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Winning Eleven 9 Review - PS2
Score: 
By: Martin Hawkins
Date: Tuesday, 13 September, 2005
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Winning Eleven 9 |
| Game Type: Action |
| Developer: Konami |
| Publisher: Konami |
| Platform: PS2 |
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This is the best iteration of the series yet. An unusual way to start a review, I know, but I don't want you getting the wrong idea on my views as you progress through. Konami have produced an excellent example of a football simulation, of that there is no doubt, but the feeling that they could've done more or spent more time tweaking the released product hasn't escaped me since the first time I played it.
Whenever you pick up the newest Winning Eleven or Pro Evolution game there is always a period of getting used to it before you start to appreciate the depth of the changes made to the gameplay and this time is no different, in fact this time it may take longer to grow accustomed to its ways.
Presentation and Game Modes
As usual the introduction movie that plays on boot shows rendered footballers strutting their stuff that you want to be able to reproduce in the game. This one is a bit different in that it also shows some “street?football action, no idea why but it looks ok.
The main menu has returned to the layout of Winning Eleven 7 and previous releases so does away with the horizontal scrolling big icon fest of last year's games. The familiar options are present ?Exhibition Match, Master League, League, Cup, Training, Edit, Options and Netwok (untestable outside Japan).
There is the addition this time, though, of a new mode “Nippon Challenge ?Go for 2006!?in which you take control of the Japanese National team just before they start their qualifying phase in the quest to reach the World Cup 2006. Assuming you get that far you then compete in the World Cup (International Cup to be precise) and try and bring glory to Japan.
Other than that there are no major changes in the game modes though League mode now allows you to play cup games during the league season, which is a nice touch making the mode seem like more of a proper season than just a plain old league. There is still nothing longer than one season's play but a step in the right direction nonetheless.
The squads used in the game, mainly due to Winning Eleven's August release are already out of date in places and plenty of teams and countries remain unlicensed. It is still easy enough to get an option file correcting most of this (or changing it yourself in the superb edit mode).
Gameplay
So, the important bit. I'll start with the differences to the controls.
Controls
A new shot is available and performed by pressing R2 once the shot gauge is displayed. Assuming the player you're controlling has a bit of space it will result in a more controlled, placed shot struck with the instep of the foot. In practice this works well and is very useful.
This change also means that if you want to cancel a shot you have to press R1+R2 instead of just R2 to get rid of the shot gauge.
Another R2 related change is Konami's decision to make the sidestep (in the past peformed by moving the player to the side with R2 pressed) automatic. That is, if you try and turn 90?without pressing anything else, the player will sidestep in that direction instead of turning and facing the direction you're holding. Apparently this was done to accommodate the PSP version of the game as that console only has the one shoulder button on each side. As R2 is still heavily used, though, in reality it's a change seemingly done for the sake of it and results in there being a lot more sidesteps in a match then you'd expect.
New player ability
There is a new star ability that some players possess called “Middle Shoot.?Players with this skill are deadlier with their long-range shooting. Konami have dished this ability out well with players you'd expect ?Lampard, Veron, Baraja etc. - getting the nod. In-game you're certainly more aware of these players if they are building up to strike a shot from range as they can be deadly given space.
Speed of play
The speed of play has been taken down a notch compared to WE8/PES4 and is pretty much spot on in my opinion. It certainly results in a less arcadey, more realistic pace of football than has been previously provided.
The ball can still be fizzed about, the physics of which are still excellent, maybe even improved as it seems to bounce a bit more with short range passing. Although it seems anal talking about the ball physics it is something that the series has always excelled in and helps in no small way make the game feel a lot more real than its rivals.
Turning circles, ball control and dribbling
Kick-off and something that becomes apparent almost straight away is the time it takes for a player to turn or respond to your control. It takes longer to turn in general meaning you need a good idea of what you want the player to do before he receives it. You will also realise that the ball collections, tweaked in WE8LE - using R1 or R2 with a direction as the player controls the ball - become very important and will be a valuable weapon in keeping the ball and even beating players with your first touch.
Beating players with your first touch is also handy because of the difficulty of dribbling in this version. It's by no means impossible and with someone who is very good at it, Ronaldinho for example, it can be relatively easy to beat a player but try and take on someone with a player who's not so good regularly ends up in losing the ball.
The elastico move or flip-flap (press R2 three times in succession with the right player) introduced in WE8LE remains with the players who have the power (Ronaldinho and Cristiano Ronaldo to name two).
Passing
Passing has been tweaked too. This is mostly noticeable if you rely on quick first time passing quite a lot, if your players aren't quite up to it or are under pressure when you decide to try and pass it quickly you'll notice the pass won't always end up going where you wanted it to or with the power you required. While it sounds annoying, and sometimes it is, it does mean that blindly pressing X to quickly pass throughout your whole team is nowhere near as effective as it has been in previous versions.
Through balls are now a lot harder than they have been recently, in general this is a good thing as you can't expect any player on the pitch to be able to perfectly put a ball through at the right pace for an attacker to latch on to. Should you have someone on the ball with good passing ability and a bit of space they are still as deadly as ever, even lofted high through balls are controlled well. However, a lot of the time a player doesn't have much time on the ball or their passing skill isn't so good so plenty of through balls, in particular high ones, will end up in the safety of the opposition goalkeeper's hands.
I think, however, that any professional footballer has some amount of passing ability and while they won't get a through ball right as often as more skilled passers, they are still able to pass but in WE9 instead of a slightly inaccurate ball being played they are often frustratingly overhit.
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