World Tour Soccer 2005 is the third soccer game that 989 has done on the PS2, and if you've never heard of the series it's for a good reason. The solid colors along with the poorly detailed players make it look like a first generation title. Animation-wise, things look stiff. The players on the pitch don't have a natural feel to them, and when someone takes a dive or slide tackles, it looks as if they are trying to pull a super man.

Amazingly enough, the sound is almost as sub par as the graphics are. The cheers from the spectators are muffled and will cut off at strange times. The sounds from the pitch are weak at best. The music is hardly ever heard, and only the commentators bring an ounce of professionalism to the mix. These sounds will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

After taking a year on hiatus, the newest World Tour Soccer should be better than ever, but it seems that the developers have disregarded every other soccer game out there and tried everything from scratch. First the graphics suffered from this, and now the gameplay. All the regular modes are there, including exhibitions, tournaments, and leagues, and there are tons of teams and players, but the substance within the game itself has gone AWOL.

At first glance, World Tour Soccer 2005 looks like it's got something going for it. The ability to create any player or team from scratch is definitely a plus and is handled rather well. From here, you can insert your creation into just about any arena of the game, whether it's exhibition teams, international teams, or you can put them into the league mode and have other computer controlled teams bid on them.

The tourneys are all there as well. Just about every type of cup can be played, and the number of players and teams is staggering. There is also a league mode where you can start up a club or school team, and manage the roster by buying/selling/trading players. This is a major aspect of most sports games these days and is becoming more and more sophisticated as the years progress, with no exceptions here.

Unfortunately, everything falls apart when you actually get into a soccer match. World Tour Soccer plays like an old arcade soccer game where play is fast and goals are faster. Though you can use give and goes, play tactics, and different formations, there is really no other applicable strategy except constantly trying to boot the ball up and down the field, hoping to get close enough to the goal to take a wild shot at it, which will usually go in.

Most soccer games of the past have been relatively easy, that is, games will usually end up being 10 goals to 9. In World Tour Soccer 2005, scoring on and beating your opponents is no great challenge. The mechanics are such that not much skill is needed to work your way down the field, and once you're there, a shot that will hit the back of the net is not far off.

World Tour Soccer 2005 tries to emulate control schemes in other soccer titles like FIFA and Winning Eleven. It is successful in this, but it fails in emulating the control itself. Players will fly wildly around the pitch, passes are difficult to aim, and trying to tackle the ball away from somebody seems like guesswork. The physics are incredibly off, evident in that players will sometimes fly and balls will pop up in the air like you were playing on Mars.

Goalie control is almost non existent, and they will tend to come too far out of net when a long ball is coming their way, leaving room for a lot of crap goals scored by tapping the ball over the keeper's head. Control for the rest of the team is a mixed bag; free kicks are aided by the use of icon passing, but the aid is minimal. It's mostly luck after you let go of the button. Though you can change strategies on the fly (different areas of attack, defense, etc.) they don't seem to have much of an effect on anything.

In the end, World Tour Soccer boils down to a game of kickball. The winner will be the player who can hammer the ball down the field more times than the other guy. World Tour Soccer wouldn't be too terrible if it was alone in the soccer realm. However, with games like FIFA and Winning Eleven to compete against, it is amazing that the developers let this game out of the pen the way it is. With this level of quality, you can bet your soccer balls that 2 out of 3 gamers will give World Tour Soccer 2005 a thumbs down.