Konami will be the first to deliver a soccer game on the PS2, called Jikkyou Would Soccer 2000. It is based on International Superstar Soccer (J. League Perfect Striker) bringing over similar controls, graphics and gameplay. Jikkyou will be one of the first games to utilize the "mini-me" PS2 multi-tap so now four players will be able to get in on the action. No more will one or two of your friends have to sit on the sidelines as you and someone else have all the fun. Oh, and in case anyone is wondering about the "mini-me" thing, if you saw the multi-tap you would notice that it looks just like a tiny version of the PS2 console.

If there is one thing that is a given for PS2 sports fans to look forward to, its that they will be getting at the very least an updated version of possibly the best soccer game ever. If Jikkyou follows in the same footsteps as Perfect Striker than we can be sure to see fast paced gameplay, and highly intuitive controls. Even for a casual soccer fan, they will probably get hooked on this game in the first five minutes of play.

Now the most obvious improvement that this game will have over J. League is better graphics. Unfortunately the screenshots as of yet havent shown much improvement at all. The graphics are still very good and the framerate is high but on PS2 you know the expectations are pretty high. So they have a little work to do in this area before its launch and I think it is safe to assume that they will be spicing up the graphics more in the future. Another interesting possibility for this game is the updating of rosters and multiplayer over the internet. Hopefully Konami will be looking into the future and implement such a feature because it would really give the game a boost of replay value and besides, sports games could benefit immensely from being able to update the stats as they change in the real world.

Konami will have the ESPN license for the game in North America so it will fit into our culture more nicely as well.