Raymond Law

I enjoyed Winning Eleven on PS2 a lot as it is the only game that captures the feel and essense of the game of football (soccer in US). I have heard about Konami’s plan for a Wii version, but they have not given us many details until now.

IGN has some pictures and a video for this game. Make sure you check out the video.

From what I saw in the video. I am both excited and worried:

• You point the Wiimote to tell the ball handler to dribble in whichever direction you want. This is definitely cool because you can have more precise control.

• You can tell teammates to run without the ball by dragging that player and press A. This is awesome because football requires teamwork and off-ball movement is an important element of the game. What’s more is you can tell as many teammates to run without the ball!

• You point at the target player to receive a pass. Now you can pass to any player that is on screen no matter how many teammates are before him in the same direction. And it automatically changes to a lob pass if that makes more sense.

• A through pass is executed by passing into open space. Your teammate will be smart enough to run to the ball. But how does the AI know which player I want to run to receive the ball. It does not always mean I want to closest player to get the ball though. And what if I pass well in front of a teammate in a fast counter attack. Does my “very far away” teammate knows he is supposed to run to receive my long through pass?

• You play a one-two pass by pressing both A and B. I can see how that works.

• Shooting is done by shaking the Nunchuk. So I need to use my non-dominant left hand to shoot. Hmm… I can’t tell if it is a good or bad thing until I actually try to shoot. But how do you control power and accuracy? Or a fake shot? My guess would be that you control the power of the shot by how hard you shake and the direction by the analog stick on the Nunchuk. Fake shot is probably done by pressing either the C or Z button immediately after or while executing a shot.

• The video says you can control anyone in set-pieces. So how can I accurately point to the player I want to control in a corner when both teams crowd the penalty area. Especially when I play with the zoomed out angle and a small TV…

• One thing the video does not address is how do you curve the ball in a shot or a pass. This is especially important in free kicks and corners.

• The video does not show much about playing defense and goalkeeping. The only thing about defense in the video is the offside trap. You do that by shaking the Wiimote upwards.

• Complicated control schema. This is the most important thing that Konami has to figure out to not ruin the good name of the franchise. It has to be intuitive and easy to learn, so as to not turn off newcomers to the franchise. I believe veterans will be willing to spend some time to master the controls.

• Too many cursors and trails on screen. It is kinda distracting because it draws your attention more to the cursor than to the actual players.

• Two-player games double the number of on-screen cursors and trails. Imagine that for a 4-player game!

• For multi-player games, all the cursor movements will reveal to my buddy what I plan to do, especially on free kicks. But without showing the cursor, I have no idea who I am pointing at.

• I care about the controls much more than the graphics as long as it looks equally good or slightly better than the PS2 version. The gameplay is what sets it apart from EA’s FIFA. BTW, I did not try to play FIFA and has no plan to.

• Any Mii integration and online plays?

There are a ton of challenges for Konami to make this game right. However, at the same time, I am really excited about the possibilities that the Wii can allow. I can’t wait to see more details or a play test demo so we can find out more about how all that controls work. I really hope Konami can make this right. If they do, they will shuffle FIFA away like some old dust. And then they just need to get the FIFA license one day.

I think the game is due out in the first quarter in 2008 in the US.

Virginia Tech football season kicks off this Saturday 12pm ET against East Carolina. The game will be broadcast live by ESPN.

The season schedule is here.

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