ure the World Cup is over for the United States, but some of the best matches in this year’s tourney are just about to happen. While we’ve been replaying a number of games with EA’s 2006 FIFA World Cup, we’ve also been toying quite a bit with Konami’s footie juggernaut Winning Eleven 10, which will be known as Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 in North America. While this could be Konami’s final hurrah on the PlayStation 2, WE10 may just be the team’s best way to close out the current-gen.

Getting ready for Riverdance

The elusive FIFA license was up for grabs this year, and Konami laid down again and allowed Electronic Arts to snatch it up until 2014. While disappointing to WE fans, the company is expanding its roster of specific country licenses and club teams. WE10 features 20 licenses including newcomers Argentina, Australia, England, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. New club teams include Bayern Munich, Copenhagen, and Rosenburg.

Granted, Konami releases as many versions of WE as EA releases FIFA titles (in Japan it’s three times as many), WE10 seems to focus on fixing some of the problems that plagued WE9 more than adding major features. One of the biggest issues players faced with WE9 was the amount of fouls called and cards dealt. A foul would be called after barely touching an opponent, which would slow the flow of the game considerably. Refs will call fouls a bit more accurately in WE10, and simple shoves won’t get called, allowing the players to play, unlike this year’s actual World Cup (snicker).

Konami sped the play up a few notches in WE9, and WE10 keeps this brisk pace, if not sped it up even more. With the added animations, it makes the game feel much more responsive and realistic. Especially for players who have invested a lot of time in WE9 who were used to the over aggressive referees, it’s a huge improvement on the pacing of the game.

Konami has upped the ante on the presentation side of WE. Although the game still doesn’t compare to the polish of EA’s footie titles, it’s a noticeable improvement. The amount of player animations was already staggering, but the team has added in quite a bit more including new animations for heel kicks, feints, stutters, headers, and celebrations. The camera has been modified as well, and the game has a much more broadcast feel, especially in the replays. The replay mode has been completely reworked to allow the user to manipulate the camera’s position and forward and reverse of the replay with the analog sticks. Finally, there’s the addition of a third commentator on the pitch which will give reports to round out reporting of the action on the field.

As far as new modes, Konami has added a new random match generator, and an International Challenge mode that gives you an opportunity to take your favorite countries team through qualifying and finals of an international tournament. Also, while online play was stripped from WE10 in Japan, expect to see online play included in all console versions of the game, including handhelds.

Although the game has been out in Japan for a while now, the team is still tightening up a number of elements prior to its release in North America in January. Winning Eleven Producer Shingo “Seabass” Takatsuka stated that in addition to the above features, tweaks will be made for AI improvements and game balancing.

What does the team have in store for the Xbox 360? Seabass told Game Informer Online that he sees the Xbox 360 version to have even more balanced gameplay than the current version of the game. They’re planning on adding even more animations, one-on-one scenarios with the goalies, and more depth to the gameplay and game system. Color us intrigued. Unfortunately, the Xbox 360 version has still yet to be shown, and we’ll have an update to Xbox 360 features once we get our hands on the game.

Adriano on the Xbox 360 version

But so far, we have to say we’re impressed with our experience with the latest in the Winning Eleven series. By cleaning up what marred WE9, and adding more speed and fluidity to WE10, Konami has once again proven they’re the experts in recreating the beautiful game.