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This Is Football 2005 for PlayStation 2
This Is Football 2005 for PlayStation 2 lets you control a football team on the pitch and shape it outside matches. You choose clubs, national sides or special teams, set the line-up and try to unlock the defence through passes, runs and shots. Computer teams use different playing styles, so the same approach does not work equally well against every opponent. Footballer and goalkeeper animations highlight the action around the penalty area, from a save to an attempt on goal.
You can play a single match, create a cup or league, or begin a longer season. Career gives a custom school team a route into semi-professional football and then professional leagues. You customise names, kits, flags and players, and take transfers and squad composition into account during season play. The optional EyeToy:Cameo feature also lets you photograph a face and have it appear on a custom player. This requires a separately sold EyeToy camera; normal play with controllers does not require a camera.
You can play together as opponents or with several participants on the same team. For up to eight simultaneous local players, you need two PS2 Multitaps and a controller per person. With two controllers, you can play a two-player match without those expansions. Switching the footballer you control and coordinating passes take on a different role when several people share the same team. The original European release also included network football, but the current operation of those old online features is not promised.
Region and language
Our PlayStation 2 games are PAL editions and come with a Dutch or English box, unless stated otherwise. By default, you receive the version for the European market. We note it in the product details if the region is different or the box is in another language. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
Manual
This Is Football 2005 for PlayStation 2 includes the manual unless the product title states otherwise. If the booklet is missing, the title says “No Manual”. This lets you see before ordering whether the game comes with a manual.
The manuals included with our games usually contain at least English and often around six European languages. The exact languages vary by edition, so Dutch is not always included. The booklet explains the controls and the main rules. You can use it to check how to control the game, which actions are available and how its different features work.
The history of This Is Football 2005
This Is Football 2005 appeared in Europe in October 2004, despite the year in its title. Sony once again entrusted development to SCEE London Studio. It followed the European This Is Football 2004, which had appeared earlier that same year. In North America, this new instalment was called World Tour Soccer 2006 and launched in March 2005. This sequence of releases shows that Sony did not present its European and American annual instalments under the same names.
The studio continued the series' broad approach. Clubs and national teams stood alongside school sides, semi-professional line-ups and historical selections. Seasons, custom competitions and building your own team offered different ways to use that collection. New player and goalkeeper animations, together with clearer differences between computer teams' playing styles, aimed to further develop events on the pitch. Development therefore went beyond updating names and squads.
One notable addition linked football to another PS2 accessory: EyeToy. Through EyeToy:Cameo and Digimask's face technology, a photographed face could become a three-dimensional player's head. This added a more personal element to the existing team and footballer customisation. The camera remained an additional tool for that feature, not a requirement for the football matches themselves. Network play was also part of the original European presentation. Today, that chiefly illustrates Sony's ambition to bring local multiplayer, custom players and remote matches together within the same football series.
Similar games for PlayStation 2
This Is Football 2004 offers the same foundations of directly played matches, seasons, transfers and a Career path beginning with a school team. Both instalments also let up to eight people play locally at once with the necessary Multitaps and controllers. This Is Football 2005 chiefly adds new animations, greater differences between computer teams and the optional EyeToy:Cameo face feature. Choosing between them therefore involves not just the year in the title, but also how you want to customise players.
This Is Football 2003 already introduces the idea of developing a school side into a professional team. Anyone familiar with it will therefore recognise Career's starting point in This Is Football 2005. The later instalment builds on that career and the ability to create a club, while further developing presentation and player behaviour. The optional photographic face feature is a clear addition: a normally customised player and a player bearing a captured personal face are different options.
Pro Evolution Soccer 4 shares direct control of football matches and the opportunity to strengthen a team over time with This Is Football 2005. PES uses the Master League among other options, where development, ageing and player retirement affect the squad. This Is Football retains its school-team route and broad selection of historical and special line-ups. The similarity lies in guiding a team across multiple matches; that team's starting point and the way its development is handled differ.
Pro Evolution Soccer 5 also lets you play matches yourself and build a squad in the Master League. Passing and coordinated positional play remain decisive for attacks in both games. This Is Football 2005, however, ties its longer career to a school team's rise and gives custom players a photographic face through the optional EyeToy camera. PES 5 offers a different competition structure and does not have that EyeToy:Cameo feature. The difference therefore also lies in how you put together your own football story.
This Is Football 2002 already includes school teams and historical line-ups, two elements that still broaden the selection in This Is Football 2005. The older game shows where that interest in football beyond the famous top clubs began on PS2. The later instalment turns it into more extensive custom-team development with Career, seasons and transfers. EyeToy:Cameo also brings a new approach to personal players. You therefore recognise the same team categories, while the opportunities to progress with your own side have clearly expanded.
