Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 Comments by Tom Bramwell

What about the online laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag?

As long as you buy it why would they bother to improve it? They won't do fa until sales drop significantly!

I'm taking no notice of "I LOVE PRO" Brambles. He's always biased in favour of PES.

Oh, wait...

:P

The score does not surprise me at all. In fact the demo was so disappointing that I turned it off before half-time.

It's the end of an, er, thing ...

Fair review me thinks. Konami should have nailed this one because of all the negative feedback they got from last year's effort.
And I shall shed a tear as this could be the end of an era. Gone are the days where PES got 9/9.5 out of 10 and was often voted as the best sports sim around.
(Lights a candle in remembrance)

I'm actually considering buying FIFA because it has a lot to offer, and looks amazing but still i don't feel the same joy of a great passing move or even scoring a goal as I do PES.

Oh well. three versions in a row. It gets the must try harder next time review again, but lets face it. Its not going to change is it? I am not getting it because the ball sounds like a plastic football from Woolworths.




Actually, I will likely get this on ps3 whenever I buy a ps3. Already have fifa on 360- and very enjoyable it is too.

Sorry for my comments on the fifa review TOM.

Bought FIFA this year... no regrets whatsoever, been a Evo fan since the SNES days... Konami lost the plot big time with last years effort and I just cannot stomach another International Cup..

+ Real teams, I still cannot get over it..... the Mighty Ipswich Town 4th in Prem after beating ManUre, stuff of dreams!!!

Munchuster Utd v Totenheim hopturps.

No thankyou!

It takes seconds to edit it.
Also, Manchester United are licensed so you won't have to change them. :op

Well all of us PES fan boys should have known this was coming after the 2 disgraceful next gen releases. Didnt need a crystal ball. Anyway after downloading and playing the 2 demos my mind was made up, didnt need this review. It hurts but PES as we knew it is dead.

Except it lasts for 4 years...

@ malteaserhead

Which was precisely my point.

Well done Tom admitting what has become of a game we all loved so fervently isn't easy. I spent years convincing my friends to stop playing Fifa and now I'm having to tell them to go back It's not awful it's just not #1 anymore.

@tesodosbichos

You clearly have not played the last 2 FIFAs, because what you're saying is that "old common knowledge" of difference between the two games. FIFA does not have cheap goals.. jeez have you played it with all settings manual? Full 360 control on all shots, passes and player movement? Everything is down to you! No assistance like with Pro Evo. The fact of the matter is that FIFA is now the simulation, and Pro Evo the more arcade style. I'd rathar sit down non games with Pro Evo than FIFA, because they'd struggle to score with FIFA imo.

I'm not saying you're not allowed to prefer Pro Evo: in some ways I prefer Pro Evo (it's been my football game of choice for years, and I'd not bought a FIFA since '99), but in other ways the new FIFA (feels more organic and rewarding).

But you can't repeat old "facts" that are no longer true.

@ERG1008 - Sure you can spend hours (days? weeks?) editing everything in PES 2009 on the 360 (or mere seconds on the PS3 and PC if you download someone else's edited options files) but, really, who wants to be doing that when you could be playing the game instead? I find the editing utterly tedious yet I want the proper teams and players so when (if?) I buy this game it will not be for the Xbox 360 even though, IMO, it has the slight edge over the PS3 version in terms of visuals and framerate, at least based on the demos (i.e. it's less jaggy).

"PES's answer to FIFA's Be a Pro mode"

Except 'Winning Eleven: J League' was doing it years before FIFA.

@rumrum4444

It´s just that i got so good playing pes that if i went to fifa i´d have to learn "how to walk" again !

You can map the controller in Fifa09 to match whatever configuration you used in PES.
Trust me. Im a former PES fanboy. Until the 2 next gen shit heaps made me jump ship.

I was a PES Fan boy up to last year when I jumped ship to FIFA. I felt like I was cheating on the wife when I enjoyed the FIFA demo so much more last year, I bought both but I was very disappointed with PES last year and sold it soon after. After this review and playing FIFA 09 no-stop since I bought it means that I'll be not be indulging in PES this year.

@Darren - Yep I agree with your point & with Fifa & all it's leagues & that it's ready to go.
Personally I am an editing whore on PES & have been since ISS. Part of the fun for me as weird as that sounds.
Each to their own & all that.

@ TheMoonRat

I have not played FIFA since 2003 and jumped straight in on World Class with no problems. I then turned the assists off and had no problems. The fact remains that it is a lot easier to score in FIFA, notably if you use the finesse shot. It makes it far too easy and presents a far too idealistic view of the game. Great for the casual gamer who wants a quick football fix but not great for those who prefer the realism of having to work for their goals.

finally FIFA gets its nose ahead as deserved!

come on konami get rid of 8 way rails and destroy fifa, cos you aint getting my money till you do.

