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Check out this review from consoledomain.com
Winning Eleven 5
Reviewer : Gareth Holden
Let's face it - most gamers were disappointed with the PlayStation2 debut of ISS. Sure it wasn't a bad game, it just wasn't up to the sky-high standards we've come to expect from Konami. The reason: two different teams working with different game engines at Konami, one being KCEO, the other KCET. All you need to know is that KCET is the one responsible for producing the Winning Eleven engine, which was translated into the massively successful ISS Pro Evolution series on the PlayStation. Winning Eleven 5 presents the dream team combination of the "real" ISS running on the PS2 and believe us, it's simply breathtaking all the way!
Starting out, the intro sequence is frame-for-frame a near exact replica of that seen in the recently released ISS Pro Evolution 2 game on PSX. At the menu screen, there's the familiar choice of single match-ups, international cups, an international league and the popular Master League mode, which has two different divisions to battle your way through. As ever, there's also a training mode for some after-hours practising. In all, there are 53 national teams to choose from, 29 of which use real player names, thanks to Konami's FIFPro licence. The Master League itself now contains 32 different club teams spanning from Barcelona to Argentina's Boca Juniors.
Fans of the this long-running and highly successful series will instantly feel at home with the strategic options and play formations that can be tweaked to suit your preferred style of play. Whether you want to feed the ball down the channels to the likes of Beckham for those devastating crosses or perhaps make Zidane your playmaker through the centre of the park, there's just so much scope for experimentation. Just before you head out on to the hallowed turf for kick-off, there's the option of altering the difficulty level, match length, deciding whether to permit injuries, the number of substitutions allowed and the stadium you'd like to entertain in.
Building up the match atmosphere to a fever pitch high, the teams finally emerge from the tunnel, to be greeted by an army of photographers as the stadium erupts with a deafening roar. As the camera pans around the intimidating arena, red distress flares highlight sections of the stands as smoke disperses and confetti litters the air, conveying a truly continental match flavour. Rays of sunlight almost make you squint, while the pitch is partly covered by the stands' shadows, just like you'd expect to see on the TV.
Lining up for the national anthems, the camera scans each player, revealing incredible likeness to their real life counterparts. Edgar Davids sports his trendy yellow protective glasses, Figo's chiselled looks are evident and even Keown's crude red boots demonstrate the attention to detail KCET has included to reproduce a lifelike encounter.
You'll instantly be impressed by how much the game has revolutionised the ISS Pro Evolution formula, while still maintaining its all-important playability. Simple passing remains crisp and accurate, although the more inventive you are, the greater your chance of playing that killer ball to dissect the opponent's defence. Skills and tricks remain as before, although now include more animation, so in replays you can actually see your striker shimmy before performing the feint move to trick an encroaching keeper. The one-two passing system is now trickier to execute, although is just as rewarding when it makes a mockery of even the best defences.
Shooting is definitely the most refined aspect of the game, now allowing you more scope to dip, swerve and curl the ball. This is especially useful on freekicks. Even crosses can now be whipped into the path of your surging forwards, making defending much harder. Rebounded shots are far more realistic now, allowing loose balls to be seized upon by fortunate strikers. The right analogue stick can be used as a unique passing button, so whichever way you press it, the ball is distributed in that direction. This works best when you're running in one direction, but need to lay the ball off in a different direction.
Though the speed of the game can't be adjusted, it glides along at just the right pace - this seems to be an ongoing trend from ISS Pro Evolution 2. While you can't quite breakaway at lightning speed, like you could with Ronaldo in the first Pro Evolution game, you do now get three running speeds to experiment with. The slowest allows close ball control and is great for a stop-start change of pace, while the fastest increases the chances of over-running the ball into touch, but is best for exploiting your player's speed. Using a combination of these, you can weave dazzling Ryan Giggs-style runs to turn pesky defenders inside out - fantastic! There are just too many refinements to detail, but suffice to say that they all come together to complete a near-perfect footballing experience.
Clearly, the most important aspect is an accurate representation of the beautiful game as we know it. Anyone who has played an ISS footie game will know that no two games are ever the same and the same is true of this title. For example, when playing as Portugal, I punted the ball forward behind the defence, only for the opposing goalkeeper to rush out to head the ball clear, as it was out of his area. The ball lands straight at Luis Figo's feet and, attempting the spectacular, his dipping volley is inches too high and rebounds off the crossbar. This sort of excitement is where Winning Eleven 5 is out in a league of its own. Just like the real game, nothing is guaranteed!
Graphically, Winning Eleven 5 makes its PlayStation predecessors look pre-historic. Running at a super-slick 60 frames-per-second with more than twice as much animation, the action is the most realistic we've ever come across. The turf changes according to the weather, player shadows reflect each light source with precision and the stadiums themselves could be real. Even the transparent dugout shelters have been included. Replays demonstrate the awesomely-detailed environments, including camera lens flare from the bright sunlight, which is nothing short of phenomenal.
Though football games aren't exactly renowned for their sound effects, Winning Eleven 5 breaks this mould. Depending on your choice of team, the fans will bellow out verses of the appropriate anthem. Playing as England, "Rule Britannia" roared out, while later in the game the tune from "The Great Escape" could be heard.
To further showboat this already accomplished performance, there's the opportunity to play alongside seven other friends, unlock six bonus "all-star" teams and of course some comedy commentary from Jon Kabira and Katsyoshi Shintou. Although the European version of the game will not appear until near the end of the year, the great news is that KCET has already begun tweaking this version to reflect the faster pace of the European game.
As it stands, Winning Eleven 5 is without doubt the greatest football game on the planet. The prospect of it improving for the European release is mouth-watering to say the least!
