Winning Eleven 9 has the capability to deliver an experience that quenches any soccer fans thirst.
Winning Eleven has pretty much everything you could want from a soccer game. There are a ton of teams and leagues covered, such as everybody’s favorite UK soccer teams, though Manchester is suspiciously absent…
You have the capability to take your teams through their seasons, upping your characters skill as they play, and competing against other teams. The league mode is extremely complete, offering player injuries, fatigue, and a variety of other factors that complete the soccer immersion.
There are also quick match modes that offer you the opportunity to test your skills if, say, Brazil played against Arsenal, or the Brazilian team played against Bulgaria. It’s a great deal of fun and while it doesn’t settle the “what if” scenarios, it certainly gives bragging rights to whomever wins.
Though the game doesn’t have online mode, there is ad hoc multiplayer, and an incredibly challenging computer. On easy, anybody can learn and play, but raise the computers difficulty to the max, and it will soon have you gnashing your teeth with anger; they are a lot better than you, and they aren’t afraid to destroy you.
The gameplay system allows you an unrivaled system of control, allowing you to juke your opponent effectively with a few taps of the button. While this takes some getting used to, it’s an absolutely amazing system that replicates almost perfectly professional soccer maneuvers.
Previous iterations had announcers for the games commentating on what just happened, who did what, etc. These are noticeably absent, but the audience is still there, following the action with the level of cheering, slowly rising as you bring the ball in for a goal, and exploding when you score.
There are a variety of unlockables, such as teams, players, harder difficulty, and a variety of other options and goodies. It’s an added bonus to playing the game, as you accumulate points to grab some of the goodies offered.
The graphics are amazing for a handheld, with crisp animation, beautiful models, and a framerate that remains generally constant with the exception of corner kicks when everybody is bunched in the goal box.
This is the game that soccer fans need to convince them to get a PSP, and if this is an indication of the amount of effort put into future Winning Eleven games, then the PSP is going to have some serious staying power for sports fans.