Official PlayStation Magazine: Pro Evolution 2008 Review Scans

If your a frequent reader of onAXIS, you already know that Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 received a 9/10 from the Official PlayStation Magazine of the UK. Well, now we have scans along with the article in text. Enjoy.

A member of 360Indians was crazy enough (kudos) to type out the review in text. Read below:

Before we get into the red hot review, first you need to answer a question: what do you actually want from PES on PS3? Startling levels of graphical beauty? Gameplay redefined by stunningly innovative new features? Free kicks that go in without every star in heaven having to be in precise alignment? Okay. Stop waving your hands around. You’re not getting any of that. PES 2008 is a surprisingly conservative game. This is actually Konami’s second shot at next-gen football, the first being last year’s pretty underwhelming Xbox 360 version. The DNA of that game provides the building blocks for this one, but – don’t panic – the team of footballing alchemists led by Shingo “Seabass” Takatsuba has made subtle but vital improvements across the board. The result is a game that doesn’t have any one feature that screams next-gen, but is beautifully balanced overall.

Assuming the last version you played was PES6 on PS2, the first thing you’ll notice here is how much slower it seems. Hold RI and the speed at which your player runs feels oddly heavy-legged. But the initial adjustment to a newer version of PES is always awkward because you’re so used to the precise timing and rhythm of the older game. Once you settle in, the thinking behind the more considered pace becomes clear, and after a few days it stops seeming strange at all. More than ever before, this year’s PES is designed to simulate the way real football works. Watch a top-flight game and you won’t see the players sprinting from box to box for 90 minutes. Likewise, the emphasis in 2008 is on controlling the game, retaining possession and teasing out chances. The shift in style feels comparable to the difference the high-energy play you associate with the Premier League and the technical, cultured approach of the Champions League.

That’s not to say that the dribbling element has been hamstrung, although the spongier triggers on the SIXAXIS do make cutting in with R2 much harder to pull off. Used judiciously, dribbling is still an effective way of unlocking defences – but it works best when you mix up your play, pinging passes around and then powering into the spaces you’ve opened up. One of the key new elements is the increased physicality and momentum of the players. They take more time to turn, especially when running flat-out, and also need more time to get the ball under control - sometimes frustratingly so – but when you beat your marker, he’s likely to stay beaten because once your body is between player and ball unless he’s incredibly quick he’ll struggle to get around you to make a challenge. The result is that strong players like Rooney and Drogba can shrug off attempted tackles, bouncing opponents onto their backsides as they surge forward. As a desperate measure, trailing defenders can claw at the forward’s shirt. There’s a good chance they’ll concede a foul, but it could be worth it to kill a dangerous break before it develops. (Mourinho nods approvingly)

Tackling as a whole has been made harder in order to compensate for the fact that dribbling now takes more skill. The step-in tackle now needs to be lined up and timed more carefully, the sliding tackle really is the last throw of the defensive dice. Unless executed immaculately, you’re likely to either miss completely leaving the target free to burst past, or end up clattering him and doing your best ‘who me?’ face as the ref reaches into his pocket. Still, when you get it right - wrapping a leg around to take the ball like a gentleman thief – it’s almost as satisfying as scoring. Goals are, of course, the most precious commodity in PES. One of the key differences between PES and FIFA has always been the incredible variety of ways to score. Glancing headers, arrowed volleys, scuffed tap-ins, long-range thunderbolts, precise sidefoots…each goal is unique. You have to work for them. They light up otherwise scruffy, niggly games and provide the gloss finish to sweeping attacks. They make you howl and the ineptitude of your defending and jump up when a last-second winner flies in. And if all that sounds evangelical, well, no apologies. Scoring in PES is an addictive rush. It’s why you save the truly great goals and watch them back again and again.

