World Soccer Winning Eleven 6 International

"Yes indeed, we can all wipe that slightly nervous look from our faces now – the best footy game ever just got better."

A room service attendant once asked George Best, Miss World in tow and a case of money lavished over the bed sheets, where it all went wrong. Prince Philip aside, never has a comment seemed more misplaced. Like Bestie’s impact on football in the Sixties, Pro Evolution Soccer lightened our meagre lives last year and so when this european release of its sequel arrived almost exactly a year later we met it with both excitement and a little trepidation. So what path has videogame soccer’s favourite son taken?

Well, let’s face it, even if Pro Evo had gone off the rails totally we’d still probably be looking at the second best football sim on our beloved console. What we have instead though is a franchise which has stayed firmly on track – it’s a more mature, revamped game of football that’s made us sit back and realise just how young and impressionable the first edition really was. Konami’s Tokyo development team have certainly not let success go to their heads – they’ve taken on board the criticisms levelled at the first edition and come back stronger and hungrier than ever before.

If you’ve read the Statistics you’ll know that there are a number of new animations within the game, which means a number of new player reactions. This all stems from the new attribute system that has seen players designed with over 25 new skill factors (ported from Championship Manager) including shot and pass accuracy, dribbling speed, special abilities and stamina. Players mirror their real-life selves exceptionally, so you’ll know when controlling lightweight Juninho not to go shoulder to shoulder with Steven Gerrard and likewise never to shoot with Phil Neville.

It is these sort of decisions that will win or lose games. Possession is now much harder to retain in the midfield and even more so than before you must get your star players involved in the match – it will be these individuals who are capable of unlocking even the tightest defences.

Depending on the type of pass received players of differing skill will take more touches to control and then distribute, hence the new stretch animation. This means that not only will you have to get used to the generally looser on-pitch physics, you’ll also play better by remembering the capabilities of certain members of your team; the realism has evolved very positively and a quick return to the original will prove the new enhancements to be less subtle than you may initially think.

In fact, there really is no comparison in terms of gameplay to the other leading football titles – Pro Evolution 2 is leagues ahead of both This Is Football 2003 and FIFA 2003. It does, however, concede defeat in less important departments because of the lack of a licence. Unlike said
other titles there are no bona fide named and structured tournaments. And, yep, you guessed it, the scurge of the hard-core footy fan and clean-living (read: anal) sub editor has also reared its head – the misspelt player name.

Considering the cracking gameplay in the first Pro Evo, these deliberate errors were more of a superficial wound than a case of internal haemorrhaging, but as inconsequential as it was, it was still irritating. Thank goodness then that, although default misnomers still exist here, they are now considerably less annoying due to the inclusion of Konami’s comprehensive Edit mode.

This is a beautiful place where the more patient and pernickety amongst us footy fans have the opportunity to correct player names, update hairstyles and even alter beard growth, skin tone and skill level. The world’s most famous football institutions are also given the silly name treatment – Liverpool appear as Europort, West Ham as the Lake District and, if you can get any weirder, Man Utd are called Aragon. You can change these frankly ridiculous monikers in the Edit mode too, but during the game the new commentary team of Peter Brackley and Trevor Brooking will still refer to them using the original one, which isn’t unforgivable, but still irritating.

Being as sad as I am, obvious (if only slight) factual inadequacies do bother me and being afforded the opportunity to correct them is like manna from heaven. Which all in all means that what you’re looking at on this page is videogame soccer in its purest and most enjoyable form developed by an obviously passionate team for an obviously passionate market.

An intelligently enhanced Master League and player attribute system coupled with the cleverest ball physics and player movement yet seen on the PS2 means that Pro Evo remains the finest soccer brand on the market. It was the benchmark for all PS2 soccer sims (FIFA even changed its control system in homage) and its sequel has upped the ante even further. Yes indeed, we can all wipe that slightly nervous look from our faces now – the best footy game ever just got better.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/03, Updated 04/13/03