There have been a good number of football releases on the Xbox 360 now and given that the essential nature of these games is identical, it seems to me that the only way to give a fair and informative review is to compare them all - at least that's the excuse I used for taking over the television and playing footie games for three days without a break. The things I do for you lot!

UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 is, as you might imagine, based around the Champions League, and it includes all the sides in the top divisions of the major European countries, so you can play as one of the many teams who didn't qualify this year. However, it unfortunately doesn't include any other competitions or national sides - not that any national sides are really worth playing as, club standards being much better (I feel that games have always overrated national sides). This is a little less than the standard for a football game - often you have league modes and several cup competitions - but then the actual competition matters little, as the game of football is essentially the same whatever level you're playing at, and you still have a group stage and a knockout.

There is another mode that stands out in this game though, and that is the ultimate team mode. It's a hybrid between a management game and a card trading game, and it's surprisingly enjoyable. Sure it's a little basic, but it takes a completely different approach and is the most endearing aspect of UEFA 06-07. In ultimate team mode, matches are split into difficulty levels and you earn points for every match you win. After you've won enough matches at one level, you move up to the next, where you earn more points but face harder opposition. The points you gain can then be spent on packs of cards - you don't choose a specific card, but rather see what the pack contains. At higher levels you can buy better packs (they come in bronze, silver and gold variants) with a higher chance of better cards. These cards can then be traded over Xbox Live for more points so that you can get the ultimate team of your choice.

The cards are not just for what players you have though; there are also manager, fitness coach and physio cards. Others can be used to heal injured players, increase one of their skills or have an impact on a match. These gameplay cards can increase a player's skill, affect the performance of the whole team, make the referee stricter or even decrease the abilities of the opposition, all adding an extra element to the gameplay. Of course this will potentially put you into a position where you haven't got good enough players for future matches, but you can gain points in any of the game modes - even friendlies. Best of all, you get points for playing on Xbox Live whether you use your ultimate team or not, so you are not obliged to play only one type of game for benefit, which gives you the chance to gain points when you find you have had a run of bad cards, or need to refresh your team.

The match engine itself is, as you would expect with a Electronic Arts game, essentially the FIFA 07 engine, but there are subtle differences. I found that defensive control has become more difficult - when you tackle it is harder to get the ball a sufficient distance away from the attacker, and far too easy for them to get the ball back immediately. This is compounded by the fact that the AI-controlled defenders never fight for the ball; you can directly control them and call a player over to help you, which is useful, but their lack of intuition is annoying. To make matters worse, sliding tackles are infuriatingly difficult to pull off; far too often a foul is given for a very innocuous challenge, but thankfully the referees are not card happy. Indeed, on many occasions they will play advantage. This I exploited, holding back for a second and waiting for the advantage to run out before moving in with a second tackle - which of course missed the point and indeed the short time span given is insufficient to build up a good play.

The controls are easier on the offensive though, with shooting and passing being both simple and intuitive. You really feel like you're in control of the players. I particularly liked the ability to customise the control system, even to the point of determining how often the game automatically switches players. One of my major complaint about football games is the fact that when defending, the game switches to a player nearer the ball when actually you were trying to mark a striker, or when the player you are switched to is near but already beaten and has no chance to get the ball. This can be made very infrequent or even disabled, according to your preference.

The gameplay definitely has more of an arcade feel than the Pro Evolution series. Games are fast paced, with advantage given to the attacking players. It is easy to run through with a fast player or put in a long ball and pass the defenders. Still, it is not too far removed from normal football, although careful plays and building up a run of passes never brings much in the way of success. This pace perhaps suits European football better though - and it makes for exciting multiplayer matches, whether local or on Xbox Live. Effectively there are only two game modes, a single player versus player match, or a co-operative match against computer opposition, both of which are enjoyable. Sharing a team with another player does allow for much better tactics when you work as a team though, and makes the game feel a lot closer to real football.

Visually UEFA 06-07 looks great, with fantastically detailed backgrounds and exceptional lighting. All the teams are represented with the actual strips and the real players, which has much better appeal when compared to Pro Evo 6 - who doesn't want to play there favourite team against real opponents, as opposed to East London Blues against South Yorkshire (I will let you work out who they really are!) like you do in Pro Evo, which lacks the licensing for most teams. The players are rendered in full HD glory too, and they do have enough similarity to their real-life counterparts to be recognisable. I have seen better graphics in other games, but not better in any football games. The system used to model the players is limited in the variables you can change, which can be seen when you use it to create your own players (for any team).

The animations are also really fluid and collisions look very natural, an area where Pro Evo is lacking - I have seen players move through each other in the penalty box before. The in-game commentary is as good as it gets; it's still not fully context sensitive and at times is completely inappropriate, but it's close enough to set the mood. Best of all is the unrelated conversations between the commentators about their time as players, as well as various other anecdotes. These make it feel more like real commentary and they are interruptible; if something exciting happens, they will stop, talk about that then move back to the original conversation seamlessly. This is without doubt the best commentary in any sports game so far - add to that the excellent graphics and the carefully chosen camera angles and you have a very close virtual approximation of football.

Being much like FIFA 07, you may have to think that there is little point in purchasing UEFA 06-07 if you already have FIFA - and I would be inclined to agree, because FIFA 07 is more polished than UEFA. The addition of the card game is fun, but not worth the purchase for that alone. If you have played Pro Evo 6 and you're looking for something different then this is worth a look though, for the card game elements and the vastly different style of gameplay. For the undecided, this is a faster paced arcade game than the opposition; it is a more polished product and truly a next-gen game when compared to Pro Evo 6, which really should have had more work put into it. In my own personal opinion, Pro Evolution Soccer is still the king of football games on the Xbox 360, but now there is an upstart heir waiting in the wings for its chance to steal the throne. I will still continue to play Pro Evo 6, but UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 will have a place on my shelf from now on - and if Konami do not pull out the stops for Pro Evo 7 then I can see a time coming when it will become second best. With the competition increasingly fierce, it'll be very interesting to see what happens next!

Reviewed by Gavin Udall for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).