Winning Eleven Upgraded
How, you ask? Well, you'll just have to read on to find out.
Published: August 23, 2006
It's official: Konami's Winning Eleven series is now the best-selling soccer game worldwide. Oh, it's still struggling to topple EA's reign here in the States with FIFA, but in countries that actually dig soccer, WE (or Pro Evolution Soccer if you want to be proper about it), Konami's version of footy has won people over, and with good reason: it's a fantastic soccer sim.
But we're heading into another generation of hardware, and as 989 Sports demonstrated with the jump from PS one to PS2, it's not enough to just upgrade the textures and call it a day. EA poured considerable resources into making Madden look like a next-gen game, and Sony's sports division was never really able to keep up. As a result, the series that many found was better on the PlayStation died a slow and painful death on the PS2, leaving EA open to lock in the exclusive license on football and shut out the only remaining competition: 2K Sports' NFL 2K series.
Konami, apparently, doesn't want to see that happen with this hardware transition, and though we won't actually get a PS3 version of the game until next year at the soonest (Xbox 360 owners get to enjoy a nice visual upgrade this year unthreatened by a next-gen competitor), the transition to next-gen means us current-gen chumps can at least benefit from hand-me-downs.
For starters, the artificial intelligence for the players on the pitch will see an across the board improvement. Players will jostle for control, keep battles heavy in the midfield where the series has always been strong, refrain from going offside too much, and will generally just press harder and act smarter. Specifically, we're talking about the computer pressing the opposition as they receive passes, having enough situational awareness to run to proper positions when they don't have the ball.
Shooting has been improved, allowing strikers to flick more snap shots into the goal, while things like volleys and half-volleys have been refined. Ball carriers can now use feint moves to psyche out defenders, or dribble backwards for more protection. All of this will come in handy, because the PS2 version of the game will actually allow eight players to square off at a time (in an interesting twist, the Xbox Live play on the 360 is only two-player).
Konami's pressure to get more licenses has paid off, as they've managed to score the usage rights for Portugal's Sporting Lisbon and Benfice, the French League, and uniforms (though apparently not players) from the English, French, Italian, Argentinian, Swedish, Spanish, Czech and Australian teams. The PSP version of the game will apparently be more or less identical to its console big brother with the exception of online play. Though it's still being worked out, it's possible we'll see more career mode data transfers between the versions as well.
The game doesn't properly hit until early next year (January 9th, for those looking for day and date), but we'll make sure to update you on things as they come in.
But we're heading into another generation of hardware, and as 989 Sports demonstrated with the jump from PS one to PS2, it's not enough to just upgrade the textures and call it a day. EA poured considerable resources into making Madden look like a next-gen game, and Sony's sports division was never really able to keep up. As a result, the series that many found was better on the PlayStation died a slow and painful death on the PS2, leaving EA open to lock in the exclusive license on football and shut out the only remaining competition: 2K Sports' NFL 2K series.
Konami, apparently, doesn't want to see that happen with this hardware transition, and though we won't actually get a PS3 version of the game until next year at the soonest (Xbox 360 owners get to enjoy a nice visual upgrade this year unthreatened by a next-gen competitor), the transition to next-gen means us current-gen chumps can at least benefit from hand-me-downs.
For starters, the artificial intelligence for the players on the pitch will see an across the board improvement. Players will jostle for control, keep battles heavy in the midfield where the series has always been strong, refrain from going offside too much, and will generally just press harder and act smarter. Specifically, we're talking about the computer pressing the opposition as they receive passes, having enough situational awareness to run to proper positions when they don't have the ball.
Shooting has been improved, allowing strikers to flick more snap shots into the goal, while things like volleys and half-volleys have been refined. Ball carriers can now use feint moves to psyche out defenders, or dribble backwards for more protection. All of this will come in handy, because the PS2 version of the game will actually allow eight players to square off at a time (in an interesting twist, the Xbox Live play on the 360 is only two-player).
Konami's pressure to get more licenses has paid off, as they've managed to score the usage rights for Portugal's Sporting Lisbon and Benfice, the French League, and uniforms (though apparently not players) from the English, French, Italian, Argentinian, Swedish, Spanish, Czech and Australian teams. The PSP version of the game will apparently be more or less identical to its console big brother with the exception of online play. Though it's still being worked out, it's possible we'll see more career mode data transfers between the versions as well.
The game doesn't properly hit until early next year (January 9th, for those looking for day and date), but we'll make sure to update you on things as they come in.
