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“World Soccer Winning Eleven 7
International” is quiet a mouthful, but it describes the game
pretty well. This game is a soccer game (11 players) played at
the International level. This is the next evolution (7) of
this long running series from Konami. While soccer isn’t as
popular in the United States as the rest of the world the game
has a strong following and little competition. With that much
said I must admit I am not a soccer fan, I like high scoring
sports like basketball or even lacrosse. Soccer wasn’t one of
the games we played while I was growing up, but I went into
the game with an open mind. Winning Eleven 7 did not convert
me to a soccer hooligan but it was a nice diversion and
represents the genre nicely.
The first thing that happens when you insert the game disc is
a prompt for language.
The game
comes in both English and Spanish. Depending on the
language chosen, the menu commands, instructions and even the
commentary during the game will be in that language, a
bi-lingual game – pretty cool. The opening “movie” is
ultra-realistic with sweeping shots of the stadiums, fans and
the teams including very life-like close-ups of the players –
it is well worth watching before you dig in. From there the
massive amount of menus unfolds. There are multiple game modes
including:
• Match Mode – exhibition games for 1 or 2 players
• League Mode – your entry into a 16 team round-robin
tournament
• Cup Mode – set up custom leagues and Cup competitions
• Master League – management of a club team involved in all
aspects of the team from acquiring players, training and
competing in League games
• Training Mode – an area to practice you skills or take the
Training Challenge
• Edit Mode – create new players, edit existing players or
teams
No matter which mode you choose there are plenty of teams
available. There are 56 International teams with updated
rosters. Some of the more dominant teams include: Argentina,
France, Korea, Portugal, Senegal and South Africa. Each team
is rated in 5 categories: Attack, Defense, Teamwork, Speed and
Technique, while speed is always important technique makes
sure your players are in the correct place on the field at the
right time. On top of the National teams there are also 65
made up club teams. However, with the edit feature any club
team could mimic the real thing in a matter of minutes by
editing names, numbers, colors etc. The game conditions
themselves are also very customizable including the weather,
injuries, referees, commentary stance, and support stance. The
commentary and support (read: crowd) stance can be home, away
or neutral. Therefore you can customize whether the crowd is
for or against you, a nice touch. Team setup choices involve
uniforms, home/away, formations, players, positions and
substitutes. There is also the ability to customize the cursor
above each player’s head that you are controlling during the
game. By default it will say whether a player is for Player 1
or Player 2 but other options include name, jersey number or
custom fields you can edit.
In Edit mode you can create custom players from scratch with a
full complement of templates for Player Name, Strip Name (name
on Jersey), Position Settings, Appearance, Ability and Special
Ability.
The Challenge Training aspect of the game under the Training
Menu is a good place to polish all of the skills necessary in
the game. There are multiple different tasks in each category
that need to be completed satisfactorily to advance to the
next level. Categories involved are: dribbling, short pass,
manual pass, free kicking pass, free kicking shoot, ball
possession, attack and defense.
The Master League is similar to rotisserie leagues in baseball
games where you control every aspect of your team. You are the
team manager and deal with acquisitions, negotiations for
other players, training your team or training promising young
players. You then play against other COM teams in one of 4
leagues hoping to move up the rankings and to the next
division.
Once the game starts there is an intense opening ceremony cut
scene that shows the stadium including the players coming down
the tunnel. This is followed by the team flags being brought
out onto the pitch and of course the team photo shoot.
The game play is pretty straight-forward, but I think soccer
is at a distinct disadvantage to other sports because of the
size of the field and the angle of perspective. There is no
way to put the whole field on the screen at once so you can
only see a small swath of the playing surface. This makes
soccer games fall behind football, basketball and baseball
games for presentation in my opinion. There is a radar screen
at the bottom of the screen but it is difficult to watch the
radar and all of the opponents around you at the same time. If
you have set up your formations correctly you typically just
pass to a location and hope your teammate is there to accept
the pass. At first I thought the automatic player changing was
tight and quick but the more I played I noticed some instances
where the game just couldn’t keep up with the fast pace,
luckily there is a button (L1) to switch between players.
The controls are typical with lots of passing options and a
dash button for a quick spurt. The most difficult thing to
master is shooting the damn ball. Pressing the square button
shoots the ball, as soon as the button is pressed a gauge
begins to fill up measuring the power of the shot, a second
later the gauge is full and your shot is sailing over the
goal. The timing and sensitivity of the shooting button are
wrong in my opinion. There is no way to use a full gauge
unless you are shooting from mid-field, not very realistic.
However, there is the ability to curve shots and lob shots
which helps a little bit, but typically I just tapped the
button and hoped for the best. Defense is pretty solid with
the ability to dash, apply pressure, clearing ball or slide
tackle. As in most soccer games mastering a sliding tackle is
difficult to do and will typically result in a penalty and a
yellow or red card. The computer AI is excellent and makes for
a challenging game against the computer, OK challenging is an
understatement – the computer normally kicked my butt but
who’s counting.
The graphics are done well and improved over previous versions
of the game. Again the size of the field restricts the level
of details that can be displayed at the default camera angle.
The fields look good with different designs cut in the grass
to give an authentic feel. The movements of the players are
unique and flow nicely and the motion capture has improved
from previous versions as well. Dribbling, head shots, bicycle
kicks all look solid. However, the best part of the game are
the cut scenes after goals or during intermissions of all the
action – these are close-up beautiful shots from multiple
angles. Especially after goals you see certain team dancing
and others piling on in the middle of the field – good stuff.
The sound is so-so at best. The background music is very
repetitive “techno” style noise. If you walk away from the
game for a couple of minutes the music will drive you crazy as
it loops on and on. The commentary is OK but at times the
announcers just say #5, #11, #15 as you pass the ball to your
different players – what value does that add to the game. If
they can’t refer to the players by name at least mention their
position or something. Finally, the sound effects are solid
and the crowd noise is very realistic especially depending on
the “loyalty” stance you set up in the beginning.
In review, the game has improved over previous versions and I
can also say it is the best soccer game on the market. On the
other hand, I am not a soccer fan, I don’t think the game of
soccer translates into a video game very well and some of the
finer points of the controls were frustrating. On top of that,
the computer kept beating me so now I hate this game, smirk.
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