Winning Eleven 8 is coming out today for both Xbox and PS2. And yes, I know what you're thinking. "What the hell kind of name is Winning Eleven 8, anyways?" Well, I'll tell you. It's the name of Konami's glorious soccer game that beats the tar out of EA's pathetic FIFA games any day of the week. The only reason this game constantly fails to get noticed is, yup, you guessed it, EA has exclusive rights to the FIFA and MLS brands, which means no real teams. Now I think they have the players themselves in there, but no mention of the World Cup, it's just "The Cup" tournament. It sucks, but you can't let a little thing like that keep you from at least trying out the best soccer game on the planet.
Winning Eleven 8 is simply unbelievable if the review from IGN's Doug Perry is to be believed. It actually managed to score a 9.4, which is almost unheard of from a sports game (that doesn't happen to be Madden). I can't wait to actually get my hands on this game, as it seems that this would be the kind of game that would make FIFA kind of stand up, take notice, and say, "Hey, that EA game that has our license blows…let's terminate our agreement with them."
*sigh* I guess I can always hope. But nevertheless, from what I hear this is a fantastic soccer game that you just have to play to believe. I know I'll definitely be giving this game a good once-over, maybe even a few times over, if it is indeed as good as advertised. Looks like the Superbowl may not be the only football on my television set this week.
-Jack
