PES 2009 Comments by Dan Pearson

Sort out the online and ps3 frame rate and i may not buy Fifa this year, and ive not bought fifa in years

Can't wait! Always plays better than Fifa!! I'm sure online will be sorted out this time too.......

Still looks like the same load of toss its always been

I was round a mates house once when he and some others stuck PES on... they literally spent more time sorting out their team in the menus than they did playing the game...

/didn't get it

/still doesn't

yawwnnnnnn...zzz..


Bring on FIFA, at least they know where they're going wrong and rectifying it in each annual update.

"they literally spent more time sorting out their team in the menus than they did playing the game..."

That's what makes it a great game but you would need to get into it to understand.

They look identical to every promo capture of Pro Evo from the past few years - especially last years.

Graphics are and spit and polish are irrelevant in Pro Evo, in as much as the only reason anyone buys it is the superior football gaming model, which is still superior despite the naysayers. Still plenty they can improve, but PES 2008 is still essential and an improvement on PES 6, which is all you can ask.

Having said that, there are many, many simple things they can do with the graphics, which are obviously not yet done in these shots - things like making the players look like they're not floating on a fake pitch with a fake crowd. Fifa has already pulled this off.

Also, to get rid of those annoying Vista-like transparent floaty HUD elements. God, why are the Japanese genius game designers who can't do graphic aesthetics for shit.

That's what makes it a great game but you would need to get into it to understand.

That's not true, I got into Pro Evo years back purely through using the default formation and tactics and swapping out a few players - whilst my friends still fiddled for 10 minutes. I got beaten continuously, of course, but I still enjoyed it.

The whole 'Pro Evo is very deep and tactical' thing is joke when you compare it with Football Manager; if they actually brought in more depth than formations, defense/attack and arrows, then it'd be near true. As it is, you can pick up Pro Evo and play it with an arcade mentality.

Oh please dont let it be a let down like last years! We live in hope!

I remain entirely unconvinced that this will be a better game than EAs Euro 2008 let alone Fifa 09 which has confirmed 10 v 10 multiplayer.

Konami are going to have to go some way to repair last years damage. They effectively ruined one the highlights of my year.

+1 @ Harmonica

That is definitely an improvement especially upon viewing the third 'proper' match-play screen shot but the gameplay needs to go back to the roots of Winning Eleven 8-10 (PlayStation 2 versions) and tweak/polish until perfection.

That is all the development team needs to do.

And a decent online mode to boot!

"That's not true, I got into Pro Evo years back purely through using the default formation and tactics and swapping out a few players - whilst my friends still fiddled for 10 minutes. I got beaten continuously, of course, but I still enjoyed it."

I'm not saying you wouldn't enjoy it without fiddling but it does make it a better game. Between two players with similar skills, I'd say the edge would go to the one who knows how to fiddle :)

ONLINE GET IT SORTED. Also wonder will Adriano still be able to barge his way through any defenders and score from anywhere on the pitch. Even if he has been warming the subs bench in Milan for 18months. Lost my love for this series since PES5. A joke

I just think that nowadays that Pro Evo has less of a tactical emphasis as compared to Fifa. Sure, I'll have formations saved for nearly every team, and have accurate kits and squads, and (fairly) accurate stats, but in the game the teams all play very similarly - there's definitely a lack of individuality to the players (even despite their stats), and that means the teams are formulaic: either defensive, solid, fast and attacking, skillful but bad at defending, and so on. Man United and Barcelona don't feel vastly like the real teams.

At the end of the day, if you watch world football, and play Pro Evo (as Euro 2008 has been perfect for), then you'll be able to play teams the way they're meant to play... but it's not because of Pro Evo.

--

"Adriano"

Unfortunately for you, he's played well this season and started for Brazil recently, so it's likely he'll still be pretty damn good - I agree his stats and fitness have been ridiculous, but super-Adriano is the core of Pro Evo and shall never die!

if they don't do something special this year and sort the online out especially, FIFA will bitch slap pro evo silly this year if they improve it even more than euro 2008

"if they don't do something special this year "

last years one was BRILLIANT (on the wii)

The last PE was a classic example of a company getting greedy and trying to get away with the minimum amount of work. I use to work for Eidos and we all saw it coming after TR2 until TR4 got 20% of the company sacked! Anyway I actually like PE6 on the 360 and the online gameplay was fine, however the follow on was shocking. I couldn't believe what a complete feck up they could make in one generation.

FIFA was always for the kids as it had the proper teams, but the proper fans appreciate the better game play of PE. If you don't get it, you probably never will, but PE is certainly the industrys favourite!

Is it possible to see individual attributes for players in the Euro 2008 game? I only played it recently on my friend's PS3 and there only appeared to be an overall score?

Please Evolve Sufficiently.

