by
Ted Kritsonis
Faze Video Game Editor

With soccer’s popularity on the rise in North America, the very idea of having three competing soccer video games doesn’t seem all that unusual. After all, basketball and football really only have two franchises competing against each other. But in the case of World Tour Soccer 2006, it would be hard to imagine this game having a good chance of outdoing the craftiness of Konami’s Winning Eleven series and the glitz and glamour of EA’s FIFA franchise.

From the early going it becomes obvious that WTS 2006 does neither. Any fan of soccer knows and feels that passion is a big part of the game, no matter if you’re a player or a fan, but you just don’t get that sense here.

The menu interfaces are dull and a little contrived, which seems to carry over into the actual gameplay itself. Player models aren’t bad and close-ups are pretty decent, as long as you can handle the fact that none of the players look like their real-life counterparts. Where things go bad on the pitch is in the AI and mechanics. For some odd reason, a player with the ball can run through a team with relative ease by using the right analog stick for special moves. The blame for this lies squarely in the lackluster AI, which will stop or even ignore a nearby opposing player with possession of the ball.

It gets worse with passing and shooting. In one game, I hit four goalposts, and when I played a rematch, I hit the post another two times. That in itself is more posts than I hit in a dozen games on either Winning Eleven or FIFA, and that doesn’t even include the two my AI opponent hit. The passing, meanwhile, seems to be hit or miss. The lack of intuitiveness is so glaring here that you’ll have trouble connecting a pass to a teammate who is nearby and in the clear.

The lone bright spot is in the amount of national squads available, which is more than the other two soccer games combined. It’s nice to see Canada in the game along with other interesting soccer squads like Guatemala, Iraq and the Ivory Coast. Having all these teams sets up some interesting scenarios and matchups, but it’s not enough to save this game from itself.

When you combine all that’s wrong with WTS 2006, and throw in the fact that there’s no online play, you’ve got a game that just isn’t worth your time and money. The ultimate problem here is that WTS 2006 has no niche to call its own — even if it has more teams — because it doesn’t have a distinct identity to draw you in. For this franchise to stay afloat and compete, it will need a total revamp next year.

Publisher:
Sony
Computer
Entertainment
Developer:
SCE London

Platform:
PS2

Rating: 5/10