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GAME:
989 Sports has apparently fallen behind a bit
in their design for contemporary sports titles, but under the
umbrella of the Sony corporation they have set their nose to the
grindstone for the newest Sony PlayStation offering: The PSP, or
PlayStation Portable game console. One of their first efforts: World
Tour Soccer (2005) is an enjoyable title…although it could use
a few tweaks.
The game boasts and delivers on 245 total teams
worldwide, which basically means different color variations for your
choosing. The main problem with this is the difficulty in unlocking
the many different available teams with the challenging AI and
barely user-friendly modes of game play.
Most of the game play will come from either the
Challenge Mode, which awards points for stylish play and requires
high points for unlockables…or the Cup mode which requires
straight wins for advancement of tournaments, and is equally
challenging to complete.
This is all and good for fans of simulation
games…and probably hits closer to the mark for strategic and
unlock-crazy gamers, but without a real Franchise or season mode,
and with remarkably tough opponents on even the easiest setting it
makes World Tour Soccer a hard pick…especially for fans of
the FIFA series which has been getting better every year.
For casual gamers there is also a fairly
standard exhibition mode for one player, as well as a multiplayer
mode for ad-hoc play, but is not set for infrastructure online play,
which is unfortunate seeing as the structure of the game itself is
pretty solid.
TECHNOLOGY:
As far as the look, the feel and the sound of
the game goes, 989 has put together a solid first effort with good
character animations and realistic game sounds to add atmosphere and
depth to the experience for the portable system.
The characters are well animated with many
different realistic and stylistic moves…which helps give the game
that extra bit of depth for those combo-hunters looking for the
perfect score…while the overall look of the game is a little bit
blockier than some of your newer-gen PS2 games, it is still far
superior to the clunky feeling of the PSone.
The audio side of the game is really
mixed…the soundtrack offers up some EMO and pop tracks which seem
completely out of place, and the commentary during play is reduced
to a pass-by-pass overview…although you may find the commentary
helpful since it is hard to tell who is who. The up side is the
effects, which are tasteful and less distracting.
The game itself takes up a big chunk on your
memory card: 768kb, but even with the 32mb included memory you’ll
hardly feel the loss.
OVERALL:
Since Sony is known as a big supplier of sports
titles, you might want to wait to get your hands on a Soccer title
you know you can trust…such as Konami’s Winning Eleven
series which will most likely see a version on PSP in the future…
But if nothing else, World Tour Soccer
offers a few challenging modes and some deeper gameplay for those
willing to get into it.
GAME: C+ (First wave attempt)
TECHNOLOGY: B- (You’re getting there)
OVERALL: C+ (So close…let’s try again)
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