Its about time 989 Sports added a soccer title to their long line-up of excellent sports games and with three hundred featured countries and national team clubs such as the Los Angeles Galaxy, World Tour Soccer 2002 seems like a soccer hooligan's dream come true.

There are three major playing modes--Quick Game mode, Exhibition mode and Competitions mode. Quick game mode has gamers using customized teams--even using characters designed in the Team Edit mode.  Exhibition is a friendly match between any country or club team of choice. And the Competitions mode houses nine different competitions (from international competitions to even a time warp league competition) to win the national or international cups.

Most of the principle World Cup participants are available such as Argentina and Germany and the game has accurately placed all the international star players in their appropriate position . . . although the line up is really outdated . . . especially for a game with the 2002 date printed on the title.  Brazil’s Romario, for instance, no longer plays for the international team. 

World Tour’s controls are actually more complicated than the soccer games developed for the PS1.  It is a good idea to read through the manual before attempting any of the three play modes or start with Exhibition mode to get a feel of the game’s controls.  Running, passing and kicking come easily but don’t expect to pull off elaborate tricks such as bicycle kicks or 36 degree spins just by experimenting either.

However, taking control of the game’s goalkeeper is the most enjoyably part of the controls.  Easy to control and manage without the help of the manual, the goalkeeper comes to life whenever an opponent moves closer to the goalkeeper’s zone.  Gamers take full control of the keeper and are able to block or dive for the ball with ease. This also applies to defending the goal during penalty kicks--simply move in any of the four directions and press any button to dive.

The difficulty level is something that should have improved on since even the Amateur sitting just proves to be too difficult.  After you make a goal, prepare to defend your net because the other team suddenly becomes an unstoppable force.  The computer opponent’s AI hardly ever has room for error and they seldom do anything that requires obtaining a yellow card (in soccer, yellow cards are used as warnings to players while red cards mean you get ejected from the game). 

Visually the game’s graphics are quite excellent to the point of near perfection.  Stadiums are filled with hundreds of moving people that wave flags of their country or burn a brightly colored flares. The players themselves, though, border from nicely detailed to unusual-looking.  For one thing, their shoulders are not well proportioned to their heads at certain angles during close ups. Gamers might even notice that you could see the sky through the eyes of a few players.  However, you must commend the game for designing the players well enough that they do resemble actual players like Brazil’s Ronaldo and Mexico’s Louis Hernandez.

The sound accurately and perfectly captures the sounds of a real soccer match.  In this game, the audience sound effects sound authentic rather than just a collective fake cheer dubbed on a computer.  The crowd chants or sings like in an actual match.  Players could even be heard shouting insults.  However, commentator Mike Drury’s announcing is without wit or insight.  He often repeats such phrases as “Oh, the keeper had his hands full with that one” virtually every time a goalkeeper catches the ball.

As far as the multiplayer option is concerned, the game wins high points for adding not only two players in the game at once but also eight.  Using the Multitap, eight gamers can choose a team and play a four-on-four game in any of the competitions.

As far as soccer titles go, World Tour Soccer 2002 is among the best in its class.  There are certainly several things that could have been improved upon, but overall the game manages to capture the true essence of this particular sport and it’s intense action. 

Gameplay: 8.7
The controls are a tad more difficult to master than the EA soccer games of the PS1.  For one thing, the controls make it difficult to try to perform an accurate challenge such as a sliding tackle.  Since the more elaborate tricks are not even listed in the instruction manual, the gamer will have to try and perform it on their own.

After figuring out the controls, gamers can compete in an exhibition match or any of the nine different national seasons to win the various Cups.  There’s even an option to play as the European and South American clubs of the fifties through the seventies.

Graphics: 8.9

From afar the game’s graphics look fantastic--and they are despite the face that the players seem to have an unusual body build that is not quite right.  For one thing, the shoulders are a bit squared during close-ups of the players.  However, and most impressively, several of the players look a lot like their counterparts.

Stadiums are rich in detail and the cheering mass that is the audience looks excellent especially as they wave the flag of their country or setting off sparklers.  The weather pattern looks good too, though it hardly has much of an effect on the players or the ball itself.

Sound: 8.9
To help add to the realism is the game’s quality of sound, which is not only great but incredibly accurate.  Fans not only cheer goals or near goals but they also chant and sing in accordance to their geographic background.  That is to say, Europeans chant words of encouragement more differently than the South Americans do.

The free flowing commentary is the only problem. The play-by-play is repetitive and lacks the wit heard in televised events, although the commentators never put down the gamer for missing goals or not saving a ball on time.  No real insight can be found either or indication of when to pull out an exhausted player.

Difficulty: 8.5
Considering the fact that the game has four difficulty settings (Amateur, Pro, World Class or Master), the difficulty level even in the Amateur setting is still too difficult to master.  The player AI seems to be stuck in one setting: never lose.

Concept: 8.9
With a wide selection of countries present and club teams from around the world, World Tour Soccer 2002 feels like a soccer game should feel--worldly.  The game’s back cover boasts more than five thousand players and if you know your soccer players, all the star players of today and in the past five years are present.

It’s also satisfying to see that the game tries hard to capture the experience of a soccer game, throwing in every possible detail imaginable to keep a realistic feel.  Such things as players getting angry after an unintentional tackle and pushing your player around or getting a yellow card after being caught for a deliberate dive is just many of the small things you’ll find in an actual match.

Multiplayer: 9.0
Naturally gamers can go up against a friend using another controller and all the game modes are available for multiplayer fun.  However, adding a multitap can add up to eight players in a single game at once!

Gamers can team up in pairs of four (your friends can assume the role of their favorite players or positions) and play against their friends in a friendly match in Exhibition mode or for the European or America Cup in the Competition mode.  Quite frankly, this is a perfect multiplayer mode that should really be seen more often in sports titles since it includes players into the action instead of the usual wait-your-turn method.

Overall: 8.6
World Tour Soccer 2002 is, by far, the most intense soccer title the PS2 has produced so far.  Although not completely perfect, there is much to love about a title that pushes the realism and the accuracy factor to the maximum.