Winning Eleven 2007 has terrible defensive play and shooting, and an exodus of features as well as mediocre graphics mak
User Rating: 7 | Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 X360
This is the Winning Eleven series' first encounter on the Xbox 360, and, unfortunately, it's a fairly poor one. First off the gameplay. Passing is top-notch, and crossing has seen a very noticable improvement. Through passes are many times too long and well overshot, sometimes a quarter of the field in front of the player. Shooting was one of the best parts of WE9. Unfortunately, Konami has decided to revamp the system, making the meter extremely sensative and decreasing the accuracy of the shot severly. The result is some of the worst shooting in any soccer game. It's impossible to score from even inside the box. Either the defender will steal the ball before I could shoot, or the shot will go well wide, even though I was facing and was very near the goal. The misses I made were shocking, and yes, my players did miss an open net sometimes. It doesn't seem to matter how far I filled the meter, either. I would fill it a tenth of the way, and the shot will go well over. I can't believe that they changed this aspect, and turned it from good to ridiculous. The defensive play is still very poor. The one good thing is that there are far less fouls, and the referees card your opponents more. However, the play is still horribly imbalanced. In one-on-one confrontations, the CPU is always favored. It doesn't matter whether you are on offense or defense, the CPU will always manuvere and tackle better and more effeciently than you can. This is the one place where FIFA 07 easily trounces WE10. In FIFA, I always had confidence in my defense. When my opponent tackled me, I knew I could get the ball back, because, defense-wise, it was an even playing field. Sometimes in WE10, I would literally outnumber my opponents 4 to 1 and the attacker will still get past me. The only way I got the ball back was from interceptions. I could not keep the ball after a tackle, as the opponent would usually just steal the ball back with ease. The AI is also very poor. They will leave players wide open, and will hardly manmark. While my opponents could tackle and steal with ease, I could almost never steal from my opponents. Formation settings have become less as well. Line defense, zone pressure, and covering are all taken away, and the defensive play suffers more because of that. Challenge training, which I absolutely loved in the previous installment, is now completely gone. The ability to create teams and players is absent, as well as the ability to make transfers via the edit screen. In fact, you can only edit players. You can't edit teams, cup and league names, or stadiums. There are only eight stadiums. WE9 had thirty-four. The WE shop is also gone, and while most of the features it normally has to purchase are automatically unlocked, it gives you less of a feeling of accomplishment and less to do after you have completed the major leagues and cups. Graphically, the game isn't very attractive. It certaintly isn't up to the caliber of the majority of 360 games. Some players look ugly close up, and there tends to be lag after you schedule a substitution. In conclusion, Winning Eleven 2007 has terrible defensive play and shooting, and an exodus of features as well as mediocre graphics makes the first installment on the 360 one to be skipped. 3 out of 5 
