When Authenticity isn’t really needed.

By GrathiusXR

In a day and age where sports games such as NHL 08, NBA 2K08, FIFA08 and others feature not only great game-play and a realistic feel offering authentic team jerseys, players and team names, there has been one game that has managed to stay up the top in terms of game-play and great fun with-out featuring the full authentic entourage, Pro Evolution Soccer.

The Pro Evolution franchise is known for it’s excellent game-play, with some features being the pace of the game feeling just right on the dot, capturing the atmosphere of the beautiful game and also letting the gamer feel like they are apart of the intense competitiveness. Pro Evolution 2008 is the 2nd installment into the franchise on the Xbox 360 and with a year to improve over last years entry, Konami haven’t really put much effort to make this game break away and ensure itself to stay on the top.

Rather than trying to be a football simulation game for an unknown reason it plays more like an arcade version of football with the pace being a little too fast and furious. Sure football is a fast paced game where quick thinking is needed but everything that happens on the screen is a little too frantic. This means that the player is not being able to keep up with everything and there are times where the pace of the game needs to slow down to allow some structured passes but unfortunately PES2008 is just one rollercoaster from start to finish.

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Team-vision which is a new feature added to game basically means if your style of play is passing out to the wing and crossing balls in to the centre for headers the AI will adapt to your style of play and start defending the wings to stop you. This isn’t very noticeable most of the time, and while the computer vows to stop you in your tracks in terms of your play, your team-mates usually decide to not guard the computer player they are supposed to meaning the AI can give through balls and he is always free to do as he pleases. This is not only frustrating but annoying, as if you are winning 1-0 and it’s the last 5 minutes of the game and the AI does a through ball the player will be free and most definitely score a goal to tie the match.

There is much fun to be had with PES2008 offline offering Master League, League and Cup. Master League is an interesting feature starting off with a nice intro as to what you shall be doing you select a team and move up in the ranks. Basically you’re the underdogs and you need to work hard and show yourself in every game and get the top. Winning matches and league cup gives you the ability to be able to purchase star players from major football teams and means that your team can only get better and better.

Now while this is a great underdog story there is one problem. You are able to choose some of the best teams in the world today Barcelona, Real Madrid to name a few, meaning that if you’re good at this game then winning won’t be a problem. It would have been better if you had a list of low ranking teams and then earning the ability to rise in the ranks, would have been much more satisfying and deserving.

Graphics wise, PES2008 looks great running in 1080p which is a huge bonus, but it doesn’t take advantage of the 360′s potential all that well, with all 15 stadiums looking bland and at times there is huge drop in the frame rate during cut-scenes. Player models are some of the best I have seen in a football game looking realistically like their human counter-parts. You are also able to see shirts and shorts crease like in real life and not only that, but the movement of the players is also fluid & impressive.

Commentary is basic and uninteresting. Most of the time in a match there is little effort by the commentator to really comment of what is happening and this just reinforces the fact that Konami haven’t really fleshed out the game to offer something special. Free kicks and penalties slow down the game a lot with you having to wait at least 6-8 seconds for the referee to blow his whistle and then you can continue.

While the game plays great and offers hours of fun offline, online is a different story. If you have a friend who owns this game or someone on your friends list then online can be a ton of fun, but unless you do then online is a no go zone. Not only because there is a lack of an Australian community for the game but that it is very deceiving, with some games showing green bars meaning a lag free game, although once you enter it and the match begins think Goku from Dragonball Z teleporting all over the map, that’s how online plays out.

Along with the lag, online has been stripped and is bare-boned in terms of features with no sign of creating your own tournaments, leagues or cups which is disappointing as only ranked and unranked matches are available. I mean this “is” Xbox live we’re talking about, giving the developer the ability to include countless features to ensure that PES online is better than any other football game can offer.

PES2008 does its job to deliver a good solid serving of fun, excitement, competitiveness and intensity like no other. Although with games like FIFA08 that have many online features and direct feeds into the world of football and what is happening in it, Konami need to ask themselves, “Are we trying our hardest to have the best football game out there?”

6/10

©2008 Arthur Kotsopoulos

Filed under: Xbox 360 Game Reviews Tagged: | Atari PES 08, Konami, PES 08 review, PES08, Pro Evolution 2008, Pro evolution review, xbox 360 game review