Being the soccer fan that I am, I was eager to test out Konami's entry into the field of simulated versions of “The Game of Gentlemen”. What I was not expecting was the chance to almost immediately afterwards try out EA's latest offering of video soccer. Let's do this!

Graphics:
Winning Eleven was clearly not finished. The gameplay portion of the game looked great. Just like when watching real soccer on television, widescreen modes made available by the latest generation of consoles really make the game infinitely more enjoyable. Character animations were crisp, and my Brazilians looked like . . . well, Brazilians. The game looked incomplete as soon as I was taken to any video replay screen, however. The animations were choppy and the background crowd looked imported from Super Punch Out. I will not count this against them as I'm sure they will clean this up to be on the high level of the gameplay graphics.

FIFA 2008 was exactly what you would expect from an EA title. The graphics were clean, crisp, practical and completely forgettable. Ronaldhino looked enough like his real life counterpart to be recognizable, yet by no means photorealistic. Replay animations were significantly better than Winning Eleven for reasons already explained above.

Score: 1-1 at the 30th minute.

Gameplay:
Let me preface this section by saying that I am not good at video games at all. I enjoy playing them, but because of my physical shortcomings in the eye-hand coordination area I have a difficult time playing a lot of games. That's why I stay on easy mode in sports and action games and play RPGs almost exclusively (when I'm not playing DDR or shredding it up in Guitar Hero, that is).

Both of these games had nearly identical gameplay. I played Winning Eleven on an Xbox 360 and FIFA 2008 on a PlayStation 3. Other than my preference for the Xbox controller, I really cannot give either game the edge. Both had simple and effective passing mechanisms, more difficult to control shooting elements, the assortments of bumps and tackles on defense that you would expect, and a first person perspective for free kicks (uncontested shots when a foul, penalty or corner kick occur to the less soccer literate). I had a hard time scoring, but like my Halo 3 experience, all the controller explanations were in Japanese and I had a hard time understanding the reps helping me out. The computer opponent in Winning Eleven and the Sony Representative playing me in FIFA 2008 each beat me 1-0 in a 5 minute game. That might speak highly of Winning Eleven's AI as well, as the Sony rep appeared to be moderately skilled.

Score: 2-2 at halftime

Sound:
This section needs a preface as well. I played Winning Eleven sitting down on a love seat in the middle of an elaborate surround sound system, while I played FIFA 2008 standing up at a wall unit surrounded by the noise of TGS. This may lead to a little bit of bias, but Winning Eleven sounded amazing. The crowd sounds were all there, and there also appeared to be a selection of background music available. In the old days, sound used to be one of the last things to go into a video game, but you can tell how much that has changed with the last couple of generations of consoles. I refuse to score this section because of the difference in environments. I don't remember a damn thing about the sound in FIFA 2008.

Score: 2-2 in 80th minute

Overall:
Both appear to be shaping up to be excellent games. The only major difference visible was the incomplete graphics of Winning Eleven, and the fact that the WE demo had only a handful of National teams where as FIFA had a whole assortment of club teams to select from. I recommend renting both upon release for you to decide which one to purchase, as they are both worthy of purchase for the hard core hooligan to casual soccer fan alike.

Score: 3-3 at the end of regulation

But wait! It appears in stoppage time a Penalty Kick was awarded to Winning Eleven...and they score! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLLLL!!!!

Winning Eleven wins 4-3 in stoppage time!

(What really happened was Konami gave me a really cool water bottle holder, so the ref may have been biased when he awarded that PK!)

Both games will be available for Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.