I love the J-League Winning Eleven games. Over the past few years each J-League game has represented the pinnacle of each iteration mainly because of the more sim-like gameplay and the wealth of gameplay options. Last year’s title was, in my opinion, one of the best Winning Eleven games ever and included the amazing Fantasista/Be A Pro mode.

Unfortunately, in their infinite wisdom the masterminds at Konami deemed it unnecessary to create a J-League game for the next-gen systems and instead released J-League Winning Eleven 2008 Club Championship for the PS2 only. Further rubbing salt in the wound is the fact that, apart from a few graphical and feature tweaks, the game is almost identical to last year’s title. While this does mean it’s a heck of a lot better than the abomination that was PES 2008 it also means that if you have last year’s game there’s no point wasting your money to get this one.

Graphics

I could cut and past the graphics section from last year’s game and it’d pretty much be the same. Very little has changed and while the game still looks excellent for a PS2/Last-Gen title, in this era of high-def (and at the very least, widescreen) videogaming JLWE2008 looks incredibly dated.

I still love the fact that the game still has 60+ stadiums (even if some high profile J-League ones are missing) as well as excellent kits for the licensed teams. Unfortunately, the overall resolution of the visuals pales in comparison to what you’d see even in most Wii games.

It must be noted, however, that the slow-down that plagued the Player-Cam in Fantasista mode last year has been almost completely eliminated allowing you to play that mode from a very close-up view if you so desire.

Audio

Jon Kabira and co. are back, I still don’t understand what they’re saying, but it’s a lot better than Jon Champion. Likewise, the themes and music are infinitely better than the laughably bad original music in PES 2008.

Options

JLWE08 features practically the same gameplay modes as last year; Exhibition Match, Selection Match (All-Star games), Master League, Cup, League, Community, Fantasista, World Tour and Training. Again, the Fantasista is the real star of the game and allows you to create an original player and take him through a career as a professional footballer starting as a 17 year-old in the J-League Division 2 all the way to Europe. Much like the Be A Pro mode in EURO 2008 and NHL 09 you only control a single player.

The Fantasista mode is largely the same as in last year’s game but there are a few minor changes. Firstly, the interface has received some tweaks and there’s now a J-League Team of the Week and a weekly ranking of the Top 60 players in the league. Secondly, you now have more potential positions to choose from when creating your player. Unfortunately, not all the changes are positive as Konami, for some reason I cannot begin to fathom, decided to remove the ‘Training’ option and as such you cannot improve your stats if you’re left out of the first team! As a result your stats improve more slowly than last year and while it is realistic that it would take you 4 or 5 seasons before you even come close to approaching a super-star it can make for some frustrating early campaigns. That said, I still prefer this to 'Be A Pro' in NHL 2009 where you can go from the third line of an AHL team to the first line of an NHL team in just half a season!

Improvements like actual player contracts and being able to request a transfer have yet to be implemented.

With regards to leagues and teams, Konami have lost yet another license as La Liga is no longer authentic!!! As a result, the only licensed divisions are J-League 1 & 2, Ligue 1, the Eridivise and Serie A. The EPL and La Liga are present but with no real team names and no real kits. Also disappointing are the outdated rosters with much of the summer transfer activity in Europe being ignored.

Gameplay

J-League Winning Eleven 2008’s gameplay is practically identical to last year’s game. On the one hand that does mean it has one of the most realistic and fun game engines around -  a game engine that’s miles better than PES 2008 for the 360 and PS3. But on the other hand it means that there really isn’t much new here if you have last year’s game.

The pace of the game is still slower and more methodical than the non-J-League games, the ball physics are still solid and player interactions are top notch. Like always there are an almost infinite number of ways to score and you rarely see the same goal twice.

Once again, Fantasista mode is where you’ll spend the majority of your time and it’s a credit to the addictive nature of this mode that even though I knew the gameplay was practically the same as last year I still found myself playing the game until the wee hours!

