ScousEvolution
Registered User
It seems everyone falls into two groups -Those who support FIFA regardless, and those who pledge their allegience to Evo. Neither group however seem willing to accept any sort of criticism of their game of choice. This is a bit warped no matter how you look at it.
I am a seasoned pro evo veteran, and regard myself as a very good player of the series so far. I've had tournaments with over 20 people, and have played it since it's inception as ISS way back in the day. Yet this is the first time the Pro evo series has let me down in any way.
There are/were so many things they could have done to push the bar up so much higher, yet -and through no fault of the PS2's lack of power- they have failed to do so.
The crowd's response to events on-field is no better whatsoever than it was last time around. We still have to listen to that dreary rumble which sounds like sticking your ear into a sea shell, which never seems to change pitch until the ref pulls out a yellow or red card, or you score a goal, and even then it doesn't get very exciting. I said this in a post a while ago on this site, and I'll say it again, but in a real game of football you have incidents where a player is fouled or tackled, and the response from the crowd is almost like that when a goal is scored, especially in heated fixtures such as liverpool vs man utd. Say, for example, the home team has the upper hand in a derby fixture, and is having all the possesion and shots on goal, then the home fans will be whipped into a frenzy and be baying for blood. Likewise, if the away team was in such a position, the home fans would reign a crscendo of screams and shouts upon their players to do something about it. These are just two examples, but Konami have endless scope to implement these things into the pro evo series but they just have not improved the quality of the atmosphere at all.
The commentary is EXACTLY the same, and just as woefully bad. How much longer can we put up with such a poor and inaccurate reflection of the game? I mean, how hard would it be to implement a system where they actually responded to what was going on at the time, and in an accurate way? If brasil have 6 shots in the first 15 minutes, but france have 6 shots in the last 15, couldn't they have a set response for that, such as "Brazil started this half really well, but the game has really swung in france's favour".....I mean, that's just an example, but the possibilities are absolutely endless and would make for some really improved atmosphere and entertainment.
The tackling issues still have not been sorted out (and this is something I honestly cannot believe more people have not touched upon) and the play-on rule has, contrary to what some reviewers have said, not been improved very much at all. Players are STILL (after 4 years!!!) penalised for perfectly legitimate tackles, while fouls which are committed by the last defender to stop an attacker from a clear run on goal, often go unpunished. How hard would it really be to implement a system whereby it is a good tackle if the player touches the ball first? Surely it's not imposible is it? Yet it seems that you can put in a perfectly good tackle, win the ball, and because the attacking player runs into your still-outstretched leg, you give the foul away. This isn't a criticism of number 5 in particluar, but the fact that it hasn't been rectified.
The free kick and penalty system is still very much hit and miss and totally takes away the feeling of accomplishment felt in pro evo 3. And why no quick free kick? People constantly talk about one thing when they refer to the pro evo series, and that is realism.Yet there is still no room, apparently, for one of the most important things in the game of football. When a player is fouled whilst just about to start a quick counter attack, the ref blows his whistle, the screen goes blank, and when the action resumes, you are standing over the ball, with all the opposition players safely back in their own half. It completely takes away the advantage of the attacking team, and is anything but realistic. Again, this would be very posible for Konami to implement, and would add a hell of a lot to the game, yet they have made no attampt to do so.
The team at konami have not listened to the many many cries for the new throw in system (where you have no control over the player you are throwing to) to be scrapped. Hopefully this system will be scrapped by the time the next one hits the shelves.
Players still do stupid uncontrollable things like run for a ball which is headed out for a goal kick and give away a corner, or hoof a clearance into the stands when all you wanted to do was play a simple short pass. This is something which should have been dealt with a long time ago, I honestly don't know why it hasn't.
But far far more frustrating - and this has to be my biggest gripe of all, considering the fact that it is such an easy one to fix- is the way you STILL cannot fully control your goalkeeper when he has the ball. One of the first things I have looked for whenever a new copy of evolution has come out, is whether I will actually be able to throw the ball out when I want to, or drop the ball at my feet and pass it along the ground, or whether I will be smashing away at the pass button to throw it, only for my keeper to stand there while I nearly brake my pad, and then end up kicking it halfway down the field and giving possesion to the opponent. Unfortunately, every copy has presented the same answer - No, you will have limited control over your keeper, and will remain frustrated by the lack of response to your demands for him to just throw the ball.......... But Why? Surely this is not hard to fix at all, yet this problem has survived for a 5th year. Unacceptable.
