Visually this game is very good. The graphics are crisp and the animation is very smooth. Ball transitions happen seamlessly and player animations are very realistic. It is not a detailed as the home games, but because of the smaller screen, you really don't notice.

The sound is good enough but not great. The announcer is pretty bad. He starts every game saying pretty much the same thing that "this" stadium, is a great place to watch a match (same thing regardless of stadium). In-game announcing is quite funny. I noticed after about the tenth game, all the announcer ever says is the name of the player that has the ball. At first it sounds about right but after a while it became funny. The only time he breaks from this is when a player shoots. Then he SCREAMS the name. "Pope…McBride…Donovan…DONOVAAAANNN!!!!"

The controls will be very familiar to anyone who has played a soccer game recently and very natural to anyone who hasn't. They use the same basic controls that both FIFA and Winning Eleven use. Tricks are done by holding the left shoulder button and pressing one of the face buttons. Controls happen quickly and you can queue up one touch passes and shots prior to the ball actually arriving just like in other games. One gripe I have with the controls is that you lose control for too long at times while it does animations. The special moves are like this. It also does this when receiving a long ball. It positions the player under the ball and has pre-chosen the player that will get it; there is no fight for the ball. Also, if you press a button while the ball is in the air, the player will do that after he controls it, and because it sometimes takes so long, by then you don't always want to. I've come close to own goals a number of times from this "feature".

This game plays very quick. It may be too quick for some people's tastes, a bit quicker than is probably realistic. I like the pace. At times, I do feel that the strategies I use tend to devolve into quick through passes to whoever is open in front of me, get as close to the goal as possible and do a quick shot. This is true in general of most soccer games I play, but the speed of this game makes that tactic work very well. I'd prefer deeper game play than this.

There are other problems with this game. There are four "tricks" you can do. Three of them are very standard but one is "deliberate dive". First of all, I can't stand it in real soccer; I certainly don't want to see it in a game. The other problem is that it seems to have no effect other than every time you do it, you are given a yellow card. This wouldn't be so bad except that the control is so similar to the other, useful, tricks, that I find myself accidentally pressing it from time to time in play and drawing yellow cards.

Another problem is the AI. More than other games, it seems that players on my team do things other than I would expect. I'll get the ball completely open and ready to pass downfield, but instead of running downfield for the pass, they run directly at me. When this happens in the middle of the field, I feel like I'm watching 6 year olds play, they keep bunching up.

A problem that some people will find is that lack of a season or career mode. It would have been nice to include it but they have enough cup tournaments to keep me busy. They also have a Challenge Mode that is interesting. You get points for playing good soccer (e.g. high pass completion) and points taken away for bad soccer (e.g. mashing on the tackle button over and over). You get a medal (and advance to the next challenge) by getting a certain amount of points.

There are a ton of things to unlock, though I don't get too exited about unlocking them. The challenge mode simply allows you to unlock the eight stadiums, which I couldn't care less about. Winning cups and getting achievement (e.g. cup MVP) will unlock random teams. You also gain points from winning cups that can be used to unlock other teams.

All in all, this is a good, but not great game. It has some issues but at the same time is very fun. It doesn't break any new ground, but is very acceptable. If you are the type that is very picky about your soccer games, I would at least wait until FIFA comes out for the PSP to compare it. If you really want a soccer game for your PSP now though, you won't be disappointed with World Tour Soccer.