PC | Gamecube | DS | Wii | PlayStation 2 | PlayStation 3 | PSP | Xbox | Xbox 360

News | Reviews | Previews | Features | Classics | Goodies | Anime | Forums

World Tour Soccer 2005

Score: 7.2 / 10

While not being a huge sports game fan, I know one thing - 989 Sports games haven't exactly had the same sparkle to them as they used to. Their recent GameDay titles, when actually being published, were crushed by EA's Madden games, both in sales and quality. But Sony's still hacking away at it, and has brought us World Tour Soccer 2005, despite skipping over 2004 entirely. This may actually be a turning point for them, as it's a reasonably decent alternative to EA's FIFA and Konami's Winning Eleven.

There's a gigantic slew of options when it comes to teams. Many major nations (and plenty of ones you probably haven't heard of) are represented here, with over 900 teams. If all of that isn't enough, there's an indepth team customization option that lets you design your manager, as well as all of your players. In addition to the quickie exhibition games, there's a competition mode that lets you manage finances and trade players.

World Tour Soccer 2005 maintains a pick-up-and-play attitude when it comes to the control scheme. On defense, most of the buttons let you perform a variety of tackles, while on offense you get options to pass and take a shot. While you don't 

 

- Playstation 2 Game Reviews - Sports Game Reviews - Reviews of Games from Sony

need to know any more than those basics to play the game, you'll find a lot more maneuvers listed in a rather confusing manner in the manual, including a variety of one-two passes and vollies. The shoulder buttons are used for various sprints, spins and dives, while you can change the game plan of your teammates by issuing commands with the analog stick. All of this is a little daunting at first, especially given the lack of onscreen instructions or tutorials, but with a little mid-game manual flipping, you'll get everything figured out nicely.

Advertisement

The game controls pretty smooth, except when your player gets the ball. In perhaps an effort to emulate the awkwardness of dribbling, all of your movements are delayed slightly. It takes more than a little time to get used to the lag, and while perhaps realistic, seems ultimately unnecessary.

Graphically, the character models are competent looking, although nothing special. The default side camera view isn't zoomed out enough, even at the highest setting, but the vertical view fixes everything nicely. There are commentators in four languages - the English version gets a stuffy British guy, but naturally, the Spanish fellow is much more interesting to hear.

There's not a lot to say other than that World Tour Soccer 2005 is a solid game that fans of the sport will find plenty of enjoy. Maybe Sony's finally whipped 989 into shape with this one.

- Kurt Kalata

(June 9, 2004)

Digg this Article!  | del.icio.us

Advertise | Site Map | Staff | RSS Feed

Affiliates:

- BDGamers -   - CnC Den -   - CivFanatics-   - Creative Uncut -   - Darkstation -   - DarkZero -   Devil May Cry   - Dreamstation.cc -   

- Fable 2 -    - GameZone -   - Gaming World X -   - Mario-Kart.net -   - PS2 Fantasy- 

- PS3 : Playstation Universe -   -TalkXbox -   - Zelda Dungeon -

All articles ©2000 - 2008 The Armchair Empire.

All game and anime imagery is the property of their respective owners.

Privacy Statement - Disclaimer