Dan Winkler provides our first video game review. After you read this review, you’ll want to pick one up. But one lucky ArseAm’er is going to win a copy (PlayStation 2 version), AND a cool Winning Eleven 6 soccer jersey. It will go to the first person who can email me the answer to the following question:
What year and month was Arsenal America created? Hint, you can find the answer on this website.
Ok, here’s Dan…
Let’s see. The computer makes weird first-half tactical substitutions. The ref doesn’t play the advantage rule. And that’s it - that’s about all that’s wrong with Winning Eleven 6 soccer from Konami.
Well, that last sentence isn’t entirely correct. There are a few other things that aren’t perfect about this game right out of the box, but since the game is so customizable - another strength - the problems can be fixed with a little bit of work.
Frustrated that your favorite player isn’t in the game? That’s easily solved, either by editing an existing player or by creating your own. Editing player and teams names is necessary, by the way, because some club and national teams (hello, Holland!) did not sell their naming rights to Konami.
Can’t score a goal to save your life? Just go through the extensive training mode, and you should hone your skills in a couple of hours or so. Of course, you’ll have to put in more work than that if you want to get really good. Part of the fun is how challenging this game is - you won’t play it for a couple of weeks and then get bored.
The best thing about this game is Master League Mode, a three-division competition where the goal is to climb from the bottom of Division 3 all the way to the top of Division 1. It’s not easy, because you start out with a rag-tag bunch of no-names - these guys make Sylvester Stallone’s character in Victory (Robert Hatch, for all you trivie buffs) look like an all-star. The only way you can compete is by spending money in the transfer market. But the only way to get money is to win or draw your matches. Run out of money and it’s game over.
Of course, this isn’t quite as difficult as it sounds, because you can customize the level of difficulty. Once you get familiar with the basic controls, you should be able to get promoted fairly quickly and build a pretty good team in just a couple of seasons, at least on Easy level. If you take it up a notch to Normal, then the challenge is a little trickier. I can’t comment on the other levels because I haven’t dared to play them yet.
There are other modes, like tournament play, that unlock some goodies if you win. For instance, if you win the European Cup playing with Holland, you unlock the Heroic Holland team, featuring all-time greats like Marco Van Basten and Ruud Gullit. Win the same Cup with France and you unlock the Forever France team, letting you see what it’s like to play with the great Michel Platini.
Other great stuff:
-You can individually control each player on your team and dictate how attack- or defense-minded he is? My custom team, cleverly called Arsenal, has Stephen Carr at right-back, and he’s all attack. But I’ve commanded Sol Campbell in central defense to hang back most of the time.
-You can recruit and train promising players, letting you bypass the transfer market altogether.
-You can save great goals to your memory card.
-You can designate who your captain is. I don’t think it does anything, but it’s pretty cool.
Recently, I spent $50 on a well-known soccer game - probably the best-known game out there - that features authentic uniforms (complete with sponsors), as well as team-specific chants from the fans. After one week of playing the game, I often found myself cursing that it was the worst $50 I’ve ever spent. All the bells and whistles in the world won’t save a poorly designed game, and this one was a stinker.
Winning Eleven 6, although not the prettiest game on the market, has its priorities in order - its gameplay is second to none. And when you combine the great gameplay with the amount of customization that’s available, this game is the best soccer video game I’ve ever played, period, and one of the best sports games.
One final note: If you’re struggling at all with the game there are a lot of great resources available on the Internet. One helpful place is the Games forum on BigSoccer.com, which has a detailed thread dedicated to Winning Eleven 6. Another great resource is gamefaqs.com.
Thanks Dan. If you’ve read this far, you’ll be interested in these other reviews of the game:
GamePro said: “Soccer fans looking for a viable alternative to EA and the FIFA juggernaut will finally have something of a choice early next year…”
Here’s a line from GameSpot: “The Winning Eleven games are the best selling PS2 soccer games in
Europe, ahead of EA Sports’ FIFA series.”
Thanks to the guys at ElectricArtists and Konami for providing a review copy and the extra copy and jersey for the giveaway. Find out more about the game at http://www.electricartists.com/winning11/assets.html
9 Responses to “Winning Eleven 6”
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April 21st, 2003 at 10:32 pm
Anybody know if this is coming out for Xbox anytime soon?
