Previews// World Soccer Winning Eleven (DS)
You're going home in a Fukuoka Ambulance!
It’s that time of the week again: another new Winning Eleven release! Yes, Konami is more prolific than Didier Drogba of late. But we’re always pretty confident that KCE will deliver quality goods. Usually, that means lots of subtle improvements and up-to-the-minute player/team info. Not so here. World Soccer Winning Eleven DS is retrograde, and seemingly proud about the fact.
In the chronology of Konami’s footy career, Winning Eleven DS would fall somewhere between Fighting Eleven 2 on the Super Famicom (aka ISS Deluxe) and Winning Eleven 3 on the PSone. It is 3D, but with a polygon count that you can measure using an abacus.
Fortunately, the gameplay from those vintages is also preserved – slightly improved, even - with closer control than WE3 married to the arcade-style pacing of FE2. As a result, it’s easy to dive into Winning Eleven DS whether or not you have past experience with the series. It’s a leveller, really, and that is a good thing as far as wi-fi play is concerned.
We’ve been playing the final Japanese code for almost a week, and it’s fair to say that some things here are great while other things just grate. Firstly, then, the things which we’re not happy with:
There’s no commentary, and the sound effects are crap of the crappiest order. The ref’s whistle sounds like a sample of 'No:87, Whistle’ from a £19.99 Casio-10 keyboard, which is also badly compressed. The ball, when kicked, reminds me of a time when I kicked a sack of spuds during some enthusiastic grocery shopping in a Japanese supermarket. It’s as painful on the ears as it was to my left foot.
The ball tends to float when kicked long. We do remember this phenomenon from 'Back in The Day', but we’d forgotten just how much a floaty long ball detracts from play. Of course, the solution (as in real life) is to use the long ball sparingly…
Marching On Together! Not
Where are the club teams? Only ten club sides – 10! – from the whole of Europe are included here. And even worse, Leeds United is not among them! Is Konami trying deliberately to get us angry?
If the midfield is crowded, there can be some fairly intrusive slowdown. It doesn’t happen too often, admittedly, but when it does happen, you’ll know it’s not your eyes that are knackered – it’s the game engine.
No Master League? Not here in the Japanese version, at least. Instead, there’s a mode called World Tour in which you take an ‘Original Team’ (i.e. a fake team full of players who aren’t real: a striker called Castro, really, a revolutionary concept indeed) on a trip through the world rankings, with the goal of becoming the world’s greatest. The world’s greatest made-up team? Can we have our leagues back, please?
Penalty kicks are broken! We’re not sure of the reasoning behind this decision, but Konami has opted to reduce the art of penalty taking to a shootout equivalent of bingo. The goal is split into six tiles (two rows of three) and you simply have to select a destination, and then tap to shoot/dive in that direction. There’s nothing to it. Our first penalty shoot-out finished 24-23 and (former Leeds United ‘keeper) Paul Robinson scored twice.
In the chronology of Konami’s footy career, Winning Eleven DS would fall somewhere between Fighting Eleven 2 on the Super Famicom (aka ISS Deluxe) and Winning Eleven 3 on the PSone. It is 3D, but with a polygon count that you can measure using an abacus.
We’ve been playing the final Japanese code for almost a week, and it’s fair to say that some things here are great while other things just grate. Firstly, then, the things which we’re not happy with:
There’s no commentary, and the sound effects are crap of the crappiest order. The ref’s whistle sounds like a sample of 'No:87, Whistle’ from a £19.99 Casio-10 keyboard, which is also badly compressed. The ball, when kicked, reminds me of a time when I kicked a sack of spuds during some enthusiastic grocery shopping in a Japanese supermarket. It’s as painful on the ears as it was to my left foot.
The ball tends to float when kicked long. We do remember this phenomenon from 'Back in The Day', but we’d forgotten just how much a floaty long ball detracts from play. Of course, the solution (as in real life) is to use the long ball sparingly…
Marching On Together! Not
Where are the club teams? Only ten club sides – 10! – from the whole of Europe are included here. And even worse, Leeds United is not among them! Is Konami trying deliberately to get us angry?
If the midfield is crowded, there can be some fairly intrusive slowdown. It doesn’t happen too often, admittedly, but when it does happen, you’ll know it’s not your eyes that are knackered – it’s the game engine.
No Master League? Not here in the Japanese version, at least. Instead, there’s a mode called World Tour in which you take an ‘Original Team’ (i.e. a fake team full of players who aren’t real: a striker called Castro, really, a revolutionary concept indeed) on a trip through the world rankings, with the goal of becoming the world’s greatest. The world’s greatest made-up team? Can we have our leagues back, please?
