The best soccer video games.....

Mia Stud · 18 Sep 2002, 06:48 PM

As a former game tester of Madden 2000 by EA sports, i like to think I know a little bit about gaming. I've played them dating back to old school atari.

The purpose of this thread is to see what soccer games out there people like. In my experience and from researching it, the best game world-wide seems to be the Winning Eleven Series in Japan,, and Pro Evolution Soccer in England by Konami. These are the same games, with different titles to suit their markets. Unfortunately, these games are not available in the U.S. Konami, for whatever reason, refuses to release those titles here.

As for the fifa series, I think it's a joke. I mean no offense to anyone here, but i 'm of the opinion that if you think the gameplay in fifa is good, you either don't know soccer, or enjoy unrealistic, arcade style gameplay.

The best soccer game and series i have found here in the US is the underappreicated and largely unknown "MLS Extra Time" series by konami. It uses a game engine comparable to the one found in the Winning Eleven and Pro Evolution series, or so i've read. It's a helluva lot of fun to play, the gameplay is ultra-realistic with most scores in the 1-0 and 2-1 range. Currently available is MLS Extra Time 2002 for the gamecube and xbox, MLS extra time 2001 for ps2, and mls game night for psone, the version i own. If you haven't checked out this series, I highly suggest you do so. You'll never play Fifa's trash again.

Ted Cikowski · 18 Sep 2002, 06:56 PM

here it is in order:

1) Pro Evolution Soccer 2 (aka Wining 11 6)
2) Pro Evolution Soccer
3) MLS Extratime 2002
4) MLS Gamenight
5) ISS Pro Evolution Soccer
6) ISS '98
7) Sega Worldwide Soccer 2000
8) MLS Extratime 2001
9) FIFA World Cup 2002
10) FIFA 2002
11) This is Football 2002 (aka World Tour Soccer)
12) Soccer America
13) Striker Pro 2000
14) Virtua Striker 3

I have never played sensible soccer so i have no idea.

the worst game I have ever played is probably any of the FIFA games pre 2002.

Virtua Striker would be fine if they let you switch camera angles.

Mia Stud · 18 Sep 2002, 07:31 PM

hey brah, thanks for the reply.....

any idea why MLS Extra Time 2002 wasn't released on the ps2? That's the system i own, and not having that game is killing me.

Anyway, how have you been able to play Pro Evolution Soccer 1 and 2? I've heard the only way is to soder an illegal mod chip into your system to allow it to play imports.

Again, thanks for the reply, by and large, i agree with your game rankings....

Ted Cikowski · 18 Sep 2002, 09:17 PM

I've played Winning eleven 6 briefly, I own Pro Evolution soccer as a backup with a messiah chip....yes it's illegal but I wanted it and found no other way.....so it's not like I am stealing since they didn't release it here anyway.

MLS Extratime 2002 is by far the best of the series. You can make trades right off the bat. they have several south american and mexican clubs. they have a franchise mode where after the season some players retire and you dradt new people. Jack Edwards is the announcer. The A.I. is better but sadly you can not defend against free kicks, they score almost everytime in this one. You can create your own player but you can't put him on a MLS team for some reason and it's missing several of the new stars. So far I've noticed it's missing John Harkes, Ben Olsen (but he is on the MLS all star team), Ruiz, Twellman and Torres from the Crew.

When you create a player it has names stored in the data base so I created the 2001 Fusion and Jack Edwards says all thier names because Bishop and the others names are in the database already.

there's lots more little extras so I would get an xbox if i were you, especially for that new Superman game that is coming out which is gonna be epic.

I have the PS2 as well. I didn't like MLS extratime 2001 as much because you couldn't transfer players from team to team, you couldn't edit international team players names, you couldn't do a lot of things. MLS gamenight was great though, I still play it despite the graphics, which are pretty funny by today's standards.