Unfortunately, there is a rather large problem with soccer games. Where Madden & Co. have been recreating the NFL, NBA, and NHL in perfect digital forms for years, soccer games have always been rather plain and soulless. Even the good ones – ISS on SNES, ISS64 on N64 – always were fairly basic affairs compared to their American brethren.

Part of the problem is that soccer, unlike the almost scientific strategy of playbooks in American football, is a rather free form and open game. There are strategies, but executing them isn’t something that can be done from a menu. And given that you could classify everything that a real soccer player does into a few basic moves like “pass”, “shoot” and “tackle”, soccer games tended to reflect that. Never mind that in reality a pass could mean anything from a little back-heel to a sweeping 60-yard ball to the striker. Your options in a real game of soccer are limited only by the ingenuity and imagination of a player, and thus they have many more options open to them than the “simple pass along ground” long offered in games.

And that’s where WE6: FE excels. You always have lots of options. There are at least five different run speeds, for crying out loud. Run down the wing to the box and you’re not reduced to “Pass” or “Cross” as in certain other games. You can square it to the feet of a player. You can lay it in the path of an onrushing striker. You can hit a low, hard ball across the face of the goal. You can send a lofted near-post cross for someone to glance in. Or you can pick out a striker at the far post with a deep cross. And that’s assuming you want to play the ball to another player; there are a whole set of dribbling options you can use to go in for a shot, too…

Sound a little daunting? It should, and it shouldn’t. This really isn’t your basic, arcade football game. It is much more of a simulation; so don’t come in expecting something as immediately friendly as ISS64. The pace is slower, the opponents are smarter, and there are no money plays. But it’s not a game to fear. Thanks to the rather open-ended nature of soccer, you can get by, stringing together lots of simple passes and only using the basic buttons and commands, but to take things to the next level and defeat harder opponents, or to truly play to your team’s strengths, you’ll need to learn more.

That’s where the superb training mode comes in. Yes, there is a tutorial video, but forget that. Yes, there is a full set of options for fooling around on an empty pitch to practice passing or free kicks, but forget that too. The Training Challenge mini-games are what will really suck you in. You’ve got little tasks to do – run between all the cones in the fastest time, hit the target with free kicks, play possession – and you’re awarded points based on how well you do. Never mind that getting a high score unlocks a classic player for purchase in Master League (read: Franchise) mode, it’s just addictive trying to top your own scores… or even a friend’s. And all the while, you’re learning. If only school was this good.

Thankfully, although there is a lot to learn, once you have the basics down, it all follows on intuitively. For example, a normal through pass (a ball played along the ground to a position in front of a player) is assigned to the Y button, but when you hold down L while hitting Y you’ll execute a high through pass. Equally, hold L while pressing shoot (B) and you’ll attempt to lift the ball high over the goalkeeper. It’s completely logical. You can cross by pressing X when parallel to the box, but if you want to vary things with one of the other crosses I described above, try hitting X twice for a near-post cross. Want to change run speeds and go faster? Hit run (R) twice. It’s all very responsive, too, though the analog stick can prove somewhat cumbersome since WE was designed with a digital input in mind. Though I personally prefer an analog stick, I found myself itching to use a digital pad for this game, but even if you wanted to (and I certainly don’t) you can’t use the tiny GameCube d-pad for that.

Unfortunately, the PS2 legacy hurts the GameCube port’s controls in other ways too; it would be nice to have all the different levels of run triggered by how hard you’re pushing down on the analogue shoulders, but the double and triple-tapping are the options instead. By far the worst control faux pas involves strategies. You can assign different tactical commands (Offside Trap, Counter Attack) to any of the directions on the d-pad, which is a convenient and elegant solution. However, those are rarely used. The big problem is that WE also has a set of bars underneath a player’s name denoting the “attack attitude” of a team; shifting the bar up will send everyone forward, while bringing it all the way back means that even when you’re attacking, players will hang back in defence. To change it on the PS2, you hold L2 down and then hit either R1 or R2 to move the bar. On GameCube, you’ve got to hold Up on the d-pad and then hit either R or Z – an awful idea, as it not only means you have to fumble around with the tiny d-pad, but it means you’ve got to take your thumb off the control stick. And not only that, the instant you tap up, you’ve just activated whatever strategy was assigned to that. In a game where time on the ball is rare, it’s a fatal flaw.

