Your steps on the hallway. You hear the fans cheering. All the flashes from the stadium are pointed at you. After that... silence. Now it's only you and the ball.  

This is the feeling that UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 should give you, but no... not really. Team management, lots of football and all the fame you can get. You have the chance to play with any football team from Europe and outscore others to your own amusement.

You can be a team manager and you play your games in order to win... or lose. Isn't that funny? As manager of your club you have just one season to complete the ultimate football accomplishment - The Treble! With each mission comes a new challenge as you take your team through the peaks and troughs of a season packed with league matches, cup ties and an entire UEFA Champions League campaign.

If you leave aside the fact that this is just another football game, which "happens" to be released every year but with slights changes like graphics, football players and some improvements to the gaming style, EA brings you the football game in winter time. The player wear gloves, there are snow flakes and the specific orange ball might dazzle you, but that's just not enough.

There's a lot of game modes and there's the History Book where all your accomplishments (around 400) are recorded. Depending on the result of the game and the team you chose you'll receive points that will allow you to buy new stadiums (5000 points - that's a lot of points), new pitches (2000 points), special sfx (4000 points) and football (500 points).

The feeling that UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 leaves you is... "boring". I know that Actua Soccer from '95 kept me longer in the front of the computer than the football games today. Except the tackling that is better implemented, the game has no essence and nothing concrete to amaze you.

It says that a game isn't defined by graphics. Well in this case it surely isn't. As you increase the resolution, the better you will see the shapes. Otherwise, unshaped polygons everywhere (even on 1280x1024) and if you play the game with depth of field, you will get some serious blurs. Maybe the guys from EA thought that we need lots and lots of blur to see the GREATNESS of the game.

We all know how the football games are. Having a full franchise of UEFA Champions League, I just hope that EA will bring something revolutionary to the gaming style.

Graphics: 66

The creators tried to make a good job but didn't quite succeeded, could be better.

Audio: 74

The audio instead sounds great. The UEFA soundtrack we all know it, the sportscasters and the crowds refills the gaps induced by the visual area.

Multiplayer: 82

If you want to test your football skills with your friends or with other players online, the game has a big community with lots of players to pick on. Online, the game has ranked or unranked matches and it runs lag free.

Hardware: 70

The game runs smoothly while you're on the pitch, but looses serious frames in replays and menu. If you want to see the full potential of UEFA Champions League, you will need a newer video card and a 3 Ghz processor.