J-League Winning Eleven: Asia Championship Hands-On

TOKYO--With Winning Eleven 8 already available in Japan and Pro Evolution Soccer scheduled for release in Europe in just a few weeks, Konami's KCET team is currently working on J-League Winning Eleven: Asia Championship for the PlayStation 2. We had the opportunity to get hands-on with the game at Konami's Tokyo Game Show booth recently, and although the game essentially plays the same great game of soccer that Winning Eleven 8 does, we did notice a couple of differences.

For starters, all of the Asian club teams in the game (there are no club teams from other continents or from international teams) are officially licensed and, as such, sport uniforms that are exact replicas of the real thing--complete with sponsor logos and badges. We also noticed that the game features a number of classic teams, such as the Tokyo 1969 side. On the pitch, the game offered the same fast, fluid, and realistic gameplay that we've seen in preview builds of Pro Evolution Soccer 4, but it was off the field where we believe that the KCET team might be trying something new.

Directly above the screen on which we were playing, there was a video running that (we assume) was also taken from J-League Winning Eleven: Asia Championship. However, it could have been the previously unannounced Winning Eleven Tactics: European Club Soccer--although it wasn't labeled as such. The video showed a number of text-based conversations taking place in what was presumably a team manager's office, and it featured characters that almost certainly consisted of a player, a publicist or agent, and a coach or assistant manager. We'll let you know what the score is just as soon as we're able to confirm it.

For more updates, be sure to check GameSpot's coverage of the Tokyo Game Show 2004.