April 22nd, 2003 at 9:32 am
Dan, are you familiar with Konamis game for the Nintendo 64? International Superstar Soccer was , in my opinion, the best soccer title on the market. Perhaps not for graphics but for play control and challenge. In the EA Sports I have found little quality in player control though the graphics are fantastic. Also, in EA sports I either win 5-0 on pro mode or lose continuously in world class mode. ISS I could at least anticipate a hard fought game where the result was fair.
April 22nd, 2003 at 11:04 am
Thanks Dan.
Question: Can you be Arsenal in this game? Do they have the license for the EPL, or do you have to create a team.
How is the team creation by the way? Can I create and sub in myself (fat balding guy with 4.0 speed in the 40 and a rocket right leg).
April 22nd, 2003 at 4:32 pm
OK, here’s the deal with Arsenal. You can rename the team that *is* Arsenal (called London), but the announcer (Peter Brackley) will always refer to you as London. However, there are some teams that you can get the announcer to call by their proper names once you win a certain tournament. But that only works on some teams, namely teams that are named after well-known cities. That’s in order to avoid licensing issues.
So my team reads “Arsenal” on all the screens, but Brackley calls them London. However, I could change “Aragon” to Manchester United on the screen, and then when I won the tournament the announcer would refer to them as ManU. Honestly, it’s not really a problem for me, since I pretty much turn down the announcers, anyway.
Player creation gives you full control, from physicial appearance to actual skills. For example, I created myself (also a fat balding guy), but I unrealistically made myself two-footed (hell, I’m not even one-footed!). I was trying to make myself a D-Mid, since my team needed one, but instead I got some galloping nightmare who has a hard time controlling the ball because I didn’t invest enough in dribbling skills. D’oh!
And actually, Andrew, you’ve given me an idea - it would be very easy to create an Arsenal America team, manned (and womanned) by real members. How weird would that be. Only problem I could see is that there’s no mascot feature in this game, so I’m not sure what we’d do with G. Rex…
April 22nd, 2003 at 4:47 pm
Hey Ken -
I’m not familiar with ISS, but I saw several references to it when I was reading up on WE6 (in fact Ellison, a guy who’s been on the Arsenal board at Big Soccer in the past, was one of the guys talking about ISS0. The general thought is that WE6 is better than ISS.)
I had a Nintendo way back when, late ’80s, but I honestly don’t remember if I had a soccer game for that or not. I remember RBI Baseball. I remember Baseball Stars (what a great game!). I remember Contra and Castlevania. But I don’t remember a soccer game.
Anyway, fast forward ahead a few years and I’ve moved to the Sega Genesis platform, and the EA sports games, including a couple of soccer games. Good, but not great - very unrealistic gameplay, little or no complexity.
Finally, move ahead to a few months ago when I bought a PS2 and FIFA 2003 was one of the first games I bought. I guess the thrill was gone for me, because the eye candy meant virtually nothing to me when I realized how boring the game was. Blah.
Honestly, I’ve been a EA guy through-and-through, but I realized that they’ve been coasting in certain areas, and that it’s OK to look outside of EA for great sports games. Obviously, your mileage may vary with WE6, but I’m having a blast with it, and I see a lot of replay possibilities, as well. Well worth the $40 (or correctly answering the trivia question!).
April 23rd, 2003 at 8:33 am
How sweet would an ArseAm team be?!
The EINY, KY Gunner, G. Rex (in goal?), Webmaster Andrew, Dan Winkler, Rick, Rob Silverman, Lawrence Emanuel, J. Waldman, Jeff Lancaster and Steve Rushin from SI as our celebrity player.
April 23rd, 2003 at 1:14 pm
And didn’t I read that Rushin is marrying Rebecca Lobo? I don’t care what her soccer background is, if any, she’s a stud - don’t you think she’d be awesome between the pipes? (Not trying to move G. Rex off the pitch, per se, but maybe he could organize the celeb rooting section, just as long as Freddie Prinze Jr. brings his wife along. OK, I’m officially babbling now…)
April 23rd, 2003 at 2:47 pm
By the way, the correct answer is in the FAQ “About Us”
April 23rd, 2003 at 7:55 pm
Man! First Person? I only had a chance to check Arsenal America today! I take it that the swag has been given away already . . .
Suggestion: Maybe have a draw based on the correct answer? Then it gives everyone a chance to win!
Otherwise, I’m going to have to check ArsenalAmerica every hour to see if there are prizes to be won!!!