World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 International

My interest in soccer has grown over the past few years. Konami and EA have been delivering solid soccer games. The World Cup was incredible to watch and that helped expand my knowledge of soccer. The richness of the sport has become clearer with every passing year. There’s no other sport right now that has captivated my thoughts like soccer has. It is the most widely viewed sport in the world and with its popularity only growing in the United States, I, too, have been watching it carefully. With Winning Eleven 9, Konami has released another solid soccer game that will please all the fans of the internationally beloved sport.

In 2005, I had my fair share of soccer games played on my consoles. Konami released Winning Eleven 8 early in 2005, which happened to be my first soccer game since the early NES days. EA then followed up later in the year with FIFA 06, which also delivered on all merits. My anticipation grew with the upcoming release of Winning Eleven 9. I had to play the next version as soon as possible, especially with the ongoing World Cup championship gauging my awareness. I skipped out on buying it when it first released with my hopes lying towards a 360 version in development, but, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. The Xbox version will suffice until Konami announces the release date of Winning Eleven 10.

With the Xbox version, Konami has implemented online support for the first time ever in North America. You’ll be able to hop right into a match or search for a suitable opponent. The headset is open for use – online trash talking here I come! Winning Eleven 9 also includes an online league system. Five different divisions make up the league system: Division 1, Division 2, Division 3A, Division 3B, and for the newcomers, the Amateur league. The more you play and win, the better the chances you’ll move up to a new league. If you aren’t playing for stats and wins, there are lobbies with no restrictions and where losses do not matter. The lag throughout my matches has been minimal.

If you have played Winning Eleven 7 or 8, you’ll feel right at home with this iteration. The gameplay options that are open to play include: master league career mode, quick match, custom league & cup modes, online play, edit mode, and, of course, training. I’ll begin with the quick match, since that is the easiest to describe – it is for those who want to hastily jump into a match without any hesitation. Moving on, the edit mode is intensively the most important mode on Winning Eleven 9. Why you ask? It’s simply because Konami lacks any of the important licenses to have real player names, leagues, and club teams. Konami over the past few years has acquired smaller league’s licenses along with their clubs. Still to this day though, the authenticity of real players and teams is a huge drawback. The edit mode helps relieve the pain of losing all the named players. The editing tools allow are extensive and in-depth, so making your favorite player is easier than ever before.

The meat of Winning Eleven 9 is found in the master league career mode. There are two ways to play the career mode – with ‘real rosters’ or ‘fictional rosters.’ Basically, the fictional rosters are unskilled players without any resemblance to any player. The real players at least bare some resemblance of who they are ‘supposed’ to be. I recommend not using the fictional roster due to that it will be tremendously harder to win a game. If you can not win a game, be prepared for the career to come to an end. The more games you win, the more points you’ll earn to pay your team’s salary at the end of the season.

The master league career mode may sound hard, but, the difficulty only comes with the danger of losing your job. The financial and business side of things is much easier than it sounds. The actual decisions you’ll make include starting line-ups, keeping the players happy, and in-game decisions of substitutions. Injuries will pop up, fatigue will kick in, youngsters will want playing time, and of course winning games is important. The career mode is deep enough to keep the attention of the player for a few years into the game.

Playing the actual game is rewarding to every soccer fan alive – the improvement from Winning Eleven 8 to Winning Eleven 9 is immense. The control of the players and how they handle is what stands out. When you have possession of the ball, the teammates will act accordingly to assist you on the field. With realistic animations, it’s beautiful to watch in motion a brilliant soccer game such as Winning Eleven 9. The best way to play Winning Eleven 9 is to distribute the ball around the field with several passes. Passing is essential in all game plans if you want to win. Especially since the CPU has a keen sense of defense; it will be hard to break through deep into their side of the field.

Is Winning Eleven 9 the ultimate soccer game? No, it still needs a little refining with online play and its career mode. What’s needed is more licenses and genuineness. More clubs, teams, leagues, and players would only be beneficial to the fanatics venturing out to buy their next soccer game.

Gameplay: 9.5
This has to be the best soccer game I have played. If you have any of your edit saves from Winning Eleven 8, you can upload them into Winning Eleven 9 and save time on changing all the player’s names.

Graphics: 9.0
The menus still could use work, even after the overhaul they have done. When paired up against other soccer games, I’d lean towards Winning Eleven 9 having the tops in graphics for current generation of consoles (PS2/Xbox/Cube).

Sound: 8.5
Japanese music is an awkward fit in Winning Eleven 9. I didn’t enjoy it up until I became used to it. Now that I am used to it, I prefer it over the EA rap heavy soundtracks for their sport titles.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
The soccer players will adapt smoothly into playing Winning Eleven 9. Once you learn how to play, it’s as easy as one, two, and three!

Concept: 8.0
The concept of a sports title isn’t a hard one to think up. I do like that they are improving with every year and continue to push the envelope further. They’ll need licenses to compete in sales with EA.

Multiplayer: 8.5
For the first time in the series, online is available. Having online capabilities, that alone makes the game worth the price. Being it’s the first time the series has offered online, I’ll judge it accordingly. Its debut on Xbox Live is good but not great.

Overall: 9.3
To all those Xbox 360 players, this isn’t currently backwards compatible. The graphics aren’t as beautiful as FIFA on the 360, but they get the job done. This is as close to a complete package you can get.