Reviews of PS2 Soccer Games

Although I basically played all soccer games on the PS2, at least those available in the US, I would like to start with the best one,... at least in my opinion:

Konami's Winning Eleven 6 Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 2

Winning Eleven 6 (Konami)

In March 2003 Konami finally released its Pro Evolution Soccer series in the United States. Soccer gaming fans all over the world were able to get this game except in the US. Since everybody said, this is the reference in soccer gaming, I was eager to get my hands on it.

Here in the US the game is released with the title "Winning Eleven 6", which is closer to the japanese original title. But this is the only difference to the European version, graphis, gameplay and options are identical.

Options

Well, I remember the times when I played with my buddies from university a round robin tourney on my Amiga with our favorite soccer game Goal! So in my opinion, a good soccer game should have an option to build a custom league with any number of human players. Winning Eleven has exactly this. Get 3 to 16 friends to your house, order some pizza and get some beer and put WE6 into the PS2. Not only the PS2 keeps score, ranking and number of yellow cards, suspended players, injured players, you even can skip a match change the order in which the games are played. This comes in very handy, since some folks tend to be always late.

Team USA during a game intro But should you be alone, doesn't matter. You can play any continental cup or a world cup against the computer. Club team competitions can be customized and then "look like" the Champions League for example. Or try the career mode, where supposed to lead a team from the third league into the top league by playing and trading players.

Of course there are the usual set-up variations like offside or injuries on or off, weather conditions, stadium selection or camera angles. The variety of camera angels is by the way exemplary, from broadcast to tower and "mol sight" everything's there. But nothing controls the referee.. but tell more about this later..

The number of teams is on first sight a little low. It's only 40 club teams and 54 national teams. I thought in the beginning that's not enough, I won't be able to play Freiburg vs. Salamanca. But then I realized, 40 teams to edit is much easier than editing 700. All in all I am fine with the number of teams now :)

Gameplay

the almighty referee Now to the most important part of a good soccer game, how does it play? In one word: it plays fantastic, but let me explain. We all heard about soccer games where the ball sticks to the imaginary foot of a player, not here. When faster you sprint with the ball, the easier it is for the defenders of the other team to get the 'round leather piece'. The longer you hold the 'shoot' button the more powerful (and higher) becomes the shot. This really requires some practice. But once you got the hang of it you don't wanna play anything else. Movement of ball and players looks very realistic and in a certain irradic way that it feels like a real game. Beginners need a little practice but I think it's worth while.

I also couldn't find any repeating playing patterns. Every goal looks different and anything can happen, I had strange own goals and fantastic bycicle kicks. Still, the controls are pretty straight ofrward and easy to remember. The usual: x for passing and tackling, square for shot or slide. Of course there are allkinds of combos avaible... for the sophisiticated video soccer player.

The referee though a different thing. He is very strict especially for beginners and almost every slide tackling leads to a booking or a sent off. But after some practice you learn to time your challenge correctly. Still, the referee in this game is tough and it can happen that you get a caution for a simple push or you play the ball and get whistled... On the other hand you can say it's like in real life: the referee, a mysterious entity...

Intelligence of the computer player is good and challenging, you should be busy a while.. Also the collision routine and ball behavior is very accurate.

Editor

The editor, another story. Well at first I am happy to have an editor at all. Konami didn't get any license to use official team names. So Bayern Munich for example is called Anhalt, all teams are named by a region nearby and not all of the players have their real name. The game is basically divided into two areas, national teams and club teams. The club teams can be changed to a different team, inlcuding name, flag and kit, that works. Soo I could transform some unteresting teams like Boca Juniors to more Bundesliga clubs like 1.FC Köln or Hertha Berlin.

Same thing with players in a club. You can change their name, appearance and stats at will, but you can't change their assigned number. It also gets very complicated when a player is also playing in a national team. Then, an orgy of copying and registering begins which can be very confusing, especially since the number of edited players increases after a while. This can surely be done better, see the fabulous editor in World Tour Soccer 2003 (This Is Football 2003). Konami should really work on this a little and see how other games do this.

Similar the setup of your favorite team, instead of adding this information to the team file, after you edited the names etc., it's saved in a seperate file. This file has to be downloaded for every game/competition and the computer doesn't do that of course when he playes the team. Again, World Tour Soccer does this a little better.

Graphics & Presentation

action in the box All in all the game looks beautiful. The graphics is not as detailed as in Fifa Soccer 2003, but still upper level. The stadiums look great and players move very smoothly and accurate. I didn't notice any lags while playing and loading time is fast. You can also recognize nice details like the ball can hit the corner flag and bump back into the field, or when a player was hit by the ball, he holds his head or stomach.

Presentation of the menues and matches is decent. You get the usual roster, icons and flags. The flags you will also see in the stadium held by the fans. The commentary is available in several languages including English, of course, and German (Hansi Küpper and Carsten Fuß), sometimes a little funny though, but I guess that's in all soccer games..

Summary

All in all currently the best soccer game, if you have a choice, get this one, it has a high long term motivation and is difficult enough to keep you busy for a while. AI and graphics are nice and everything looks and plays very real. Although Fifa Soccer looks a little better and World Tour Soccer has the best editor, gameplay is the important factor and here Winning Elevn 6 wins! Every soccer fan should have this, get it and you won't regret it...

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