There are so many other areas where Pro Evo cold really have taken and improved upon it's previous versions, but hasn't. But the one thing they always seem to do is change the whole mechanics of the movement of the players. It's as if they are not yet fullly confortable with what they've achieved in terms of accurately reflecting real life players and their movement, because it seems very little else changes from game to game other than this, and it has gone from slow, to fast, to slow again. Strange.
I have played the new game for a while now, and as soon as I first booted it up, I immediately thought "Oh no, they've changed this a bit too much". But then I remembered thinking exactly the same of evo 3 after 2, but then remembered being sucked into a whole year of addiction when I finally got to grips with that, so I adopted the same approach with this one, thinking that I'd be just as impressed when I adjusted to the mechanics of this new game. But something just doesn't feel right about the way the players control the ball, change direction, and dribble, and this has nothing to do with it being, as some people have put it -"more realistic".
Players CAN change direction quickly in real life, and CAN suddenly switch direction, but only if they're agile and skillful. Yet in this game even Ronaldinho and Ronaldo struggle to switch from one direction to the other very quickly, and the skill differential between someone small, skillful, and agile, like Saviola or Ronaldinho, and someone rather large and cumbersome like Hyypia, seems pretty small.
Take this scenario for example: Djibril Cisse, a player who can sprint 100 metres in little over 10 seconds, is running at full speed and knocks the ball about 20 metres past one of the slowest defenders in the game, who also, incidentally, has his back to goal and is standing absolutely still. Surely it is a no-contest right? Well, that's what you'd think. But Hyypia will be running alongside you as if he was linford christie and had a running start. The team at Konami still haven't cracked a way to make the players attributes matter, without making it impossible to defend. I think a way around this would be to implement a whole new range of tackles for a certain situation, such as a quick flick of the analogue stick to stick a leg out, or a command on the shoulder buttons which would see a defender come in behind you to give you cover. This would give a whole new meaning to the art of defending, instead of just adopting the lazy approiach of saying "oh...we'll just makie it so that all the players run at pretty much the same speed".
The list goes on and on, but one thing is for sure, Pro Evolution is still by far the greatest football game out there. Unfortunately, Pro evo 5 just hasn't taken as many steps forward as it could, or maybe should have.
I am a seasoned pro evo veteran, and regard myself as a very good player of the series so far. I've had tournaments with over 20 people, and have played it since it's inception as ISS way back in the day. Yet this is the first time the Pro evo series has let me down in any way.
There are/were so many things they could have done to push the bar up so much higher, yet -and through no fault of the PS2's lack of power- they have failed to do so.
The crowd's response to events on-field is no better whatsoever than it was last time around. We still have to listen to that dreary rumble which sounds like sticking your ear into a sea shell, which never seems to change pitch until the ref pulls out a yellow or red card, or you score a goal, and even then it doesn't get very exciting. I said this in a post a while ago on this site, and I'll say it again, but in a real game of football you have incidents where a player is fouled or tackled, and the response from the crowd is almost like that when a goal is scored, especially in heated fixtures such as liverpool vs man utd. Say, for example, the home team has the upper hand in a derby fixture, and is having all the possesion and shots on goal, then the home fans will be whipped into a frenzy and be baying for blood. Likewise, if the away team was in such a position, the home fans would reign a crscendo of screams and shouts upon their players to do something about it. These are just two examples, but Konami have endless scope to implement these things into the pro evo series but they just have not improved the quality of the atmosphere at all.
The commentary is EXACTLY the same, and just as woefully bad. How much longer can we put up with such a poor and inaccurate reflection of the game? I mean, how hard would it be to implement a system where they actually responded to what was going on at the time, and in an accurate way? If brasil have 6 shots in the first 15 minutes, but france have 6 shots in the last 15, couldn't they have a set response for that, such as "Brazil started this half really well, but the game has really swung in france's favour".....I mean, that's just an example, but the possibilities are absolutely endless and would make for some really improved atmosphere and entertainment.
The tackling issues still have not been sorted out (and this is something I honestly cannot believe more people have not touched upon) and the play-on rule has, contrary to what some reviewers have said, not been improved very much at all. Players are STILL (after 4 years!!!) penalised for perfectly legitimate tackles, while fouls which are committed by the last defender to stop an attacker from a clear run on goal, often go unpunished. How hard would it really be to implement a system whereby it is a good tackle if the player touches the ball first? Surely it's not imposible is it? Yet it seems that you can put in a perfectly good tackle, win the ball, and because the attacking player runs into your still-outstretched leg, you give the foul away. This isn't a criticism of number 5 in particluar, but the fact that it hasn't been rectified.
