 'FIFA 08', although they claim to have tweaked a few things. Apart from the game maybe playing slightly faster, it is hard to tell what exactly changed without reading up on it.

As is customary with FIFA games — and recent ones in particular — the game is visually very impressive. Player detail and movement is probably the best we've seen in a sports game, but it is the stadiums, crowds, and weather effects that really steel' the show.

As you travel around Europe in your team's qualifying campaign you'll have sunny afternoon matches in small stadiums, wet torrid scraps on cold wintry nights, and triumphant clear nights in front of your home crowd. Not to be underestimated, this sense of place does an enormous amount to make the game feel authentic.

Add some pretty decent commentary, a nice soundtrack and a typically solid online offering and the game is probably as good as anyone could have hoped for given that it is not a full 'FIFA' release.

Still, once all the fanfare and footballing bliss of Austria and Switzerland 2008 is something of the past, the game will age very quickly. And with 'FIFA 09' a mere five or so months away, some might choose to wait for that instead.

That said, if you're looking for something to help you kill time between watching actual Euro 2008 matches, it really couldn't get much better than playing the official UEFA Euro 2008 game. And with the excellent Captain-Your-Country mode, it is significantly more than just 'FIFA 08' with a Euro 2008 theme.