World Soccer Winning Eleven 7 International (PlayStation 2)

Unlike Electronic Arts' FIFA Soccer games, which have undergone some major changes in recent years, Konami's Winning Eleven series continues to evolve gradually as the KCET studio strives to make its game more and more realistic with each incarnation. The gameplay in Winning Eleven games has always been more realistic than that of EA's soccer titles, but perhaps in part because Konami has never secured the necessary licenses to feature real team and player names in its games, it's really only been in the last year or so that the Winning Eleven games (and specifically Pro Evolution Soccer 2 and 3 in Europe) have given the FIFA titles a run for their money in terms of popularity and sales. Konami still hasn't seen fit to invest in an official license for its increasingly popular series, but Winning Eleven 7 International plays such a great game of soccer that such details quickly pale into insignificance.

The fact that Winning Eleven 7 International is better than FIFA 2004 shouldn't come as a shock to any of you who take your soccer games seriously.

The fact that Winning Eleven 7 International is better than FIFA 2004 shouldn't come as a shock to any of you who take your soccer games seriously, but what's surprising are just the number of ways that KCET has found to refine and improve upon the game's predecessor. There really wasn't much wrong with Winning Eleven 6 International, and while the majority of improvements made to this year's game might seem insignificant on paper, in practice they add up to a soccer experience that really is in a league of its own. The option to have your own name appear above the player you're controlling, for example, adds nothing to the single-player game, but it makes identification a lot easier on the pitch if there are between four and eight individuals playing simultaneously.

Perhaps the most significant changes that have been made to the game this year--at least in terms of action on the pitch--are the functions performed by the R2 button and the right analog stick. In last year's game, the R2 button was used to run at a speed that made retaining possession of the ball less challenging than sprinting, while the rarely used right analog stick could be employed to pass the ball in any direction. This year they're both used to access on-the-ball moves, including step-overs, shimmies, spins, drag-backs, and the like, which allow particularly skilled players on the field to express themselves in ways that haven't really been possible in the past. With these kinds of moves now easily accessible, the temptation is definitely there to try to take the ball all the way up the pitch using only a single player. Of course, this is certainly possible if you're using a very skilled player and are on an easy difficulty setting. For the most part, though, you'll be more successful against both CPU opponents and friends if you pass the ball around a bit and play the game as soccer is meant to be played.

The goalkeepers occasionally make costly mistakes, but the scoring still feels realistic.

As is true of the sport in real life, the characters who come under the most scrutiny are invariably the goalkeepers and the referees. The goalkeepers in Winning Eleven 7 International do occasionally make costly mistakes, but the fact that the majority of the scorelines in the game are realistic (at least if you're playing on an appropriate difficulty setting) says a lot about their abilities to stop shots. You also have the option to have your keeper leave the goalmouth and run toward the ball at any time. While skilled strikers are quite capable of lobbing a shot over a keeper who's off his line, you'll occasionally be able to catch a friend off guard by having your goalkeeper charge at his ballcarrier before he's got a chance to unleash a shot on goal. The referees and linesman in the game will still make decisions that frustrate you from time to time (it wouldn't be soccer if they didn't), but their decisions on fouls and offside calls are backed up by action replays that invariably prove them right. New for the Winning Eleven referees this season is the ability to "play the advantage," which, in case any of you are unfamiliar with the rule, allows them to let play continue after an infringement if they decide that the team in possession of the ball would benefit more from retaining possession of the ball than from having play stopped to be awarded a free kick. The rule isn't an easy one for referees to use in real life, and Konami has done an admirable job of implementing it in Winning Eleven 7 International. A large yellow icon appears in the top corner of the screen whenever the advantage rule is played, and although the referee doesn't always get it right, it's at least reassuring to feel that your opponent's fouls aren't going unnoticed, even if they seem to be going unpunished.

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