Okay, so Euro 2008 is a sore point for English fans. Less said the better and all that. Luckily, with EA's UEFA Euro 2008 you're free to replay the qualifiers and maybe do better than a draw against Macedonia at home. Who knows - gasp - you may even make the tournament. Even if you skip the qualifying stage and start with the main event, you can boot another team out and replace them with Blighty. If only it were that easy in real life...

Lamenting aside, as virtual footy fans will know, EA's franchise has made considerable strides against its main rival, Pro Evolution Soccer, in the last couple of years. Time was that FIFA was a bit of a joke amongst hardcore football fans, but that certainly isn't the case now.

Euro 2008 plays a pleasingly realistic game, with properly paced build ups, some clever AI that drives players to make intelligent runs for space, and a very accurate-feeling shooting system that takes into account a number of factors; not just the player's skill, but which foot he's on, what defensive pressure he's under and so forth.

Playing intelligent football is definitely rewarded, especially with the Be A Pro mode that was introduced in last year's game. This is where you control a single player throughout the match, so have to consider your off the ball positioning as much as anything else, making runs and calling for a pass at the right time. It's a refreshing change from the norm, and one the developer has worked on further in this title, with an extended version called Captain Your Country.

As the name suggests, in this mode you control one player who's vying for the captaincy, starting in the B-team friendlies and playing through an international career. You can don the boots of an existing player or create a footballer in your own image, spending the experience points you earn to improve various attributes.

The game ranks you in every match (taking into account passes completed, successful dribbles and tackles, the accuracy of your positional play and so on) and if you score highly, the manager might end up picking you for the first squad, before making you captain, a position that also gives you a small amount of control over team tactics.

Three rival players battle against you for the captaincy, and these can be computer or human controlled. It's highly entertaining to spend an evening with a couple of friends, playing co-operatively yet battling for the captain's armband at the same time. Sometimes you want to argue with the computer over your ratings (it seems a little unfair that skimming the crossbar is counted as an outright miss, the same as if you'd blasted the ball clear into the stands), but that's the only niggle we had with this excellent new mode.

Visually, Euro 2008 is top of the league. When your wife comes into the room and moans, "You're not watching the football, are you?" and you can smugly reply, "No, I'm not watching it... I'm playing it" then you realise just how good the HD graphics are. The different pitches, stadiums and weather effects look glorious, and only the occasional frame rate stutter and graphical glitch stops the game from achieving perfection.

The sound also helps to evoke an electric match atmosphere. The crowd noise is superb, from the authentic England chanting and barmy army brass band, to the home fans whistling deafeningly when you're winning in injury time, and the echo of the stadium announcer's voice. Turn your surround sound amp up, notch the commentary volume down a bit, and enjoy.

Chuck in a series of historical challenge matches and an online battle of the nations mode (which tots up the points scored by every player of each country into a giant leaderboard) and there's plenty to get stuck into here. And it's fluff, but another fun extra is controllable goal celebrations, so you can do "the robot" after you've hit the back of the net.

The only elements missing, as ever with these tournament-based games, are the management and transfer aspects of FIFA 08. And while that's a shame, it's the nature of the beast, and the Captain Your Country mode does go a fair way to rectifying this.

A top game of footy with the looks to match, plus the new Captain Your Country mode is a clever and well realised addition. Euro 2008 is worth snagging even if you've already purchased FIFA 08.