World Tour Soccer 2006 is a good game, but due to repetitive fan models sloppy AI, even the announcer, it's not "great."
The gameplay of World Tour Soccer 2006 is comprised of a sluggish AI, zone and target aim system, and referees that seem to give cards to only you, even if the computer handballs on tackles 30% of the time. The good part is that the computer will be gunning when you get close, so all it takes is a short step to the side or in the opposite direction to throw the computer’s defense off. The bad is that your own team’s ball recovery AI off of goal kicks, aerial passes, corner kicks, and punts is equally bad. Your strikers also seem to become distracted with getting out of your way, so much as to hiding behind the computer or off screen to make passing slightly rough, but the shooting system seems quite developed along the lines of putting dips and curves on the shot ball. The power meter of shots and aerial passing is pretty sensitive, so you mainly stick to shooting along the ground. The auto-crossing zone is a nice addition to the game, for offensive purposes anyway. The zones outside the sides of the penalty box are auto crossing zones, which are pretty self-explanatory, the ball is automatically crossed when using the aerial pass button, the distance depends on how long you hold it in. The game lets you know when you are inside an auto-crossing zone when the center of the player indicator dissipates. The gameplay is only semi-solid, but its still fun. It makes up for a lot in comparison of the lost value in the graphics and sound departments.
The graphics of this game are a far cry from great. Although the eye toy is a nice development, the graphics are far from the original. The players don’t look like their real life counterparts, and some even are made using the games create a player tools, so there is no likeness to the actual players themselves. For example: Ronaldinho’s video game counterpart looks nothing like Ronaldinho, even the hair is wrong.
The sounds aren’t much of an improvement from the graphics. Repetition of announcer commentary is probably the second most annoying sound drawback of this game (the first being the repetition of one maybe two songs on the menu screens). A feature that I would hope to be improved for the next game is music playing during gameplay.
This game is good if you’re looking for a multiplayer sport game for you and some of your friends to play, or if you’re looking for a game that you could play with your fantasy teams from the FIFA World Cup finals, or modern stars. But don’t go paying full price for it, go get it used or when it’s in the bargain bin, it’s not worth $30.