UEFA Euro 96 England

Euro '96 was an "official licensed product of the European Football Championship 1996" which took place in England. The official license of the game is actually the only positive note on this game, because it's utterly amazing how unbelievable crap this is.

First of all the 'posivite' notes: you can play with all the 16 squads who participated with the European Championship of 1996. I have to admit, the audio is done pretty decent too, with a nice tune on the option menu's and commentary by Barry Davies. That's pretty much it for the positive side.

Now, welcome to gaming HELL. The graphics look more like a bad 32X game then a Saturn title. The players are a pixeled mess, the stadiums looks like a surface of purple stains, the animation couldn't be any slower if it tried, the artificial intellegence fails to show up (it's possible to end a game in 0-0 without touching the joypad!), and the control are sluggish - what the hell did they THINK when producing this game?

The players are marked by some sort of square, which changes shape (circle, triangle), meaning you should shoot, pass or kick. I didn't notice any difference between the symbols and subsequent actions anyway. "X" means a pass to a "nearby" player but doesn't work half the time. I like how the shoulderbuttons are being used for changing the camerview though, however every view is worse than the last: it's all too far off or too close to see clearly what you're doing. How could this game become the official licensed product of the European Championship Soccer 1996? According to the critics, the quality of the soccer of that tournament was pretty average, so maybe they thought that making a repugnant game would be appropriate as well.

Man, if you've never seen this game it's hard too believe ... I repeat it because I can still hardly believe myself how freakin' AWFUL this game looks. Together with the non-existant gameplay, it's a must-have for the dustbin.

Euro '96 was later released in a "Club Edition" as well under the name of Actua Soccer. Even if you're a collector I advise to stay far away from this game. Easily the worst Saturn game I have ever played.