PES 2008 WII review

[cam2]

Presentation: 9/10
All the menus are clear and easy to navigate by using the IR of the wiimote, the loading times are very short and the tutorial when you play for the first time is just what you need to start playing right away, more advanced techniques requires extra time in the tutorial, all the moves are easy to learn and hard to master..

Graphics: 7/10
Players look ok, what is bad is the public in the stadiums, but who cares, if you want less gameplay with better graphics go to another next gen console and buy a FIFA or any top graphics same old gameplay game.

Sound: 6/10
Electronic music in the menus and repetitive narrations, both can be turned off. Doesn't ruins the experience thought.

Gameplay: 10/10
SHINES, be warn, you will need to play all the tutorials, each one takes about 2 or 3 minutes to accomplish, and most techniques are very easy to learn when you are in the tutorial but when it comes to the real game 11 vs 11 you will need to think very very fast to make all the apparently easy moves.

Offensive:

This is were the game is truly brilliant, once you have the ball you point the soccer field using the IR and the A button and the player will run in that direction, following an arrow, the far you take the tip of the arrow of the player, the faster he will run, and when you stop pressing the A button the player will follow the arrow till the end, so at that moment you can decide to pass the ball using the B button over any other player on the field, this seems easy, but it opens a lot of plays, quick pass moves, wall moves (By keeping the A button pressed at the same time that you press B to pass). I will not spoil any other moves, you have to try it for yourself, but it's amazing see it work, It feels so right that I cannot describe it, It's like when you watch a real game on TV and in the repetition they draw over the image of the field and players recreating the action and directions that they must have took, but here you control it, it's like being a puppeteer. Also you can take full control of the positions of your team mates by tapping A over them and drag the cursor where you want them to be.
The only issue here is that the shoots of the player depends on the strengths that that player in particular have, so you don't really have full control over the shoots, you just decide when is he gonna shoot, not a big issue at all but I hope to see a better shoot control in a sequel.

Defensive:

This is an area that requires a lot of fast thinking, at first you will be tapping the A button over and over in the opponent who has the ball for your players to go to steal it, but later on you will be making very advanced moves, like sending all your team mates to cover all the possible players that are free to receive the ball, so if you do the things well you will have 3 or 4 players covering all the possible options for the opponent to pass the ball and 2 other trying to steal the ball directly to him and if that's not enough you can always play dirty.

Last appeal: 10/10
Tons and tons of things to do, cups to get, leagues to beat, online play with anyone or with friends, and it keeps a record of your wins and losses on WFC on your profile, you won't be bored for a long time.

Thank you Konami for making this game!!
The game is far from being perfect but it's truly a giant step for innovation, thanks to the wii controls this game gets a final score (not an average) of:

Final: 9.3/10

The only reason that I don't give this game a 10 is because I know that they can make it even better, things like controlling the shot and 4 player support will be welcome additions.

negative sides of this game:
-no master league?????????? (But champions road is an acceptable and fun
replacement)
-Free kicks
-Shooting (I have no problem with the system now)
-Defending (learning it well takes a lot longer than before but has lots of
depth and strategy when you do.)


There are negatives as in every game, none detract enough to matter in the end. The fluidity of play and the creativity of offense is brilliant and it gets better the more I play.

Also, I have been playing Pro Evo for a long time both the PC and console versions. I always find beating the AI on 5 star too easy after a week or 2 when the CPU starts having a difficult time scoring. So far the difficulty of this game is a lot higher especially in the 4 and 5 star range. I am playing 5 star now after 3 weeks and am losing more then half of my games

I can't go back to the other versions anymore!

 

[Wolfe_boy]

Nice review cam2. I've reviewed the game as well...

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 for Wii

To preface this review, I’d like to give a bit of background information on who I am and where I’m coming from. This is the second soccer game I’ve ever owned – ever played, actually. The first is Mario Strikers Charged, so I’m not speaking from a deep well of experience in how soccer games are typically controlled, but I do have a typical North American familiarity with EA & 2K Sports games, particularly hockey & basketball. I’m also not a tremendous soccer fan, but a trip to Europe this past summer (particularly a few very memorable days spent in Barcelona) has sparked an interest. The past months I’ve found myself sitting down to enjoy a Premiership game on early Saturday mornings while my wife is still sleeping and there’s nothing else on TV. Long story short – I’m not what would be called the target market of the Pro Evolution/Winning Eleven series, which has generally been seen the more pure or sim of the two main soccer games available for consoles – the other being EA’s FIFA series.

The first thing that struck me about PES was the size of the manual – about 50 pages chock full of game play information. There aren’t a lot of details about different modes or storylines or whatnot – it’s very stuffed with illustrations of how you control the game, which is a sign you’re not dealing with an everyday Wii game. Everything inside the manual is also covered in the in-game tutorial, but it made good toilet reading while my wife watched the episode of “Oprah’s Big Give” she had PVR’d.

From the moment you slip the PES disc into your Wii, you’ll be disappointed by the games overall production values. The Disc Channel’s animation is garish and cheap looking, and all of the menus in the game aren’t well planned out or put together particularly well. You’ll often find yourself faced with a screen full of icons and will need to scrub over each to find out what each does. I’m coming from a lot of experience with the Wii’s first party games, which tend to be exemplary examples of menu design. PES most certainly is not. It is, however, serviceable, and the main topmost menu is text based and simple to comprehend. The game forces you to take the tutorial right off the bat the first time you play in a new profile, though this can be skipped. The tutorials are a little rough as well, though they do teach the basics fairly well. Once the basic tutorial is completed (there are four further tutorial levels, two of which are locked. I was flummoxed by that choice as well) you can jump straight into a single game, a tournament, league play, or the wide ranging “Champions Road”, which is the franchise mode for the game.

