You’re probably wondering why I didn’t review these games separately? My answer to you’re question is there hasn’t been much anything that changed from WE6 to WE7 besides some minor graphical improvements. Let me explain my reason.
From a popularity stand point Winning Eleven 6 was the most popular soccer simulation in Europe and Japan and Australia. While it may of not looked state-of-the-art and let me explain what that means in my view. If you take sport games, you may realize that EA Sports has made graphics improvements in Madden 2004. Madden 2004 is the prettiest game on Playstation. It has the most polygons in any sports game. The game used Renderware, which is middle ware for game developers, and worked with Komani’s two Winning Eleven Soccer International soccer games prior to W11S7. Okay to keep this short the crowds look really good. You can tell apart their faces (they aren’t blobs like in early PS2 sport games) The frame-rate is smooth. The announcers are nice editions, they have athenaeum in their voices. Love the athenaeum! In my opinion they sound better because they don’t repeat 2 phrases for each action like in EA Sports FIFA 2002. It is understandable that no sports games have commentary guest speakers and if they did, they would have one paragraph of something about the team that repeats itself over and over at the beginning of each game. We have DVDs now. I don’t understand why Konami couldn’t have real videos of the previous season. Yet that is understandable because in exchange you have a 99% accurate roister to play by. Unlike Madden Football 2002, Winning Eleven Soccer 6 and 7 have the ability to instantly change your player’s stats. Such as if you want you’re whole team to have 99% balance, or 99% style points. Your pick. I like it. You have a choice, either up your team stats or lower the difficulty.
The Difficulty
The difficulty in Winning Eleven 7 is very similar to Winning Eleven 6. So much so that you can just pick up and play with no new learning curve! This is a good thing. One problem I found (this could just be because 7 is harder than 6) is when I want to score a goal and press Y on the duel shock 2 controller, sometimes the game will pass to the closest teammate instead of scoring the GOAL! Now I got really pissed off on that. I learned that the easiest way to score a goal is by pressing down on the right joystick. I don’t know. You have to be really close to the goal to use Y button. And with 11 guys around you, it’s not likely to get in. But let’s look at the game of soccer…if a team is lucky, they will score 3 goals in a whole game. So naturally if you score 5 or more goals in a game, I think your difficulty isn’t high enough. Okay, lets set the difficulty to maxium setting. What you get? A lot of red cards. (if you don’t know soccer to well, that means your player is out of the game) A lot of interceptions, a lot of injuries, a lot intense action. Okay something is wrong hear. Computer’s aren’t suppose to think for themselves, but this game is kicking the crap out of my guys. Okay there is 11 guys on each team in the game of soccer. 21 of them are computer controlled. You control one of them. The game switches teammates by the use of the L2 and R2 buttons.
If you even had a chance to play Winning Eleven Soccer 6 than you’ll realize that in 7 players make a lot of mistakes. This isn’t the games fault, this was done intestinally to give the game a more realistic feel. Minor details such as when the other team steals the ball from you, your player tries to catch himself. Real life soccer players do some real mistakes in a room and they’re hitched up with computer equipment so their actions become the same reactions in the game. Game’s got it down pretty good. More noticeably in Winning Eleven 7 than as Winning Eleven 6 do players look very life like (I’m talking about moving).
If you are having difficulty, both games are good at giving a precise tutorial complete with sample movies and a narrator to talk it over with you as you play. The tutorial couldn’t possibly get any better in 6 because it was already top notch. The tutorial also will teach you the rules of soccer, not just how to control your character. Every soccer game does that now-a-days.
Controls:
The controls in Winning Eleven Soccer 7 are exactly the same as they were in 6. What changed are a few enhancements in the character’s movements. The game is quite smoothly, though it seems that game is too fast for your reflexes. I could just be me though because when I first play a game I usually suck at it until a few playing sessions.
Learning curve is about 30 to 60 minutes. Faster if you upgraded from Winning Eleven 6. They feel about the same.
Navagational System:
Good news. I find that Konami kept the same console style menu they used in Winning Eleven 6. No complaints here! When you start the game with no modifications, you can just wiz past 3 menus to the loading screen. After the loading screen you get the tiny intro of the opening game and a television type HUD. When the game starts, you get a score board in the top left corner. Some circles that represent the character you control and that radar system that shows all the players on the field and their locations. Your team is the blue dots, the other team is the red dots. I don’t use the radar at all so I just turn it off in game options.
On feature I like about Winning Eleven 6 and 7 is the camera angle use in replays. It’s gotten very professional like. The game doesn’t stop there either because you can control how the camera moves in replay mode. A feature not in EA Sport’s FIFA 2002 which I am very disappointed in. Until I owned Winning Eleven 6, relatively short time ago, I skipped the replays. They didn’t excite me much. Sometimes I like replays because when I compete against Bob or Randy, it shows how stupid the AI was, and that the ball somehow got in the net. Most of my goals are from accident. They are normally caused by the other person cut off guard or day dreaming until one of us just so happens to score. Of course, I am a casual gamer, and my friends who don’t play the game at all, usually beat me because I’ve only played the game for a total of 8 hours.
Sound:
The sound is very European like. Some mellow trance tracks in the game. Though it sounds cool. Unlike EA Sport’s version of Soccer, you don’t get vocal music. But the intro was very cool. The intro’s in very cool. Remember Final Fantasy, The Spirit’s Within. I swear, there hasn’t been any different between the Opening FMV and that. Both Winning Eleven 6 and 7 use the same style cell-shaded FMV as the intro.
Drum role please…..my conclusion
Winning Eleven Soccer is very rewarding. When my friends and I get sick of Winning Eleven 6, we will switch to FIFA 2002 or Winning Eleven 7. I have to say FIFA 2002 is much less demanding than Winning Eleven 6 or 7. I’ll repeat, if you want a less of a challenge go with EA Sports brand, if you want more challenge, go with Winning Eleven Soccer. I don’t even touch 989 Sport’s soccer game, or Sega Sport’s soccer game, I know SEGA make one heck of a NFL videogame. Sega now is using ESPN’s logo and announcers. If I had a pick of favorite soccer game, I’d go with the latest Winning Eleven Soccer videogame from Konami. There you got it. No wonder it is topping everyone’s list this summer as a must have PS2 game. Take your pick, both are excellent games. Winning Eleven 7 is only 40 dollars at Target, get it while the game is hot! Winning Eleven 6 is only 20 bucks.
Good luck on your decision!
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