/can imagine the EA guys lol when reading this

a football game should just be judged by how it plays. Ther is nothing in this review that tells me which out of this or fifa plays best. The licenses and all the other crap mean nothing. It's all about when you are sitting down with a mate and it's 1-1 all with 10 mins to go. Who cares about player names then? So Eurogamer or anyone who has played both, which is best?

And next time can we have a proper review? Or at least break down the scores. Is ludicrous that a game that plays brilliantly is marked down because its menus aren't very good for example.

@Nicarella

There's no import chant facility on the 360 version

Grrrrrrrrrrrr.... I'm so annoyed at PES as a franchise, they seem to have made NO effort to raise their game (no pun intended), whereby FIFA has come on leaps & bounds since 2006 FIFA World cup, which is the last one I played (ashamedly for the gamerscore - It was horrible). As an evo stalwart it pains me to admit it - but having played both demos I'd have to say that FIFA is the superior game. *Sob*

@BM

Did'nt realsie that this was the Xbox review untill you pointed it out. Shame that Eurogamer have posted it in the PS3 review section too, and still a shame that they have'nt mentioned it.

It makes me cry a little tear inside, but this review excellently sums up why FIFA is just the better game now. Here's hoping it gets low sales this year to provide a little incentive for Konami to pull their finger out and rethink it from the ground up for PES2010, rather than just claiming to.

Best run fast.

rumrum - wtf piece of sht equipment are you using that your posts always come out so retarded looking?

Particularly that fullstop at the end on it's own

.

After playing PES2009 (on ps3) for hours i think my copy FIFA2009 will only gather dust the coming months. The playability of PES is just so much better. And isn't that just what it's all about..? The review keeps comparing FIFA and PES, but in the end it's all about the fun playing. FIFA plays a very good game of soccer, PES does it a bit better in my opinion. Should have been 8/10.

I bought fifa after playing both demo's extensively. For me PES just hasn't changed enough. What's the point in paying money for a game that's suffering the same cronic problems it's always suffered. Goalies only able to kick it out to one person. Short free kicks don't work, you can't pick who your goalie kicks it out to, through balls can't be directed. It's a shambles of a game making no head way. I'm gonna go with fifa, maybe as a couple of people said when they start losing revenue they'll start making some real changes and actually fix what's wrong with it and has been wrong with it since PES 5, which as others have said is far and away the best in the series.

Not enough info on the online features, I've played the demo so that was all i was after really, is there plans to actually review the online merits of the game?

I find it difficult to take football games reviews seriously on this site since the Sensible Soccer debacle:D

Both good games this year, but I still prefer pro evo(just about)

@Stu - The thing is though that PES 2009 *will* sell, perhaps not as well as FIFA 09 but seeing as the development costs are a lot less it doesn't really need to. And as long as it continues to sell OK then the developers won't feel the need to radically change anything. They're apparently a very small team working on umpteen versions of the game on a limited budget... I really can't see PES 2010 changing much at all. What Konami need to do IMO is not release a version of the game next year and give the game more development time. That or concentrate on making the game for a smaller number of platforms. Even EA's massive budget didn't stop the earlier current gen FIFAs from being a bit of a mess, it's taken them several years of refinement to finally produce a decent version in FIFA 09.

For me there really is no doubt any longer, last year FIFA took the lead this year it's nailed PES's coffin. Priot to this yep I was a PES fan.

FIFA plays like real football, pass, move, build up, dribble, shoot etc

PES is like a school yard 25 a side kick around, there's no subtle pacing uinstead just a scramble or mazy runs the length of the pitch (likely from those who would never dream of passing on a real football pitch)..

Anyone who still prefers PES ( over 16yrs old and actually likes football rather than pinball) I'd suggest buy FIFA and play it for a few days then see what you think.

There's no comparision between the two, the PES demo was enough for me to say only one football game for me this year.

I saw Level magazine; which is a reliable mag (personally); they have huge review of the game, 8-9 pages. They elaborated game modes, played lots of matches and wrote a review (not a preview) of press copy. They were extremely pleased about the game. The review score is %97; they do not think that they will change their mind on score, when they get the final release. Editor of mag is the reliable guy; who has been my main source since PES 2. He told me that he has been totally satisfied about gameplay, graphics, animations etc. His motto in his email to me was (something like) Return of the King. In a while; mag had reviewed PES 2008 with a score 6.7 or 7.0 out of 10. As they expressed all the cons of PES 2008 have been trimmed out; and finally we got the beauty of PES. They mentioned about improved ball physics, AI, slowed down game speed, flexible animations. They called PES 2008 as a pinball soccer and 2009 as a real one.