Really though, no one will care that much about the menus or the production values once the game actually starts. I started on beginner and learned the basics of moving my players about the field. At first I wanted to use the thumbstick to move my guys around. I’d point at one and click the A button and then try to move him with the thumbstick… this does work, but always a little slower than if you point & drag across the screen. Of course, pointing & dragging is far less accurate, and because you travel much faster the ball gets stolen much more often. By the end of my first match I was firing well placed crosses and heading balls at the opposing keeper with regularity (I was Man Red vs. the computers Man Blue). To be honest, beginner was far too easy to play – be brave and start at normal and suck up a few losses.

Running the offence is tons of fun. Sending Henry & Eto’o streaking up the wing and having Ronaldinho or Messi fire long passes up to them is a real rush, and setting up a solid scoring play, or navigating through a tight defensive formation to fire a well placed strike at the goal is very rewarding. I still feel like a bit of a button masher, and I know that the harder levels and other human beings who are more adept will likely slaughter me, but at this point I’m having too much fun to care. I’m also trying to move to a soccer mentality, away form a hockey frame of mind, which is a bit of a learning curve for me, but so far, it’s been a terrific experience.

I wish I could say the same for playing defense, though. I think my hockey mentality (and my experience with Mario Strikers) isn’t playing well into how PES would like you to play defense. You can take control of a player and have them slide tackle an opponent, but more often than not I’m not well positioned for it, or I get a yellow card for slide tackling a guy in a full run down the sideline. I know, I deserve a yellow card for that, and I’m a soccer newb, but it’s still part of the learning curve for me. My natural instincts are to be aggressive on defense and to pursue the ball and the ball carrier with tenacity, while PES requires good solid team defense, keeping the passing lanes closed and applying pressure to the ball carrier to get him to make a mistake or retreat into the safety of the midfield. The good side of this, I suppose, is that defense is a much more tense affair than normal – if I leave an opening and Rooney streaks into it, there’s not much I can do but pray my keeper is good, or Rooney misses the net.

The in-game presentation is as rough as the menus – the character models are PS2 level, the crowds are pixilated messes, using three or four different frames for animation. The fields and stadiums are better, with the grass reasonably high res (for 480p) and decent weather and time-of-day effects. Player animations are pretty good as well, so long as you’re zoomed all the way out. Players move in realistic ways, struggling with each other and they challenge for a ball, leaping into the air to head home a goal, or simply passing back and forth, sometimes taking a step or two to gain their balance before passing. When the camera zooms in though, to celebrate a goal or replay after a stoppage in play, the animations and player models suffer again, and only barely resemble the players they are supposed to resemble. Again though, this doesn’t really detract from the core game play, since most of what you’re paying attention to is the long-view of the whole pitch while actually playing.

Audio is similarly a mixed bag. The commentary isn’t terrible, but it is limited and repeats an awful lot more than it really should. That being said, it isn’t overbearing, you can control how much commentary there is (on a 1-3 scale), and during moments of high dramatic action hearing the announcer bellow out “A terrific strike!” is just icing on the good feeling you’ve already earned from accomplishing the play you just pulled off.

I haven’t had a chance to experiment with any multiplayer yet, since I’ve had no one to play with but my wife who refused. I also tried to find a game through Nintendo’s Wi-fi Connect, but couldn’t find any games to connect to within a minute or so. (Yes, you need Friends Codes to play with your friends.) I attribute this to the fact that the online portion of the game is region locked (most Wii online games are, aren’t they?) and the game has only been available for a couple days. I think that supplies are somewhat limited too for this game. In two days of searching the city I only found two copies at a local Toys R Us. Everywhere else was sold out. If you’re at all interested, make some trails and go find it before it sells out.

Pros
*Solid, engaging, tactical soccer action
*Lots of teams and leagues (though a fully licensed Premiership & Bundesliga would have been perfect)
*Lots of game play with all the trophies & leagues, Champions Road, plus free online play

Cons
*Presentation leaves a lot to be desired graphically, even for the Wii
*Defense is a little sterile, compared to the very engaging offensive game
*Steep learning curve (though the rewards of mastering the game mechanics could be a pro as well)

Ugly
*Ronaldinho's hair. Seriously, who made the character models?

Final verdict: Buy, especially if you’re a soccer fan.

http://members.shaw.ca/merryfield/Blog/files/46689257e425653d876f2bd6af94248c-32.html

 

[Stormrider]

Great reviews guys. Seems like a ton of fun although I doubt I'll ever play it hehe. Don't have a wii and my buddy who does have 1 sure as hell wouldn't be interested.

 

[tr1n1ty]

awesome so sound like its worth a go but again with the Wii it will be a whole new gaming experience WAHOOO!!!

 

[fusiongt]

Nice reviews guys. I'm thinking I already have the PC 2008 version and am still enjoying it, so I may just wait until next year's Wii PES version. Maybe they'll polish up next year's game even more and include Master League and some better graphics... I know PS2 graphics aren't that worst thing on the planet, but the Wii is definitely more powerful than the PS2 - developers just need to put some time in it!

 

[jamesey]

PES (WE, ISS) has always been the better choice over FIFA for gameplay. The Wii version takes it to a whole new level. You really have to start thinking like a soccer player to kick ass. The gameplay for Wii PES 08 is pure genius and is an example of how the Wii can revolutionize gaming.

I'll admit the graphics and presentation of the game are pretty crappy, and it would be nice to have more liscensed teams and players. That stuff aside, Wii PES 08 is a whole new game and it's friggin brilliant.