Lets put this in context, i love many football games, but i'm a big fan of Pro Evolution Soccer. I started with Pro Evo 4 and have been enjoying 5 and 6 for a couple of years now. Pro Evo 2008 is the next installment of the series and i have mixed feelings. I'm reviewing the unpatched version. This review is aimed at players of Pro Evolution Soccer 6.
The Graphics: They are nice, not great but nice. The additions are ok; flagsmen for example can be seen running up and down the touch line, the grass is more realistic, the animations are better, and the player textures are good, if not a little plastic. If you have the computer to run this game then the graphics will probably impress. And that of course is just the point, you really need a decent computer to run this game, especially if your running Windows Vista like myself. After a while the graphics take a back seat anyway and you will begin to notice the gameplay problems.
Sound: The crowd noises are a little different, and one of the comentators is different and a little more wooden. The less said about the music as always the better.
The Gameplay: When i first started playing the gameplay felt more natural, and little more chaotic and scrappy, passing seemed a little harder and trapping the ball seemed a little more realistic. Dribbling is a whole lot easier then it used to be, and when playing against a friend, it was easy to dribble past a whole defence. Scoring is also incredibly easy too, from long range and short. The keepers show very little positional awareness and often fumble the easiest catches. The refereeing is much improved in my opinion, the game flows better and fouls are picked up with more accuracy. You can also dive, or simulate as it's called now...take that as you will.
Ai: Defenders close down spaces slightly faster and the player's team plays slightly more intelligently by moving into space better and make more runs into the box. The Ai team is better in attack, more direct and clever.
Features: Gone is random selection matches, where the computer would randomly select players from a selected league or country. This singlehandly killed the game for me, and i can't understand why such a great feature was removed. The master league is improved slightly. It is harder to sign the best players and there are improvements to the graphical layout of the master league menu, between matches.
Editing: The editing options are far as i know are slightly more limiting, but still good. A large number of patches are available for download, from various fan sites. Editing can also improve the gameplay to some extent, to suite the players needs.
Other issues: I have never played online, but i've heard that there are problems with lag. So if this is a deal breaker then i suggest you head over the the pro evo fan forums and read some threads. There are also performance issues to take into consideration, if you don't have a decent gamers PC.
Conclusion: I stopped playing Pro Evo 2008 a few weeks after a brought it, and went back to Pro Evo 6. If you have a powerful computer however and are prepared to download a few patches them you might be able to find a playable game somewhere there.
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Mar 28th, 2008
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