Winning Eleven 8 Review

Other Modes

There are several other modes available in Winning Eleven 8 as well. You can play a quick match where you pick any two teams and hit the pitch. League mode lets you play through one league season. Cup mode lets you play a World Cup style tournament. A training mode is also available and it is highly recommended you give it a try because it is incredibly well put together and will help even Winning Eleven veterans improve their game. After every training session, game, and everything else, you will earn WEN points that you can use in a shop to unlock extra content. New teams, stadiums, edit options, camera angles, and a sixth difficulty option are just some of what you can unlock.

One mode that is definitely missed in Winning Eleven 8 is an online mode. The offline modes are well done and Master League mode will keep you busy for months, but the lack of Xbox Live play is a big deal considering that online play is one of FIFA 2005’s best features. You can play multiplayer matches with up to four people, but it just isn’t the same. Hopefully we’ll see something next year.

Graphics, Sound, and Fast Load Times

Graphically, Winning Eleven 8 is gorgeous. The animation is the best you’ll see in any sports game and there are hundreds of animations that cover any and every situation you can think up. You can play through several Master League seasons and literally not see the same goal twice. That is definitely good times. The player models are very detailed and the real world players are instantly recognizable. Tie all of this beauty together with a smooth, consistent framerate and the result is a great looking Xbox game.

The sound, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as strong. There are only a handful of songs that play on the menu screens and they just don’t cut it. Peter Brackley and Trevor Brooking from the BBC provide the commentary and while they do a fairly good job, they tend to repeat themselves. The sound, on the whole, is weak compared to how great the game looks.

Something worth mentioning, particularly if you have played past Winning Eleven games on the PS2, is that the load times for Winning Eleven 8 on the Xbox are blazing fast. You can jump into a game very quickly now, which is wonderful compared to how slowly and clunky last year’s game was. Saving and loading to the hard drive is also very quick.

Bottom Line

Overall, Winning Eleven 8 is highly recommended for not just soccer fans, but all sports fans. Great graphics, smooth animation, incredible gameplay, and a detailed simulation mode in the Master League all combine to create an absolutely amazing sports game. The only real downside is that it lacks online play via Xbox Live, but the gameplay is strong enough in Winning Eleven 8 that it is still well worth owning. This is the best soccer game ever made and it deserves a place in any Xbox sports fans’ library. Rent it if you must, but this is a quality title that is good enough that you'll likely end up buying it anyway.