By combining RPG elements with a solid game engine you get a mode that’s utterly engrossing and I love the fact that there’s a tangible difference in AI between players at different levels. In J-League Division 2 you feel like you’re playing with morons with lots of mis-placed passes and poor awareness, but the moment you move to Europe and to a top team you find your teammates not only take better positions but also find you a lot more easily. It’s also supremely impressive that you can appreciate the difference between individual players – I still recall playing upfront for Kyoto Purple Sanga and knowing that if I was stuck upfront with Fernandinho he’d hog the ball and lose it, but if the coach put me with Yanigasawa he’d not only be more apt to pass the ball but he’d also create better scoring chances. This is a facet of the Winning Eleven game engine that FIFA, for all my praise of the recent iterations, still aspires to.

Unfortunately, some of the problems with Fantasista mode that affected last year’s game are still present and I can’t wrap my head around some of the idiotic player rotation changes that the CPU coaches make (there’s a Rafa Benitez joke here somewhere). There’s nothing more frustrating than scoring a hatrick and then finding yourself starting on the bench the next match just because you're a bit fatigued. Likewise, the manner in which player ratings improve is still a mystery to me.

Replay Value

J-League WE 2008’s replay value all depends upon whether or not you have last year’s game. If you have then there’s really nothing new here, if you haven’t then there’s a lot of fun to be had but you might as well pick up last year’s game for a cheaper price.

Overall

It’s only due to Konami’s monumental failure/cock-up with PES 2008 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 that this game remains even relevant. For all intents and purposes Konami have taken a year-old game, slapped on some new menus, removed some licenses, and added a ‘2008’ to the title. However, since PES 2008 was so bloody awful it still remains the best Winning Eleven/Pro Evo game available.

As I’ve mentioned before, if you own last year’s J-League game there’s no point in importing this one and if you don’t then you could either try to import last year’s game at a cheaper price or hope that PES 2009 (which features the Fantasista mode under a different name) isn’t as bad as it’s predecessor. Either way, despite being an excellent game in and of itself, I really can’t recommended J-League Winning Eleven 2008 Club Championship to anyone but the most hardcore Winning Eleven aficionados.

I love the J-League Winning Eleven games. Over the past few years each J-League game has represented the pinnacle of each iteration mainly because of the more sim-like gameplay and the wealth of gameplay options. Last year’s title was, in my opinion, one of the best Winning Eleven games ever and included the amazing Fantasista/Be A Pro mode.

Unfortunately, in their infinite wisdom the masterminds at Konami deemed it unnecessary to create a J-League game for the next-gen systems and instead released J-League Winning Eleven 2008 Club Championship for the PS2 only. Further rubbing salt in the wound is the fact that, apart from a few graphical and feature tweaks, the game is almost identical to last year’s title. While this does mean it’s a heck of a lot better than the abomination that was PES 2008 it also means that if you have last year’s game there’s no point wasting your money to get this one.

Graphics

I could cut and past the graphics section from last year’s game and it’d pretty much be the same. Very little has changed and while the game still looks excellent for a PS2/Last-Gen title, in this era of high-def (and at the very least, widescreen) videogaming JLWE2008 looks incredibly dated.

I still love the fact that the game still has 60+ stadiums (even if some high profile J-League ones are missing) as well as excellent kits for the licensed teams. Unfortunately, the overall resolution of the visuals pales in comparison to what you’d see even in most Wii games.

It must be noted, however, that the slow-down that plagued the Player-Cam in Fantasista mode last year has been almost completely eliminated allowing you to play that mode from a very close-up view if you so desire.

Audio

Jon Kabira and co. are back, I still don’t understand what they’re saying, but it’s a lot better than Jon Champion. Likewise, the themes and music are infinitely better than the laughably bad original music in PES 2008.

Options

JLWE08 features practically the same gameplay modes as last year; Exhibition Match, Selection Match (All-Star games), Master League, Cup, League, Community, Fantasista, World Tour and Training. Again, the Fantasista is the real star of the game and allows you to create an original player and take him through a career as a professional footballer starting as a 17 year-old in the J-League Division 2 all the way to Europe. Much like the Be A Pro mode in EURO 2008 and NHL 09 you only control a single player.

