A full out tackle.

If you need a break from the season mode, the game still has a couple more modes for your entertainment.  Career mode is a challenging multi-season mode that starts you off with a young school team that you must guide to higher levels of competition.  Starting in a local scholastic league, you will be promoted to progressively more challenging brackets as long as your team performs well.  Fail to qualify for the next bracket and your game is over.

Challenge mode sets the teams and match settings, and then rates your performance in the match.  The competition is tough and every little mistake is noted, but when you complete the game you are given a code.  If you enter the code at 989's website, you can see how well you played the match compared to other players out there.  It would have been nice if the Network Adaptor was supported in the game to allow you to compete directly with other players, but in lieu of online play it is a nice that there is a way to see how you stack up against other players.

So the game gives you a lot of modes and an enormous number of teams, but how does it play?  Well, the answer is that it plays like an arcade-like sim or a sim-like arcade game, you pick.  Even on rain-soaked fields, players have no trouble staying in full control of the ball while sprinting, spinning, and changing direction.  Defensively the success of tackles seems to depend more on timing than on any other factor.  In spite of this, matches do not play out as arcade-like scoring fests.  Like in the actual sport, you will need to do a lot of passing to set up a scoring opportunity and there will not be a lot of these opportunities in a match.  Be prepared for many 1-0 and 2-1 games, and a whole host of nil-nil ties.  Although the players are rated in a number of areas, matches will be closely contested affairs unless there is a significant talent gap between the two teams.  This type of play can be challenging, and it is fun to play WTS, but if you like your sports games to be fast-paced high-scoring affairs then you might be frustrated by the abundance of low-scoring matches in WTS.  Also, the AI provides some stiff competition in the game even at the lowest setting, so don't expect to start winning World Championships right from the get go.

Graphically the game looks good, with good player models and natural animations.  The player faces look a little strange, but only in close-ups during cutscenes like the teams' entry onto the pitch.  There's a decided lack of camera angles in the game, so you'll spend all of the time playing from a sideline cam view.  For those who prefer to have a wider view of the action, the game provides arrows indicating the positions of your off-screen players and also includes an optional "radar" that lets you see where all players are on the pitch.  The stadium crowds look pretty good, and it is a nice touch to see them wave team flags and set off fireworks in the stands during the game.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 84%.  A challenging game with a lot of play options and an immense number of teams.  Don't expect NHL-like scoring, though.

« Plenty of teams