Other aspects feel familiar too. Players may select from 50 national teams, each with updated rosters and star players (which have the real rosters and player names), and 60 "fake" club teams. Konami didn't acquire all of the club team licenses, which sucks, but in their stead, it offers an easy-to-use editor to quickly duplicate players' names, accurate uniform colors, name configurations and more. In other words, with a relatively lengthy bit of editing, your real club team is just around the corner.
I'm still mixed about the Master League's trading and acquisition menus. Actually, I'm straight-out not fond of them. They're better than before, but still damn arcane. For one, in the Master League there is no way to determine the quality of your team you want to pick. There are no graphic values indicating teamwork, speed, defense, etc. You just get what you get, as opposed to last year's choices, which clearly indicate which team is lousy, good or mediocre. What's more, being a regular old American, I see at all those European teams and look at who to trade and I just scratch my head. Unless you follow European or international soccer (football, or voila! futball), you're simply lost. Laugh at me if you want, but what is the average Joe Blow going to do when he wants a soccer game and sees this lineup of teams, and these menus? He'll buy FIFA is what he'll do. If you can't figure out the menu system, which takes time and experimentation, it renders the whole management sort of worthless.
If you indeed follow the international standings, there are still cool things to do. Players can track their own team's growing progress in the league, check on other trade-able players and build their team using the newly implemented managerial aspect. Gamers can bid to make acquisitions pre-, mid-, or post-season to improve or their team. Trades often happen automatically during mid season, indicating to players they can either agree or refuse, and of course, they can still be done manually as well.
Graphics
The previous games in the series, at least on PlayStation 2, ran on Criterion's rather impressive middleware, RenderWare. A good tool for development teams that didn't create their graphic engines from scratch, it's done pretty well for the Winning Eleven series. But with WSWE7I, players will find the new graphics engine affects more than visuals, it affects the whole game.
As aforementioned, the newly created animations and motion-capture work are not only beautiful, they're extensive. The range of athletic moves has been expanded to bring individual players to life. They finish off kicks with more realistic flair. The goalie's arms swing in the perfect arch as he hucks the ball downfield. Players stumble after they have the ball stolen from them. Their arms spread wide and they lean back as they take heavy, powerful shots. Athletes push and shove each other -- falling off balance and regaining it -- as they vie for loose balls. There are endless blissful animations seen in realtime and in cutscenes.