http://ps2.ign.com/articles/686/686157p1.html
7.0 Presentation
Still the Achilles' heal of the franchise. Lack of licenses hurts, as does awkward menus and interface.
8.0 Graphics
Great facial textures in cutscenes, but players need more emotion. The animations are stil the best in video soccer. On the pitch, there is negligible visual improvement over WE8.
7.0 Sound
The commentary is nothing special. The crowd provides good atmosphere but doesn't react to heated action in the box. The song list sounds like it was ripped from a cheesy '80s Ukrainian discotech.
9.5 Gameplay
Football at its finest. You can play 1,000 matches and see something new every time. Slowly building your attack and hammering in a header is to die for. Excellent physics and control.
9.0 Lasting Appeal
Master League is among the most challenging franchise modes in sports videogames, and strangely addicting. Finally, with online play and rankings, we can discover just who the best is.
8.8
Great OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)
Winning Eleven 9 is a gem of a soccer title, but it feels like "Winning Eleven 8 Online." That's not a dig at Konami -- the gameplay of the WE franchise is the best that has every graced videogame consoles. In fact, it's amazing that the development team is able to continually refine and tweak the title to continually improve our virtual soccer experience. Still, there is plenty of room for improvement in terms of visuals, audio and presentation. The graphic and sound quality is virtually the same as last season, and presentation continues to improve slightly with more user-friendly menus and team licenses, but there is still a long way to go.
The addition of online play is fantastic, but that's a feature that should have been added last season, if not earlier. Master League continues to shine, mostly because of the challenge of inking marquee players. Instead of the generic first and second divisions, why not start a team in national league play and then get promoted to an unlicensed Champion's League? There is really no reason why crap teams like Livorno should be matched in the same division as Arsenal. All of that being said, WE9 is still the undisputed champ of videogame soccer. You'll laugh; you'll cry; you'll scream "GOAL" until you go blue in the face. It's that fun.
7.0 Presentation
Still the Achilles' heal of the franchise. Lack of licenses hurts, as does awkward menus and interface.
8.0 Graphics
Great facial textures in cutscenes, but players need more emotion. The animations are stil the best in video soccer. On the pitch, there is negligible visual improvement over WE8.
7.0 Sound
The commentary is nothing special. The crowd provides good atmosphere but doesn't react to heated action in the box. The song list sounds like it was ripped from a cheesy '80s Ukrainian discotech.
9.5 Gameplay
Football at its finest. You can play 1,000 matches and see something new every time. Slowly building your attack and hammering in a header is to die for. Excellent physics and control.
9.0 Lasting Appeal
Master League is among the most challenging franchise modes in sports videogames, and strangely addicting. Finally, with online play and rankings, we can discover just who the best is.
8.8
Great OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)
Winning Eleven 9 is a gem of a soccer title, but it feels like "Winning Eleven 8 Online." That's not a dig at Konami -- the gameplay of the WE franchise is the best that has every graced videogame consoles. In fact, it's amazing that the development team is able to continually refine and tweak the title to continually improve our virtual soccer experience. Still, there is plenty of room for improvement in terms of visuals, audio and presentation. The graphic and sound quality is virtually the same as last season, and presentation continues to improve slightly with more user-friendly menus and team licenses, but there is still a long way to go.
The addition of online play is fantastic, but that's a feature that should have been added last season, if not earlier. Master League continues to shine, mostly because of the challenge of inking marquee players. Instead of the generic first and second divisions, why not start a team in national league play and then get promoted to an unlicensed Champion's League? There is really no reason why crap teams like Livorno should be matched in the same division as Arsenal. All of that being said, WE9 is still the undisputed champ of videogame soccer. You'll laugh; you'll cry; you'll scream "GOAL" until you go blue in the face. It's that fun.
