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Apr 09 2005
World Soccer Tour Review
PSP Game Review | Sports
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| Summary: Nice, but far from perfect
73
Americans and soccer, two things that go together like President Bush and brains.
It’s therefore quite a surprise that not one, but two soccer games are coming to the PSP in it’s launch-window (Although FIFA seems to have fallen out of this window, let’s just hope it gets a safe landing).
As a Belgian (or how do you call people from the great, but oh so small country Belgium?) living in Canada, I get almost beaten to death with hockey-terms. Wherever you go, people are talking about it. And although there is no hockey this season, they still manage to show this great North American sport on television every day.
I love the game called soccer (or football if you are English). I love to watch it on television and I get near ecstatic when there is a Champions League game on television that promises to deliver the goods (goals, drama, incidents and more goals). I told myself (and my wallet) to wait for the FIFA game, as the World tour soccer games on the PS2, are mediocre at best.
But the EA game has slipped to late April, so World Tour Soccer it is. While I am a real fan of the Winning Eleven series on PS2 (Pro evolution soccer called in Europe), I had no big expectations for this one.
But to my surprise, it was not all bad. It has some decent features and some captivating game play.
When I first turned the on-knob on my PSP for this game I was pleasantly surprised to find some very decent and clean menu’s. After the obligatory quick-match, I started to look for a career mode. After a length search, I thought I might had to go back to the shop. My World Tour Soccer didn’t include this essential element in a soccer game. A look in the booklet took away my last hope. No career mode in this game. What you do get is a cup mode, challenge mode, multiplayer and the previously mentioned exhibition mode. A bit disappointed about this, I started, although reluctantly (yes I am some times a little child when I don’t get what I want) playing in the cup mode. It was however the challenge mode that got most of my attention after a while. Here you rewarded with point for almost every move you make. You make a world goal, you will see your total increase rapidly, you get a yellow card, point are deducted. Cool, I thought, but what was I going to do with this fictive points? Well it turned out that with this points you can unlock a whole bunch of goodies, going from the ball they used in the 5o’s to England’s famous 1966 team. Nice touch and very addictive.
It took me a while before I could find a person who I could try the multiplayer with. Everybody I asked said : “Soccer? No dude, but what about a round of Gretzky?”. Silly me, But my search delivered me a guinea pig and I must say, Multiplayer rocks. Although there is some frame rate drop in some places, that you don’t see in the single player, it’s refreshing to play against another human. Too bad this is the only 989’s sport launch game that doesn’t include online play.
When the PSP was announced, nearly PS2 graphics where promised. While games like Wipeout pure and ridge racers are gorgeous on my PSP, World Tour Soccer is definitely far below PS2 graphics. The view while playing the game is from far and the players are badly detailed, with sometimes faces without eyes, ears,.. etc. The only time players are shown from close up, you do see some resemblance with their real life counterparts. But don’t blink or you will have missed it, because the replays are extremely short. The players move in a realistic way, but their legs are blurred while running, because of this they seem to have three legs. Bizarre to say the least. The slidings and tackles are realistic although your players seem to have unlimited energy, they just keep running.
The major problem besides the graphics, is the AI of the game. Your opponent sometimes seem to be a spectator, rather then really participating in the match. And this is where the differences with a game like for example Winning Eleven is made, in the details. At a certain time I shot on goal, the ball clearly missed, even in the replay, but still the PSP insisted I made the equalizer. Passing is intuitive and fast and controlling your players feels natural. Although if you use the directional buttons, I found the players going in squares, switching to the analog stick, made this problem disappear.
The team has nearly 250 teams and the commentator know all their players by name. But that’s it. When a player receives a pass, his name is mentioned, when he tries a shot, his name is yelled. The commentary is very sparse and I missed some nice anecdotes or remarks. The audience and the ball sound is on the spot.
Overall I found World tour soccer not a bad game, but it’s not good either. It has some nice game play, and I keep going back to play it, but it’s AI gaps, mediocre graphics and small mistakes make it far from perfect. I am expecting that FIFA will be better but it will only until the release of Winning Eleven on the PSP (scheduled for late this year) that my soccer need is satisfied. Until then I will be playing World tour soccer, and have fun with it.
Pro’s : fun game play, great challenge mode
Con’s : Mediocre graphics, troublesome AI at times, small mistakes
Overall : 73 / 100
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Comments
Good review.
I had low expectations too on this game and just cleared them up.
I'm a huge fan of Winning Eleven too and hopefully they'll release it for the PSP. In the mean time, I guess I'll buy FIFA when it comes out.
Greetings from Mexico
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Sounds just like the liberal Piss Ant thinking.
I think that this game is fairly weak and the controls are pretty bad. FIFA will blow this game away.edited: Apr 10 2005
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RonBurgundy said: "Sounds just like the liberal Piss Ant thinking.
I think that this game is fairly weak and the controls are pretty bad. FIFA will blow this game away."
The controls in the game is one of the only things that is good and gives for some nice gameplay, but a soccer-simulation it's definately not.
Fifa is good, but no match for winning eleven. Fifa wil be the best game until konami's games comes along
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hey whatever, i think i've read somewhere about FIFA for PSP that it won't have career mode just like the PS2 version  i'm expecting to play the career mode, which is the best and most addictive on the PS2. maybe EA team is trying to put in a career mode, since they've been delaying the release date.
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