World Tour Soccer 2006

Written by Adam Woolcott  on July 22, 2005

Review: Look out world, I'm playing for a 5th rate soccer club within a video game!

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On a platform where both Winning Eleven and FIFA dominate all comers in both sales and critical acclaim, Sony's got quite a hill to climb with their own soccer franchise, known as World Tour Soccer on our shores (and known as This Is Football in Europe). Their dedication to keeping it going in the face of the two juggernauts is admirable, even though none of the WTS releases on PS2 have been able to take any thunder away from the Big Two. Such is the case with World Tour Soccer 2006 Ц thanks to a nice feature set and a very nice career mode, it's at least competent and worth experimenting with, but the ragged gameplay cannot even touch the more polished and playable PSP version (typing that seems so shocking). Those looking for an alternative to Winning Eleven or FIFA might find something here, but for the most part you're stuck with those, since WTS really doesn't stack up.

World Tour Soccer 2006 features full licenses so you'll find your favorite teams and players from pretty much the entire world, and you can use them in many different gametypes, from a league play setup (something even missing from the PSP version), tournaments, cups, and exhibition setups. Again though, no online play. What it does have is a very cool Career mode that takes you through the ranks of soccer on the way to becoming a superstar. After you create your player, you can either use a generic face or use the EyeToy to map your own hideous mug into the game for authenticity's sake. From there you join up with a small, grassroots team and work your way up the ranks, from amateur leagues to semi-pro to lesser professional levels Ц until you make it to the big boys and sign with a major-league club. The only thing required is dedication and patience; it takes many in-game years and many individual contests to work your way to the big leagues. And considering how sloppy the gameplay is, that might not be a possibility.

Because I played through the PSP version of this game first, I expected speedy gameplay with decent controls along with dopey AI at times considering it was technically ported down from the PS2. What I got was a frequently and psychotically fast game with sometimes unresponsive controls with incompetent AI on a constant basis. Much of the issues come from overdone animations that take precious seconds to run their course and slow down the response time of the controller. It doesn't help the characters run around like they got shot up with an IV full of sugar and caffiene which makes controlling them very, very difficult. Opposed to the graceful Winning Eleven and the steady FIFA, it seems far too arcadey Ц hell it's more arcadey than Midway's now-dead Red Card franchise ever was. Apparently WTS was built for the crowd who just like to see lots of action and scoring, and not the strategy that usually goes into a soccer match.

Another hassle is the slapstick AI. On the default difficulty, the opposing players are total idiots and let you run around and score pretty much at will, and your own defensive AI isn't much brighter. I only fear how dumb the 'amateur' difficulty level is. Bumping it up a notch does make for a somewhat normal contest, but the challenge ramp-up is almost unexplainable since one is completely stupid and the other is actually fairly tough. There's no sliders either, so no fine-tuning the AI for maximum enjoyment. Actually, enjoyment is the most difficult thing to find in this game; though the more arcadey play might appeal to some (such as the folks who only get excited at Olympic or World Cup time), the haphazard speed and subsequent control hassles likely won't win many fans. Balancing the action and making the game more friendly to fans of WE or FIFA should be the next step for the inevitable WTS 2007.

The graphics of WTS are fairly sharp, with a solid frame rate and well-designed players. Though they move like crackheads on speed, they all have good animations even if they drone on too long at times. On the other hand the players all feel very robotic in emotion, going about their business without much fanfare. Considering how much people get worked up about a simple soccer match, this is a bit weird. Stadiums are nice, and it really feels like you've hit the big time when you work through the smaller leagues and arenas in the Career mode. On the audio end, the hilarious announcers shine...but not really for a good thing. They know the player names and call them out properly, but tend to get way too excited over simple or even bad things on the field. It's like the anti-MLB announce team where they get excited over nothing; these guys get excited when a player ties his shoes in a double knot, I bet. Otherwise, the crowds are wild like a real gang of hooligans, chanting and taunting and generally being said hooligans. They almost make NASCAR fans seem normal. Almost.