When you’ve mastered the controls, you’ll find there’s a lot of meat in this package. Yes, you have the usual array of exhibition options for the 56 countries, 40 clubs, 2 all-star teams and 7 hidden “classic” countries, as well as cups and leagues for each region, but it’s the Master League that should be the focus (and would certainly be if not for the thick, incomprehensible Japanese). Pick your club from 40 well known but (due to licensing issues) bizarrely named clubs from Europe and South America and you’re off. You start with a team of no-hopers and you have to play the transfer market to improve your squad, but that’s not the only way to do things, because there’s a twist to the game that turns the whole idea of a Franchise mode on its head. You see, players have a unique teamwork stat that determines how well they play with each other. For each pass that you complete, that stat goes up slightly. And as each player’s teamwork rises in turn, your whole team improves slowly. Think of it as the sporting equivalent to experience points in RPGs. And so when it does come to buying new players to improve your squad, you’re faced with tough questions. For example, if your two strikers have a very good teamwork stat, they’ll be able to direct more accurate passes to each other, and more importantly make good runs off the ball at the right time to receive through passes. So do you break up an experienced pairing to bring in a better striker, knowing full well that it’ll take a while for the new man to gel with his partner? It’s not just about buying the best players; you need to have the best team to succeed.

The game is a mixed bag from a technical standpoint. The animation is utterly astounding. More than anything else that is what makes WE look so convincing. The detail extends even to including David Beckham’s unique free-kick stance. However, the player models – despite nice touches like real faces for a lot of well-known players – aren’t anything to write home about, and certainly pale in comparison to the otherwise abysmal Virtua Striker. Sound is definitely the weak point of the game. The Japanese commentators do provide a great atmosphere with their insane ramblings, (you haven’t lived until you hear someone singing “Goal” to the tune of the Can-Can) they pretty much provide the entire atmosphere. Despite neat touches like booing the away team, the crowd is lifeless and dead, and unlike other titles (or even past WEs) the game doesn’t include any real crowd chants.

This brings us to the licensing issue. Although the Japanese version does contain real player names for a good 60-70% of the players in the game… it’s in Japanese, so the point is moot. More annoying are the lack of any real clubs in the game. Yes, Europort are based on Liverpool and contain their real roster, but their kit is wrong and so is their name and flag. The kits are also wrong for every team in the game, including countries. Then there are the few players – like the Dutch – not covered by the FIFPro license, so they lack shirt numbers, real faces, or even any made-up name.

Special mention must go out to the extensive Edit Mode, however, because it allows the hardcore to fix all of that. Of course, it’s something that should have been done automatically in the first place. You do have to admire the fact that Konami have been rather sneaky, and actually included templates for all the real kits for every team – including almost lawsuit-inducing replicas of Nike and Adidas trademark designs – waiting for those eager to tinker around. There’s even a complete set of real Dutch player faces waiting…

It’s worth comparing this version with the one on PS2, released a month and a half beforehand. Despite the lag, nothing new has been added to the GameCube version – including any of the roster updates made available as downloads to PS2 users. Technically speaking, both versions are identical, with the GC version being slightly faster to load but also suffering from a rare and brief stutter in the middle of games – the game pauses for just a split second every so often, barely noticeable, but it’s there and not in the PS2 version. Other than that, there are no graphical differences between the two. The biggest difference comes with controls, and despite my personal preference with the GameCube controller on the whole, it’s not as good as the PS2 controller for WE6. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t have enough buttons, lacks a legitimate digital pad, and the analog shoulders are an annoyance. It’s not bad enough to shun this version entirely – it’s still eminently playable – but if you have a choice, the PS2 version is the one to get.

The bottom line is that this game is one to get on whatever platform you choose. You may have fond memories of ISS64, and this is effectively the new generation, adding several layers of depth and realism, while keeping all the fun intact. And there’s still so much more to touch on, like the simple formation and strategic options to assign to your team, or the glory of four player co-op. Sports fans in particular should check this out for the engaging Master League mode, but you don’t need to be a soccer or a sports fan to give what is ultimately an incredibly fun game a try. Who needs FIFA, anyway?