World Soccer Winning Eleven 7 International

The king of soccer games returns to defend its title. Does FIFA stand a chance?

The best all-around soccer series on the PlayStation 2 is back and better than ever. The only glaring omission is online play, but there?s still plenty to keep fans addicted until next year.

Subtle Greatness
At first glance, Winning Eleven 7 doesn?t appear to be all that different from last year?s installment. The graphics are marginally better, the player animations are a touch smoother, and some new stadiums offer slightly more variety. What pushes the experience past its predecessor are the stellar tweaks to the already solid gameplay. Moving your player around feels more intuitive with ball touches coming off exactly as they should. Passing and shots on goal also received subtle control improvements, tweaking just the portions that needed help. Adding to the experience is the smarts of your opponents and teammates, who act just like the pros you see on TV. It might not add up to much on paper, but it?s commendable how the developers were able to surgically inject just the right enhancements without harming the already functional patient.

Give and Take
The comprehensive Master League mode returns and gets a whopping 40 percent more features this year. Going through seasons with different teams has a unique feel each time thanks to a long list of customizable conditions like negotiation difficulty and frequency. How many soccer games let you pick the referee, thus altering how a game is called? Winning Eleven 7 is rife with those types of smart options that seem straight out of a fan?s wish list. The cost of this depth is the rather shallow roster of club teams as compared to those in main rival FIFA 2004. However, the selection of international teams is slightly larger.

Audio commentary is solid with the option of weighting the announcer to whichever side you choose, including taking a totally neutral stance. Although its great that you can have the guy get excited about your goals and not the opposition, the overall tone is just not as immersive as it should be. The very cool bonus of listening to Spanish language commentary wouldn?t be such a hassle if you didn?t also get stuck with Spanish in-game menus.

Seven Heaven
For as long as the Winning Eleven series has endured (including earlier incarnations with different names), the level of quality it has maintained is remarkable. In terms of gameplay and depth, there?s no question that Winning Eleven 7 is the soccer game to own. Fans of online play and teams missing from this installment may be deterred a bit, but the package Konami has put together is just too awesome to pass up.

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