Brief Description

The world's top soccer franchise is back and online for the first time. Continuing on with the series' 'on-the-money controls', huge variety of stadiums, real players, and licensed teams, Winning Eleven 9 further tweaks the 'already deep' Master League mode. New formations have been added and for the first time in the series, snow.

SecretAsianMan: Outside of making its obvious first appearance on the Sony PSP, this should be the series' widest cross-platform release to date. New features, leagues, stadiums, and players will help this one move off the shelf, though online play alone will undoubtedly be the biggest selling point.

Vansau: As I remember, some of the new teams available are Arsenal and Chelsea, but there was a rather long list of new leagues and teams that I failed to memorize. As long as Manchester United and Liverpool are still available, I'm happy.

SecretAsianMan: A rather unique and potentially highly useful feature being added will be the ability to save data between the PS2 and PSP. If it pans out as expected, gamers will be able to continue their progress through a string of tournaments while away from their couch. This has been the buzz in the gaming industry for a while now, particularly with RPGs, though I believe this may be the first or at least, most useful example of it yet.

All platforms have a soft release date of Quarter 1 2006. At the very least, Winning Eleven 9 will be a good alternative for EA boycotters and their FIFA series – though I bet it (WE9) will be so much more than good.

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