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getting there

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

the gameplay is what PES is known for, and by my account it is still great, the only real letdown is the lack of detail, the commentary gets very repetitive and is not really geared for first and second half difference (it says the game is almost over when its merely almost halftime) other than these little quirks, the game is great. It would be great for Konami to make sure the game is more polished.

Great entry in the PES series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This review is for the XBOX360 US version of the game.

Pro Evolution Soccer is the game formerly known as Winning Eleven in the US. This year the reviews are worse than usual and that made me think something went wrong with the game. But I liked the gameplay from the XBOX Live demo and after buying the full game, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it is a significant step forward for the series. I think what might have happened is that the European version, which was released earlier, had more glitches that have been fixed by the time of the later US release.

If you're new to this series, what you can expect to find is the richest game of football there is. If what you're looking for in a sports game is gameplay, then this is the game for you - the responsiveness of players leads to situations that will still have the potential of surprising you after tens of hours of play, and that is what matters for a sports simulation. Graphically, the game looks very good (but not exceptional) and I have not encountered any framerate issues in over 30 hrs of play so far.

If you've been playing Winning Eleven before, here are the highlights for this version:

- it's really the first next-gen version for XBOX 360 - the previous version was just a port with higher resolution graphics, widescreen support, and missing features (couldn't save replays, restricted editing, etc.)
- player models have been upgraded and look more realistic than before
- there are significant AI changes - players hold formation differently than before and they learned some new tricks
- players are a bit more responsive and can be controlled earlier - you can now avoid missing a pass because your player was waiting for the ball
- shooting controls are not as sensitive as they used to be - this is good, because in previous versions any harder button press would result in a ball way over the goal
- the missing features have been all added back, so this is now as complete a package as it was on the old-gen consoles (not as many stadiums as before, but there are some new ones)

This may not sound like much on paper, but if you have played the game before, you'll notice all these changes and their positive impact once you start playing the game a little.

Gameplay is criticized by some as being too fast. That is probably true, but it's easy to get used to the speed and once you get used to it and with what it allows you to do, you'll find anything else sluggish in comparison.

What is missing? I would like to see more AI improvements so that my team mates would be more proactive at pressuring the opponent. The auto cursor switch could also be improved - this has always been a nagging point with all football games I played - I wish someone would really nail this - today I play with manual cursor switch.

A note on the online play - I only tried this once and that time was horrendous. I didn't try it again, so if online play is important for you, look for more opinions on that.

For those hesitating between FIFA and PES: I gave up on the FIFA games a few years back because FIFA games place a larger emphasis on longer animations at the detriment of player responsiveness. Moving between FIFA and PES, what I always noticed is that in PES there is more action per square foot than in FIFA. Also, in terms of animation, PES is much richer - just look at what happens when players bump into each other in PES vs their behavior in FIFA. Of course, YMMV, so my suggestion is to download both game demos from XBOX Live and give them a serious try. Play them for extended periods of time (several hours) and see which one provides you with more fun.

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