Xbox Live may have over a million subscribers but, until recently, it lacked the sports genre that would help increase this total in Europe – a football game. Sadly the story of the first one out is a tale of rushed product and missed opportunity. Codemasters England International Football was released in late April to coincide with the build-up to Euro 2004 and was the first online footy game for the Xbox. Unfortunately there was a big problem; the game randomly disconnected when playing online.
Some games would crash at the start; some at the end (heartbreaking when 2-1 up with minutes left) and some would play fine and then crash on the next match.
Codemasters promised a patch to fix this. Fans waited and waited, and June came, and they still waited. By the time of Euro 2004 the EIF forum was full of angry punters demanding an answer. It was around this time that I reviewed the game for Online. The game itself was ok and improved markedly when played online – if you could get it to work. I was told that a patch was due imminently; in fact it didn't arrive until weeks later. And even then, it didn't fix the other bugs in the game, such as a faulty friends list.
The whole episode is a sad one. Codemasters (one of the UK's longest serving publishers) has lost respect and Xbox Live has lost a little of its sheen.
With EA's FIFA 2005 playable on Live this Autumn, along with the tantalising prospect of online play in Pro Evolution Soccer (the best footy series around), it seems that EIF's achievement as being the first on the pitch won't save it from relegation.
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