I sit next to Rich, and every lunchtime he and Graham play FIFA 12 together. I know very little about the game, except that it involves men running around, kicking balls, and then falling over and enthusiastically tickling each other. Be that as it may, EA have announced that its UEFA Euro 2012 tie-in will be an expansion pack for FIFA 12, priced at £15.99 in the UK and delivered via Origin.
As you'd expect, the DLC includes all 53 competing teams as well as eight new stadiums. Football Club Challenge mode will let you follow the tournament as it happens, replaying key matches if real life didn't go quite as you'd planned. You'll also be able to insert your custom-built Virtual Pro player into the mix.
Then there's Expedition Mode, which involves building a new team and travelling around Europe, stealing the best players from the teams you defeat. It sounds a bit like Pokémon, albeit with more tickling and a roughly equivalent amount of balls.
£15.99 seems pricey for DLC, but it's worth bearing in mind that in the past, licensed products like Euro 2012 would have arrived as full-price games. Moving aspects of the annual franchise over to a DLC model seems like a forward-looking move for EA - particularly on consoles, where football games are often cited as a major draw for brick and mortar stores. We're used to getting our games digitally on PC, though, so this seems like an all-round better deal than we might have otherwise got. In any case, it looks like I'm in for another six months of listening to Rich's "I am the best" song.
