| Winning Eleven 9 review |
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Like football-loving Jehovah's Witnesses, followers of Konami's Winning Eleven series have long known the true path to footballing salvation, and have been keen to drum it in at the doorsteps of EA's FIFA Football-playing heathens. It's often seemed an arduous and fruitless task, but come the day of reckoning we know who'll be stood at the pearly gates with a smile on their faces. Can I get an 'Amen'!
Konami's Tokyo development office has been churning out world-class soccer games for years now, and their pedigree is unmistakable. Winning Eleven (Pro Evolution Soccer for PAL fanciers) has a famous lineage, and one which Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka and his team look to improve upon with each iteration. With this year and Winning Eleven's 9th incarnation they've outdone themselves, taking this already well-polished diamond and making it even shinier.
The biggest difference between WE games and their rivals has always been the level of control the player has, and the lack of pre-determination. Each match feels open and able to swing at any moment, and (with the exception of a dinked free kick from just outside the box) there have never been any signs of "cheat goals". Gone are the rails that players in other games seem to be fixed to, along with with pointless "skills" and matches that end with cricket scores. WE has always been the football fans' favourite and for a reason - it plays the closest to a real match you can get without getting muddy on a Sunday morning with dangerously overweight, middle-aged men at the local park. The ball feels like an actual ball during the game, with weight and a life of its own, rather than a glue-covered beach ball that's pinged back and forth like some macabre game of giant pinball. Lunging challenges will make contact with the ball and send it spinning and veering wildly. A well-thumped volley at the woodwork can come back in all manner of directions: all things which draw the player in and do their darndest to convince them that this is football.
So, what's changed between Winning Eleven 8: Liveware Evolution and this fresh-faced newcomer? Quite a bit actually, and just about all of it for the better. The gameplay is famously tweaked between versions; often invisible to casual players but to those devoted to the cause these changes are instantly recognisable. Usually it's normally a re-weighting of how a match pans out, be it swinging things in the defence's favour or vice-versa, however this time it feels totally balanced. Matches now are won and lost in midfield and with smart movement and passing. The game as a whole feels slower and while at first this may set alarm bells ringing, it shouldn't. The change in pace is just another masterstroke which makes WE9 feel closer to the real thing than any previous game. Gone is any notion of pinball passing; timing is everything now. The most radical change, however, is the introduction of a new shooting method, and it's a real godsend. A press of R2 while the shot gauge is on-screen produces an attempt at an inside-of-boot, controlled, curled shot, and this is how the majority of saved replays are going to be made. It's not as straightforward as simply hitting it and watching the results, of course; catch it off balance or with a player with poor technique and you're looking at hitting row Z, but time it right with a Gerrard or a Kaka and it's a thing of beauty. Perfectly placed 30-yard rockets bending inside the top corner are possible but, in another performance of KCET's mastery, it's not so commonplace as to turn this into an arcade-like affair.
Plenty of other touches and refinements have been made all over the pitch. The widely-criticised heading has been revamped and crosses can be far more effective than before. It's possible now, for example, to power a header down at the keeper's feet and have it bounce up and beat him. First touches feel better. Sprinting with the ball has been tweaked so that the advancing player can now knock it ahead and run at his true top speed behind it. Tricks such as the roulette and Ronaldinho's flip-flap are still there and still not so good as to let you merely dance past the defence - not without some decent skill anyway. Free kicks have changed slightly, with Triangle and X now controlling power or control where R1 and R2 used to serve. There are a few small changes like this, and it's only fair to assume that it's a glance towards the future and the PSP with its single pair of shoulder buttons. An immediate 90-degree turn whilst running with R2 is now impossible (well, not impossible but it requires a double-tap of direction now), which was a concern for a few at first but one which quickly evaporates. These changes mean there's a brief period of re-learning for veterans of the series, and quite a lot to take on for Winning Eleven virgins. Fouls at first seem more commonplace, but refining the way you play and the challenges you choose to take on soon remedies this. Again, it adds to the 'real match' feeling.
Japan's efforts towards the 2006 World Cup have been recognised this time around, and a Nippon 2006 Challenge mode is available from the main menu. This option takes the footballing minnows of Japan and puts you in control of them, leading by example to take them to World Cup glory from the very first qualifying tournaments through to the main event itself. Whilst to the Westerner this is likely to have limited appeal, it provides a novel alternative to the WE stalwarts such as the Master League, which is back as always. A nose around the menus will reveal a PSP link option too; quite what this does yet is a bit of a mystery, but it clearly points to the future for mobile WE and hopefully the quality of game to expect. The in-game editing has been improved greatly; it's now perfectly possible to make very close reproductions of the non-licensed and national teams, even down to the sponsor and kit-makers’ logos. On the subject of licensing, sadly this is still Konami's downfall, certainly from a British point of view. Although a couple of English clubs now have official representation in the game, the Premier League as a whole does not. Existing licences continue though, so a full Serie A or La Liga campaign is still possible.
The graphics as a whole have been sharpened up, and the slowdown which was becoming more apparent with each release is all but gone. On the outset this sounds ideal, but it's a crude method that has been employed to make this fix. Those who play with the 'Wide' camera will notice something odd as they head towards the topmost touchline - there're no crowds in the stadia! Those who use this most useful of camera modes may be taken aback at first by this effort to reduce the amount being drawn in order to bring the frame rates up. Yet on the whole it's really nothing to write home about; a minor scuff on the polished boots of what is otherwise a near flawless game. Long-running fans will notice a change in commentary, with Tsuyoshi Kitazawa joining the ubiquitous Jon Kabira in the box but the great commentary hasn't suffered in the slightest for it. For those of you fortunate enough to actually live in Japan there's also an online option, but obviously it's impossible to comment on its performance. The multiplayer experience remains supreme; add beer and friends and here's a game which has stupendous amounts of longevity.
There's still only one football game to own, and it doesn't begin with an 'F'. Konami have taken WE8 and not just given it a little spruce; they've gone for the whole deluxe valet option. The gameplay is nigh on perfection, the pace is perfect, the shooting has been tweaked subtly and, with the addition of the R2 shooting, it really feels like a new game. This is the first time since WE6 that most die-hard fans will notice a real change and a real sense of newfound enjoyment in the game. Combine these uber-tight play mechanics with the sharpened graphics, the commentary brilliance of Kabira & Co, plus the improved editing facilities and you're looking at a champion. The editing community has already been beavering away with English patches and kit/player option files springing up for the discerning user, so there's no excuse for even the most ardent of linguaphobes to miss out. |
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System: Sony PlayStation 2
Genre: Sport
Developer: KECT
Publisher: Konami
Players: 1-4
Version: Japan
Reviewed: Aug 2005
Writer: Adam Richards
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Pros:
- Tightest gameplay yet
- Brilliant shooting refinements
- Crispy graphics
- Perfect balance and pace
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Cons:
- Lack of Licences
- Crowd disappearance on Wide camera
- Re-learning some of the game is initially frustrating
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Winning Eleven 9 Video: 10.0MB
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