

Although you get players from all over the world, you don't get a chance to chat with anyone, which is a real drawback. Finding someone to play against shouldn't be too hard considering how full the on-line waiting rooms get, and games are offered in English and Spanish. Konami answered the call (after offering on-line play in Europe and Japan last year) and has opened things up for gamers to compete against each other on-line. The lack of on-line game play was likely the most crushing of them all, but the fairly thin offering in club and national teams didn't help matters much either. It made its debut on the Xbox and sold better than it had ever done before, but there were still issues that kept it in a distant second place. Last year's Winning Eleven 8 was a real breakthrough for the series here in North America. Now that exclusive agreements and other arrangements are slowly eroding the fierce competition that was bringing the best out of the top developers, this is one that will be interesting to watch. Unbeknownst to many, this is one of the more significant battles in sports video games because of how well WE has done in Europe and Japan compared to FIFA's dominance in North America.

Visuals and audio are decent, but below the levels needed for a game like this.