The Fantasista mode is largely the same as in last year’s game but there are a few minor changes. Firstly, the interface has received some tweaks and there’s now a J-League Team of the Week and a weekly ranking of the Top 60 players in the league. Secondly, you now have more potential positions to choose from when creating your player. Unfortunately, not all the changes are positive as Konami, for some reason I cannot begin to fathom, decided to remove the ‘Training’ option and as such you cannot improve your stats if you’re left out of the first team! As a result your stats improve more slowly than last year and while it is realistic that it would take you 4 or 5 seasons before you even come close to approaching a super-star it can make for some frustrating early campaigns. That said, I still prefer this to 'Be A Pro' in NHL 2009 where you can go from the third line of an AHL team to the first line of an NHL team in just half a season!

Improvements like actual player contracts and being able to request a transfer have yet to be implemented.

With regards to leagues and teams, Konami have lost yet another license as La Liga is no longer authentic!!! As a result, the only licensed divisions are J-League 1 & 2, Ligue 1, the Eridivise and Serie A. The EPL and La Liga are present but with no real team names and no real kits. Also disappointing are the outdated rosters with much of the summer transfer activity in Europe being ignored.

Gameplay

J-League Winning Eleven 2008’s gameplay is practically identical to last year’s game. On the one hand that does mean it has one of the most realistic and fun game engines around -  a game engine that’s miles better than PES 2008 for the 360 and PS3. But on the other hand it means that there really isn’t much new here if you have last year’s game.

The pace of the game is still slower and more methodical than the non-J-League games, the ball physics are still solid and player interactions are top notch. Like always there are an almost infinite number of ways to score and you rarely see the same goal twice.

Once again, Fantasista mode is where you’ll spend the majority of your time and it’s a credit to the addictive nature of this mode that even though I knew the gameplay was practically the same as last year I still found myself playing the game until the wee hours!

By combining RPG elements with a solid game engine you get a mode that’s utterly engrossing and I love the fact that there’s a tangible difference in AI between players at different levels. In J-League Division 2 you feel like you’re playing with morons with lots of mis-placed passes and poor awareness, but the moment you move to Europe and to a top team you find your teammates not only take better positions but also find you a lot more easily. It’s also supremely impressive that you can appreciate the difference between individual players – I still recall playing upfront for Kyoto Purple Sanga and knowing that if I was stuck upfront with Fernandinho he’d hog the ball and lose it, but if the coach put me with Yanigasawa he’d not only be more apt to pass the ball but he’d also create better scoring chances. This is a facet of the Winning Eleven game engine that FIFA, for all my praise of the recent iterations, still aspires to.

Unfortunately, some of the problems with Fantasista mode that affected last year’s game are still present and I can’t wrap my head around some of the idiotic player rotation changes that the CPU coaches make (there’s a Rafa Benitez joke here somewhere). There’s nothing more frustrating than scoring a hatrick and then finding yourself starting on the bench the next match just because you're a bit fatigued. Likewise, the manner in which player ratings improve is still a mystery to me.

Replay Value

J-League WE 2008’s replay value all depends upon whether or not you have last year’s game. If you have then there’s really nothing new here, if you haven’t then there’s a lot of fun to be had but you might as well pick up last year’s game for a cheaper price.

Overall

It’s only due to Konami’s monumental failure/cock-up with PES 2008 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 that this game remains even relevant. For all intents and purposes Konami have taken a year-old game, slapped on some new menus, removed some licenses, and added a ‘2008’ to the title. However, since PES 2008 was so bloody awful it still remains the best Winning Eleven/Pro Evo game available.

As I’ve mentioned before, if you own last year’s J-League game there’s no point in importing this one and if you don’t then you could either try to import last year’s game at a cheaper price or hope that PES 2009 (which features the Fantasista mode under a different name) isn’t as bad as it’s predecessor. Either way, despite being an excellent game in and of itself, I really can’t recommended J-League Winning Eleven 2008 Club Championship to anyone but the most hardcore Winning Eleven aficionados.