Winning Eleven 5
Reviewer : Gareth Holden
Let's face it - most gamers were disappointed with the PlayStation2 debut of ISS. Sure it wasn't a bad game, it just wasn't up to the sky-high standards we've come to expect from Konami. The reason: two different teams working with different game engines at Konami, one being KCEO, the other KCET. All you need to know is that KCET is the one responsible for producing the Winning Eleven engine, which was translated into the massively successful ISS Pro Evolution series on the PlayStation. Winning Eleven 5 presents the dream team combination of the "real" ISS running on the PS2 and believe us, it's simply breathtaking all the way!
Starting out, the intro sequence is frame-for-frame a near exact replica of that seen in the recently released ISS Pro Evolution 2 game on PSX. At the menu screen, there's the familiar choice of single match-ups, international cups, an international league and the popular Master League mode, which has two different divisions to battle your way through. As ever, there's also a training mode for some after-hours practising. In all, there are 53 national teams to choose from, 29 of which use real player names, thanks to Konami's FIFPro licence. The Master League itself now contains 32 different club teams spanning from Barcelona to Argentina's Boca Juniors.
Fans of the this long-running and highly successful series will instantly feel at home with the strategic options and play formations that can be tweaked to suit your preferred style of play. Whether you want to feed the ball down the channels to the likes of Beckham for those devastating crosses or perhaps make Zidane your playmaker through the centre of the park, there's just so much scope for experimentation. Just before you head out on to the hallowed turf for kick-off, there's the option of altering the difficulty level, match length, deciding whether to permit injuries, the number of substitutions allowed and the stadium you'd like to entertain in.
Building up the match atmosphere to a fever pitch high, the teams finally emerge from the tunnel, to be greeted by an army of photographers as the stadium erupts with a deafening roar. As the camera pans around the intimidating arena, red distress flares highlight sections of the stands as smoke disperses and confetti litters the air, conveying a truly continental match flavour. Rays of sunlight almost make you squint, while the pitch is partly covered by the stands' shadows, just like you'd expect to see on the TV.
Lining up for the national anthems, the camera scans each player, revealing incredible likeness to their real life counterparts. Edgar Davids sports his trendy yellow protective glasses, Figo's chiselled looks are evident and even Keown's crude red boots demonstrate the attention to detail KCET has included to reproduce a lifelike encounter.
You'll instantly be impressed by how much the game has revolutionised the ISS Pro Evolution formula, while still maintaining its all-important playability. Simple passing remains crisp and accurate, although the more inventive you are, the greater your chance of playing that killer ball to dissect the opponent's defence. Skills and tricks remain as before, although now include more animation, so in replays you can actually see your striker shimmy before performing the feint move to trick an encroaching keeper. The one-two passing system is now trickier to execute, although is just as rewarding when it makes a mockery of even the best defences.
Shooting is definitely the most refined aspect of the game, now allowing you more scope to dip, swerve and curl the ball. This is especially useful on freekicks. Even crosses can now be whipped into the path of your surging forwards, making defending much harder. Rebounded shots are far more realistic now, allowing loose balls to be seized upon by fortunate strikers. The right analogue stick can be used as a unique passing button, so whichever way you press it, the ball is distributed in that direction. This works best when you're running in one direction, but need to lay the ball off in a different direction.
Though the speed of the game can't be adjusted, it glides along at just the right pace - this seems to be an ongoing trend from ISS Pro Evolution 2. While you can't quite breakaway at lightning speed, like you could with Ronaldo in the first Pro Evolution game, you do now get three running speeds to experiment with. The slowest allows close ball control and is great for a stop-start change of pace, while the fastest increases the chances of over-running the ball into touch, but is best for exploiting your player's speed. Using a combination of these, you can weave dazzling Ryan Giggs-style runs to turn pesky defenders inside out - fantastic! There are just too many refinements to detail, but suffice to say that they all come together to complete a near-perfect footballing experience.
Clearly, the most important aspect is an accurate representation of the beautiful game as we know it. Anyone who has played an ISS footie game will know that no two games are ever the same and the same is true of this title. For example, when playing as Portugal, I punted the ball forward behind the defence, only for the opposing goalkeeper to rush out to head the ball clear, as it was out of his area. The ball lands straight at Luis Figo's feet and, attempting the spectacular, his dipping volley is inches too high and rebounds off the crossbar. This sort of excitement is where Winning Eleven 5 is out in a league of its own. Just like the real game, nothing is guaranteed!
Graphically, Winning Eleven 5 makes its PlayStation predecessors look pre-historic. Running at a super-slick 60 frames-per-second with more than twice as much animation, the action is the most realistic we've ever come across. The turf changes according to the weather, player shadows reflect each light source with precision and the stadiums themselves could be real. Even the transparent dugout shelters have been included. Replays demonstrate the awesomely-detailed environments, including camera lens flare from the bright sunlight, which is nothing short of phenomenal.
Though football games aren't exactly renowned for their sound effects, Winning Eleven 5 breaks this mould. Depending on your choice of team, the fans will bellow out verses of the appropriate anthem. Playing as England, "Rule Britannia" roared out, while later in the game the tune from "The Great Escape" could be heard.
To further showboat this already accomplished performance, there's the opportunity to play alongside seven other friends, unlock six bonus "all-star" teams and of course some comedy commentary from Jon Kabira and Katsyoshi Shintou. Although the European version of the game will not appear until near the end of the year, the great news is that KCET has already begun tweaking this version to reflect the faster pace of the European game.
As it stands, Winning Eleven 5 is without doubt the greatest football game on the planet. The prospect of it improving for the European release is mouth-watering to say the least!