The free kick and penalty system is still very much hit and miss and totally takes away the feeling of accomplishment felt in pro evo 3. And why no quick free kick? People constantly talk about one thing when they refer to the pro evo series, and that is realism.Yet there is still no room, apparently, for one of the most important things in the game of football. When a player is fouled whilst just about to start a quick counter attack, the ref blows his whistle, the screen goes blank, and when the action resumes, you are standing over the ball, with all the opposition players safely back in their own half. It completely takes away the advantage of the attacking team, and is anything but realistic. Again, this would be very posible for Konami to implement, and would add a hell of a lot to the game, yet they have made no attampt to do so.
The team at konami have not listened to the many many cries for the new throw in system (where you have no control over the player you are throwing to) to be scrapped. Hopefully this system will be scrapped by the time the next one hits the shelves.
Players still do stupid uncontrollable things like run for a ball which is headed out for a goal kick and give away a corner, or hoof a clearance into the stands when all you wanted to do was play a simple short pass. This is something which should have been dealt with a long time ago, I honestly don't know why it hasn't.
But far far more frustrating - and this has to be my biggest gripe of all, considering the fact that it is such an easy one to fix- is the way you STILL cannot fully control your goalkeeper when he has the ball. One of the first things I have looked for whenever a new copy of evolution has come out, is whether I will actually be able to throw the ball out when I want to, or drop the ball at my feet and pass it along the ground, or whether I will be smashing away at the pass button to throw it, only for my keeper to stand there while I nearly brake my pad, and then end up kicking it halfway down the field and giving possesion to the opponent. Unfortunately, every copy has presented the same answer - No, you will have limited control over your keeper, and will remain frustrated by the lack of response to your demands for him to just throw the ball.......... But Why? Surely this is not hard to fix at all, yet this problem has survived for a 5th year. Unacceptable.
There are so many other areas where Pro Evo cold really have taken and improved upon it's previous versions, but hasn't. But the one thing they always seem to do is change the whole mechanics of the movement of the players. It's as if they are not yet fullly confortable with what they've achieved in terms of accurately reflecting real life players and their movement, because it seems very little else changes from game to game other than this, and it has gone from slow, to fast, to slow again. Strange.
I have played the new game for a while now, and as soon as I first booted it up, I immediately thought "Oh no, they've changed this a bit too much". But then I remembered thinking exactly the same of evo 3 after 2, but then remembered being sucked into a whole year of addiction when I finally got to grips with that, so I adopted the same approach with this one, thinking that I'd be just as impressed when I adjusted to the mechanics of this new game. But something just doesn't feel right about the way the players control the ball, change direction, and dribble, and this has nothing to do with it being, as some people have put it -"more realistic".
Players CAN change direction quickly in real life, and CAN suddenly switch direction, but only if they're agile and skillful. Yet in this game even Ronaldinho and Ronaldo struggle to switch from one direction to the other very quickly, and the skill differential between someone small, skillful, and agile, like Saviola or Ronaldinho, and someone rather large and cumbersome like Hyypia, seems pretty small.
Take this scenario for example: Djibril Cisse, a player who can sprint 100 metres in little over 10 seconds, is running at full speed and knocks the ball about 20 metres past one of the slowest defenders in the game, who also, incidentally, has his back to goal and is standing absolutely still. Surely it is a no-contest right? Well, that's what you'd think. But Hyypia will be running alongside you as if he was linford christie and had a running start. The team at Konami still haven't cracked a way to make the players attributes matter, without making it impossible to defend. I think a way around this would be to implement a whole new range of tackles for a certain situation, such as a quick flick of the analogue stick to stick a leg out, or a command on the shoulder buttons which would see a defender come in behind you to give you cover. This would give a whole new meaning to the art of defending, instead of just adopting the lazy approiach of saying "oh...we'll just makie it so that all the players run at pretty much the same speed".
The list goes on and on, but one thing is for sure, Pro Evolution is still by far the greatest football game out there. Unfortunately, Pro evo 5 just hasn't taken as many steps forward as it could, or maybe should have.
