There is nothing Play likes more than coming in every morning and listening to our colleagues talk about football. Yes, the constant blathering about what formation England should use, or who should play in the defensive midfield role never gets boring and in no way do we wish they’d talk about something else, or just shut up completely.

Inevitably, the talk will increase exponentially during the World Cup, which by the time you read this will be all over, but ironically it has yet to start whilst we’re writing. Suffice to say we’re dreading it, as it will mean even more talk about football, which we’ll be drowning out with thoughts of disembowelling the bodies attached to the flapping mouths.

Homicidal thoughts aside, the World Cup gets people even more interested in football than normal, which is why it’s a great time to release a videogame based on the sport. You’re pretty much guaranteed sales no matter how bad your game is because it has words like ‘soccer’ and ‘football’ on it, words that really capture peoples’ imaginations. This explains World Tour Soccer 2’s release date then: cashing in on the World Cup cash cow to disguise what is a poor representation of the beautiful game.

We’re not just venting here – World Tour Soccer 2 really isn’t a very good football game. During the time we spent playing it for this review, the only fun we managed to get out of it was getting an England versus New Zealand game abandoned because we’d had five players sent off, all for diving. The diving is about the only good thing in World Tour Soccer 2, and by pressing L1 and Triangle together whilst in possession, your player will jump in the air like he’s been shot. You can do it without any opposition near you, resulting in a yellow card, or if someone’s tackling you, occasionally you’ll sell the dive and get them in trouble.

This is especially satisfying in multi-player, which is about the only fun you’d have out of World Tour Soccer 2. Everything else that makes up a decent football game isn’t handled well at all, with matches descending into ridiculous farces of 100-yard runs and nine-nil score lines. When Pro Evo 5 exists, there is absolutely no reason to pay World Tour Soccer 2 a first thought.

Jude Salmon