Last year, 989 Sports has brought a soccer game with plenty of depth and enough teams to choke a horse with.  While the game was decent enough, nitpicky sports fans like me felt that things could have been a tad better.   With World Tour Soccer 2003, though, 989 Sports definitely heard our prayers and released a soccer game that’s just too hard to put down.  Oh yeah, folks, it’s just that good.

For starters, there is more game playing modes available.  There is the Exhibition Match that takes you straight to the game using any of the fifteen national leagues with twenty-four divisions.  This mode would allow you to play a domestic team--such as the Los Angeles Galaxy--with an international team or club such as Manchester in any of the world‘s finest stadiums.  The Competitions Mode offers a number of national seasons, special competitions and international competitions.  You can play an entire season or go directly to competitions that take you through the World Championship, the Euro Cup, the South Americas Cup, the Americas Cup, the Africa Cup or even the Asia/Oceania Cup.

Career Mode, though, is by far the most unique mode in the game.  It allows gamers to develop their own school team and customize your own players (you can change their names, facial appearances and even the design of their school uniform and flag).  This mode allows you to take your team seasons of games until the school goes from amateur to the semi-pros. 

One of the game’s strongest features is the controls themselves that are so responsive and solid that gamers will find that matches move along smoothly.  Your players are able to make passes and shot at the goal almost seamlessly, as the character animations will surely display as you attack the opponent’s goal.  Whether it’s making defensive or offensive plays, the ball handling is a dream come true.  You’ll find that unlike last year’s game, gamers will find it easier to perform bicycle tricks and 360-degree spins.  The basic controls allow you to easily make headers, long passes as well as neat sliding tackles.

The match rules feel far more realistic as well and they are as true to the game as ever, although the referee’s foul calls can be seen as unusually too strict.  I was given a red card for being caught doing an intentional dive, an infraction that really warrants a yellow card.  Still the game isn’t always unfair in this aspect and there are times when you actually do get away with certain infractions.  You’ll see that the CPU opponents are challenging opponents with their own style of playing; of course, you have control over your team’s strategies and can even change defensive positions.

While the controls are tight and smooth, the same can be said about the graphics.  Visually, World Tour Soccer 2003 has a lot going for it compared to last year’s game that wasn’t bad looking either.  Yet this year’s game has more beautifully rendered stadiums to look at and each packed arena comes complete with fans waving the flags of their countries or--in true European or South American fashion--burn a brightly colored flares.  The player models are also a lot smoother and have more life-like facial expressions as they dispute referee decisions or taunt rival teams.  The only complaint, and this is not a major complaint, is that a good looking game like this deserved a few more camera angle selections.

Sound-wise, 989 Sports managed to somehow capture the true essence of a soccer match from a national to international perspective.  You can actually hear the difference between the cheering fans of a national USA soccer match compared to a match between international teams.  You’ll even hear the ball getting kicked around by players.  And to add to this, the game features fine commentary by an English announcer that calls the plays as they happen--and if you wish, you can also have commentary in Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch or Portuguese.

World Tour Soccer 2003 will not only please soccer fans looking for that soccer title that has everything, but it will also please any sports fan that enjoys and entertaining sports game that is done right.  There is just so much to love about a sport’s game that has a variety of game modes, decent graphics and delightfully responsive controls.  I highly recommend you sports fans out there buy this game; you definitely will not regret it.

 
Gameplay: 8.8
You’ll be amazed how tight controls and smooth gameplay makes sports game just so enjoyable that gamers will really take pleasure in attempting complicated tricks like bicycle kicks and headers.  The action is just so seamless that the game moves at a wonderfully steady pace that doesn’t stutter very often.   You can also change formations and come up with your own team strategies.

The many modes also allow gamers to write their own soccer history by taking their favorite teams through several tournaments and well on the road to the World Championship.  You can even decide to create your own school’s team and taking them through amateur leagues to the major leagues.

Graphics: 8.6
Visually this is one good-looking game with wonderful player models that won’t fail to impress any soccer fan.  You’ll be able to distinguish between the large majority of team players and their appearances also up to date.  For example, Brazil’s Ronaldo now sports his shaved head with a narrow strip of hair near the top of his head.  The players also react to various things, although it would have been nice to see a wider variety of player reactions and animations.

The backgrounds are also something else to look with each stadium’s unique architecture.  The fans also look great out there waving their team’s flags and lighting up flares.  When their team wins, fireworks break out with the coming celebration.

Sound: 8.8
Another of the game’s most pleasant features is its sound that does an amazing job of capturing the soccer mania of the European and Latin American fans.  You’ll be amazed how they were able to bring the differences in fan conduct during a match.  And example of this might be that is in watching national American teams play, listening to the fans cheer just the way they do during a football game.  Now listen to the matches involving South Americans teams like Brazil and listen to them chant and cheer with true samba-style.

While the sound on the field is kept to a minimum, you will hear the ball getting kicked around the way you would during a televised event.  The commentary is done quite nicely and does a great job of following the game, although a color commentator would have been nice.   The commentary in other languages is also much appreciated, although some of them--the Spanish and French in particular--are just rough and occasionally awkward translations of the English commentary.

Difficulty: Medium
The game offers four difficulty levels: Amateur, Pro, World Class and Master Class.  With the intelligent opponent AI, both the Amateur and Pro levels provide enough challenges to keep things both exciting and involving without being too frustratingly difficult.  The only thing that will have you scratching your head in wonder is the referee’s questionable yellow and red card decisions . . . but those just makes things more interesting and realistic.

Concept: 9.0
As I said before, there is just so much to love about this game.  One of them being that there is so many national and international teams that gamers will have fun just pitting some of these obscure teams together.  It’s rare to find a good soccer game that can put the Peruvian team versus the national Mexican team of San Luis Potosi and have them play in a European stadium.  The best part is that each mode provides its own wonderful challenge, especially the Career Mode.

Multiplayer: 9.2
Using the Multitap, up the eight players can dominate the field in true multiplayer sports fashion and play through the various national and international teams.  The only thing that is missing--and this is just me being nitpicky again--is online capabilities.  Playing this game online would have made it the ultimate soccer title out there.

Overall: 8.7
Sports fans, the game of soccer just doesn’t get any better than World Tour Soccer 2003.  With enough brilliantly entertaining game modes and ultra smooth controls, this is a true soccer sim that will keep gamers busy for a long while.