The only one in game screen looks pathetic, same crap as last year with poor running animations and stinky cut backs.

Where are all those 4 midfielders going?? And why is the side back 100 metres from the winger??

This game has gone bananas.

Fifa finally overtook PES last year and I can only see the gap widening this time round. Shame as I was always a PES fan over Fifa before 08.

I've played it since the N64 versions and always loved it but always HATED it at the same time...you know what i mean?
it's the annoying flaws which make it so addictive.

However....Last year was a major F%$k up if you ask me. Yeah the core of the game was still fairly good and they sorted out the passing and shooting again compared to Pro Evo 6, but what in the name of greek buggery are they playing at with the replays?? Every time I score I live in hope that a replay will be watchable...but no, they screwed up by adding something ridiculous like 'cloth deforming' on the cutscenes so the players shirts blow in the wind or some crap like that.
USELESS and ruined PES2008 for me!

Now, to make the perfect PES all they need to do is small improvements to the AI and tactics side of it and these few things:

> Master League random players (think CM 93 or Player Manager on the Amiga) This would quite simply make the master league one of the best additions to a game in years. Since Pro Evo 1 I'v been wishing for this and they are perfectly suited to this seeing as they don't have a lot of the licenses anyway. Imagine actually scouting for actual players who are random every time? Awesome?

> Replays that work - Enough said!

> Stop retired players from 'respawning'. who the HELL thought that was a good idea?

> Sample the commentary by the people actually watching and commentating on a game, this way they won't sound so robotic. it's so obvious they are just reading from a script, especially Lawro on last years!

Wow, it looks just like every other generic football game! Can't wait.

3D crowds!

I don't know, yes there's a lot wrong with Pro Evo but that's part of its charm. Genuinely it gets better each year. PES 2008 was the first decent next-gen football game, and the first decent next-gen PES. The things they have to improve are going to cost a bit of cash - player likenesses, kits, AI (needs way way more advanced code to feel natural - so you don't just get teams passing the ball around endlessly or long shooting because they have long shooting players).

If you look at Football Manager, all the players have traits like 'argues with ref' 'uses flanks' 'takes on goalkeepers' 'sporting'. And so on. If these were added to the player stats and incorporated into the engine, you'd have players acting more unpredictably but based on real life.

scimitarDT:Sample the commentary by the people actually watching and commentating on a game, this way they won't sound so robotic. it's so obvious they are just reading from a script, especially Lawro on last years!

Haha, but I love the ropey commentary. John Champion is pretty good at it by now, he's robotic (and rubbish) on TV anyway, so he sounds accurately rubbish in game (the bollocks he comes out with). Remember "HE'S LOOKING FOR A FREE MAN" (to which everyone has to respond "AREN'T WE ALL".

Lawro has some classics this year, like "foot-bul at its best!" (honestly he sounds constipated when he says that)

Everything looks really plastic fantastic in my eyes :(

Looks to be just as disappointing as last year's offering. Bet they don't even put random selection match back in for the 360 version. That was my favourite mode - always kept it interesting against mates, but somehow the same shit players always came up for every "random" team. Last year's ML was shite, and they could do with actually having the correct starting formations for teams rather than one that's never been used (I know I can change it myself, but it's a hassle). Sort out the dull dull AI too

If PES09 gets less than an 9 I'm jumping ship for FIFA

Looks awfully generic and boring. Oh, and like plastic.

2001-October 2007 - a bigger PES fan you'd have struggled to find.

Now - don't want to touch this with a barge pole.

Last year was an absolute disgrace. And these screenshots don't do anything to suggest it's improved in the slightest

Thank god fifa has finally pulled its finger out and become a decent game again.

FIFA2009 being bought by this good little consumer, no doubt.

Oh PES what have you done to me? For years I was 'die hard' and then in the latest battle between PES and FIFA I've bought FIFA, exchanged it for PES and then exchanged it back for FIFA. So confused!!!

So I am currently making do with the woeful shooting/floaty ball physics in FIFA, instead of the ridiculous speed of the current PES. In my opinion PES still knows how to make you feel you actually scored a goal (the ball has an accurate sense of weight compared to FIFA), but I couldn't handle the fact that Konami turned my favourite sim into an 'arcade' game!

Should be an interesting battle this year as Konami are aware they need to raise their game...and EA know that Konami aren't going to make the same mistake twice. So we could see some real improvements in both?

I agree that PES could be improved so much just by fixing the broken details. Eg:
- goalkeepers which don't always parry hard shots back into the area for a tap in
- throw-ins which favour the team taking them
- players not taking additional touches after you've told them to pass or shoot
- putting back the functionality that was present in PES6 but removed from PES2008, particularly so the team/player editing.