"PES's answer to FIFA's Be a Pro mode"

Except 'Winning Eleven: J League' was doing it years before FIFA.

No it wasnt. J.League Winning Eleven 2007 Club Championship as the first game to include this and it was released 31st July 2007. FIFA 08 was released September 07. Now considering EA were talking about BAP mode way before July 08 how did they copy Konami.

EA and Konami both took the idea from Namco. Love Football was the first Next-Gen game to use a BAP/BAL mode. There is nothing wrong with using other people's ideas if you can make it better.

PES all the way. FIFA got it right in the technical and license department but PES is more fun.

Not sure I like the score as for enjoyment it'll be an 8 or 9 though I can understand E.G.'s reasons.

The text does communicate one thing successfully and that's that this is an extremely enjoyable version of PES. The A.I. feels much more like playing my mates and time spent in single player should be much more fruitful when it comes to playing a few games against them.

"Pro Evo 5 is widely regarded as the pinnacle of pro evo, and its hard to doubt.. "

word!!

5 had had broken overhead kicks, but overall it's probably the best I've played.

they didn't mention you need that stupid konami id to play this online too. think i will switch to fifa. first time since the psone days. it feels so wrong though.

PES5 was shit (online anyway). It was full of bugs. 50 yard goals were easy.

Someone remind me, how good is a 7?

@Crufty - Well clearly a 7 is good when it comes to PES 2009 but a 9 is terrible when it comes to LittleBigPlanet! ;)

Clueless review!

One less game to buy in the packed Xmas market. I've always been pro-evo (ISS on the N64) but the arcade nature of last years and the dreadful goalkeepers just made me angry. Releasing the demo on the eve of the FIFA release just hammed the nail in the coffin. Utter shite.

Dunno about you guys but I think this is the best PES yet. Fifa’s great as well, but for me this should be a 9 in terms of gameplay as someone said above, but presentation, features and options make Fifa’s score higher. (the fixed player cursor has actually been in since PES 3, without the proper player creation leagues mode of Fantastista added before Fifa 08 as well).

Player movement feels “freer” and smoother. The player individuality with the stats as usual is very good. The slower speed is like to PES 5’s simulation. The new d-pad dribbling makes close control more complex and intuitive, and the dribbling itself is under control. You can’t just hold R1 and run, ghosting past players like the last two versions because you have less control when sprinting. You have to work to beat a player, as defences have been improved. The engine is still a souped up ps2 one but looks nice, especially the lighting and player likenesses. In fact the player models look more lifelike than Fifa’s. They haven’t got the animation as smooth as Fifa’s next gen engine yet, but they will in time as they get used to the new consoles, and they’re still good, especially the new animations.

Like PES 5, it needs extended play to uncover its nuances and to master it. Its top stuff, I don’t think people should underestimate PES because of the 7/10, both footy games are great this year.

Oh my Konami, you really are lazy shits.
Review could have been beefed up a bit to comment on more stuff, is there the ability to change the corwd chants with downloaded mp3's? Particulary on xbox I want to know.

Same here I really liked the demo, and thought it was a vast improvement over PES2008.
Ah well, I don't really care if other people don't like it, I'll be getting the game tomorrow and loving it :)

Keith, only PC and PS3 has downloadable crowd chants.

My copy of the game arrived this morning...

I've been a PES Man since the days of ISS 64 etc, and have bought everyone right the way through the PS1, PS2 and 360.

I always want to like FIFA, I like the licensing, I like the commetary and presentation...and I've much preferred the online implementation, however FIFA has always been somewhat lacking, even a bad version of Pro Evo played better than a good FIFA.

Last year this changed...I found myself owning both versions FIFA 08 and PES2008, but as online is important to me, I stuck with FIFA, with PES only wheeling itself out for when my mates were over.

This year - I currently own both games and so far, I think if FIFA sorts out the sidestep bug...it's the more complete game.

I had one game online of Pro Evo - and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as last years...but it wasn't quite as fluid as FIFA.

I also started one game in the Champions League mode...only to find myself playing what appeared to be an unlicensed team...it really is pathetic...although obviously fixable with the Option Files.

Finally - Louis Saha still at United...c'mon...sort it out !!!

Currently - I want to go and play FIFA more than I want to play Pro Evo...

Oh - and I really don't like using the left stick for tricks...if anyone knows how to change it back to what it has been in previous years, let me know !!!