Reviewed by Melissa Yamamoto
When I first heard Konami was releasing the American version of one of the best football/soccer games on the DS, I was surprised because the Winning Eleven games have been good console games to play on your TV. It was about time for a developer to give fans the experience of playing a good football/soccer game on the DS. But the experience is, at best, poor. Importing a football/soccer simulator to the DS would have been a great idea (since there aren’t many similar titles available), only if the DS supported graphics and sound effects good enough to make the game enjoyable, and consequently, follow the success of other versions of Winning Eleven. But the fact is, that idea didn’t work out so well. So unfortunately, I’ve learned that some games shouldn’t be imported to the DS.
The DS version brings new leagues and new teams that aren’t in the Winning Eleven console versions. It also offers four different gameplay modes: World Tour, Tournament, Konami Cup and Multi-player.
Playing on World Tour, you can collect both silver and golden coins. With the coins, you can import players from other teams. The idea sounds interesting, but the coins don’t allow you to choose a player – the system will choose for you. The only difference between both coins is that the golden ones allow you to have a better player. But again, the system will choose for you, and to collect one of those, you need to win 10 matches.
The Tournament portion offers friendly games, training, and official matches. You can start collecting silver coins here to set up your team for World Tour. Multi-player mode for 2 players can be fun if both players own the game. Otherwise, you can’t choose official teams and the variety of matches is restricted.
Even though new teams are available, don’t expect to recognize your favorite players, since physical appearances in this game aren’t the greatest. The graphics are disappointing, players are not well characterized, there’s an overall lack of texture, realism and animated objects, which made me wonder if this is a DS flaw or just of the game itself. That being said, if the DS didn’t support better graphics, the developers should have worked more on other aspects of the game, as to not disappoint Winning Eleven fans.
The sound and music don’t make the game any better. The music sounds like a bad pop karaoke version, and the only sounds you hear are basically “goal” when a team scores, or the weak presence of the audience at the stadium.
The control system is very basic. You can try and perform some combos and passes, but it’s very easy to reach the goal area with just one player. Also, especially due to graphics issues, the field radar on the DS screen is more useful than it should be, especially when your ball goes to your opponent instead of where it should, and your players seem to get lost on the screen, forcing you to check the radar to locate your defense to try to get the ball back – if the other team doesn’t score first because the artificial intelligence of the goalkeepers is pretty non-existent.
You lose all the spontaneity of a football game and lack of ability to perform creative and different attack moves are the characteristics of this game, which is something really odd and unusual when talking about a Winning Eleven game.
I wouldn’t recommend Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 on the DS to any Winning Eleven fan, but if you’ve never played football/soccer, it’s an option to learn the basics and maybe have some fun, before playing one of the many good versions of this franchise released for any other consoles.