Regarding new stuff, I'd like to have full analogue directional control over running, passing and shooting. Especially shooting - it's strange for a game with so many controls to have such a basic shooting system.

@ kolab

You know I did the exact same thing, bought Fifa, PES came out, traded in Fifa, played PES and started winning 6* games by 5 or 6 goals in the ML - got Fifa back, some aspects are very annoying but I just feel EA made more of an effort which is surprising they could listen to feeback considering it was the 4th or 5th game for them on 360.

I hope Konami have taken criticism and made it back into the what the series was, 0-0 draws that were so immersive and the feeling of sneaking that goal and to be able to look at real matches on telly and be confident you could do that in the game, it was the randomness that made it so exciting for me, seeing new animations months after buying it, no game ever played with your joy/anger/relief as much as these games did, PES2008 was just too easy, too fast, players too similar, no randomness or tension in games, I even re-bought PES5 and am playing it on 360 through 480p so I get most of the screen, fantastic game.

Looks like Fifa again for me this year, PES 09 will need to take far bigger strides in future before they can interest me again, unless its gameplay is tweaked to perfection, but I can't see it providing a better alternative to fifa as it stands at the moment.

PES Wii was great though.

I hope they mean they are going back to PES 5's realistic simulation. Slowing the game down, reducing the dribbling, improving the defence, making a game that shows how good a PES player you are again, not like the last two run-dribble-shoot versions.

Wasn't keen on the last one to be honest. Stopped playing it ages ago. Even with the Euros on, I can't be arsed.

I see they still have the mickey mouse goalkeeper gloves.

The last pro was a monstrosity, and pushed me into tbe loving, but flawed arms of FIFA08.
However, I have a strong feeling that FIFA09 is going to blow this year's Pro out of the water. They fixed so much on the euro game, but they'll fix more plus slow the game down.

When you're talking about PES 08 being fast, I presume you're all talking about the PS2 version. Yes, it's very fast, too fast. The 360 version though is weighted and slow. The heavy players are heavy and the light players are fast and agile. That's something they got pretty damn right - only there's still a lack of players that can *really* totally do defenders - even Ronaldo (okay he's obviously understatted), Messi and co can't really run rings around defenders.

I agree that PES 08 on the 360/PS3 is gutted out compared to the PS2 - no random matches or that custom home league version (like Fifa has had since.. 07?) where you could play with your friends and keep track of stats. Played that for 100s of hours on PS2 PES 2008, but 360 we just have to play World Cups or exhibitions because Master League is so awful.

Err... am I the only one who still thinks that PES 5 is the BEST football game available?

I had both FIFA 08 and PES 2008 and couldnt enjoy them as I still enjoy good old PES 5...

\runs in shame

A bit pointless to show screenshots of a football game.. It's always the quality of animations and the way the players behave on the field that's important and it's impossible to see that in screenshots.

I wouldn't mind stick figures if the game was a perfect football simulator.

Ace, one measly picture from a camera angle you'd actually play with! Pro Evo? Pro Devo more like :D

I havent bought a PES game since the late 90's.

ISS 64 rocked - a true triumph of gameplay over graphics.

>" I presume you're all talking about the PS2 version. "

No, I mean the 360 version.

PES4 was the pinnacle of the series for me. Always been a diehard PES fan since ISS back on PSone. And yet last year I found FIFA far more enjoyable than PES. Such a shame that the series looks like petering out in the enxt few years. The lack of investment and change in the games over the last few iterations leaves FIFA with a massive lead. For the first time I found FIFA far less annoying than PES. When things go wrong in FIFA you know it was your fault. When the same happens in PES there are now too many reasons to blame the game. RIP a once wonderful game.

(turns on sarcasm) Yey! it looks the same as it has for the last 8 games WHOOO!

SORT OUT THE ONLINE GAMING!!! Thats all need! who cares about replays??? or how ronaldo or supporters look??
Only tried Master League once, but it isnt as much fun to play against a computer as it is to play against someone else... Since I bought PES2008 (January 08), I have upgraded my internet connection 2 times, from 1M to 2M, and more recently to 4M, always trying to reach another level on live... yes, it has improved the gameplay, but it still needs lots of fixing. It is really annoying to play with someone else with the meter bars fully green and still see players teleporting... not mentioning when you get a match request from someone showing 3 green bars and in the actual game you mostly see RED on the meter and the urge to disconnect... KONAMI has to come up with a way to better measure connection speed, and even prohibit gamers with slower connection to play online...

Miufs I agree, PES 5 is the benchmark, although I haven't played any FIFA 08 or Euro 08 yet.

Is that radar big enough?

i hope they put some new moves in the game, and sort out the fouling system, then i'll buy it

PES2010 will have a completely new engine as Seabass said after the 2008 crap...this looks good tho so as long as the framerate is solid i will be happy