The shooting system has been tweaked slightly, but still relies on a dizzying combination of factors: the ability of a player on the ball, his body shape as he strikes it, pressure from defenders, and so on. For optimal accuracy and power, you need to time the shot so it falls on the player’s favoured foot, watching his running animation so that he takes the ball in his stride and easing off the run button at the last second so he can set himself. Of course, you don’t really think about that kind of stuff while you’re playing. It’s something that becomes instinctive the more you play. This year, it’s marginally easier to get power into the shot and hit the target from tighter angles. To cope with the additional threat, the keepers fling themselves full length to tip the ball around the post. They’re also no longer completely protected by the invisible force field that enabled to claim high balls unchallenged. So if you send the keeper into a crowd, he’s more likely to punch or spill. Another defensive change is the way clearing works. In the past, using [square] to head or hoof the ball to safety was a get-out-of-jail card. Now, if a ball is whipped into the near post, chances are you defenders will put it out for a corner rather than launch it down-field. Again, much more realistic.

There’s a handful of other changes worth mentioning. First is the new look-up cross. Hold down [R1] and [L1] as you race towards the byline and the winger will turn towards the box, picking out a target before firing in a more accurate cross. It looks odd with the crosser shuffling sideways, but does add a new weapon to the attacking armoury. As does the new set-play tactics menu, which enables you to select three players to send up for free kicks and corners. Big, strong centre backs are the obvious choice, but you can also order up the keeper for comedy value if you’re chasing the game late on. Annoyingly, you can reassign from the same menu as you use to change the kicker, making it a little laborious to change the set-up. And although it’s something the fans have requested for a while, surely Konami could’ve gone a lot further. Why not allow us to design our own bespoke set-piece on a chalkboard? As it is, free kicks and corners are almost entirely unchanged, and have been for years now.

In the run-up to release, much was made of the new TeamVision AI system. Aside from sounding ‘a bit EA’, the idea was that if you kept playing a particular pattern, the CPU would wise up and adjust its tactics accordingly. Well, not as far as I can tell. The opposition does seem better at dealing with unusual formations – like pushing one winger high into the corner – but there’s not much sense of it reorganising to cancel your style of play. No matter though, cause on a macro level the AI is sterling, with strikers straying offside less and midfielders cutting out loose passes. There was the odd occasion particularly when running directly at goal from the deep, when the back four swung open like saloon doors. But for the most part, the AI feels authentic. And the fact that your teammates make decent runs enables you to play a stylish passing game. Spreading the ball wide with a vertical though-ball for a full-back to run on to works brilliantly, and PES remains light years ahead of FIFA in the way it replicates the complexity of football, from stringing breathtaking attacks together to brilliantly random goal-mouth scrambles.

The one big – and potentially massively controversial – addition is diving. Press [L1]+[L2]+[R1] and your player throws himself down Saving Private Ryan-style. It’s all sorts of funny at first, but once you realise the ref nearly always spots it, there doesn’t seem much point in wasting what could develop into a shooting chance for what’s an almost guaranteed booking. The AI only seems to dive if it’s trailing in the final few minutes and hasn’t won a penalty so far. However, in two-player we have managed to con the ref a couple of times, but only for free kicks in pretty innocuous situations (the trick being to do the dying swan just as a challenge comes in). Where things are likely to get problematic is online. Over time, some players will surely find a way to exploit the system consistently. Given how furious people were over handball in PES3, diving seems certain to split opinion even more dramatically. Konami will doubtless argue that diving happens in real football and is therefore a legitimate inclusion – but not if it messes up the balance. At time of writing, the servers weren’t live, but as Warhawk demonstrated, a vibrant community should spring up as soon as the game is released. We’ll report back soon.

Okay, let’s talk Master League. It’s bizarre that so many people seem to ignore it entirely, because beneath the esoteric transfer system and lack of licensed tournaments, lies an obsessive, hugely satisfying management game. In the build-up to PES 2008, Konami released shots of players talking to the media and fans celebrating in bars, leading many to speculate Master League would be totally overhauled. It hasn’t. The shots are just that – static images which appear on the menu screens. There is a new popularity system, whereby if players perform well, their value increases and it becomes easier to make signings, but it’s very similar to the way the club’s overall ranking worked before. The lack of licensed Premier League teams – Spurs and Newcastle being the only two this year – also remains a huge pity, but having investigated the reasons why last month, there’s little point beating Konami up over what seems like an insoluble problem. (Obviously we can’t condone it, but it’ll be interesting to see if fans start swapping edited option files).

Slightly more vexing than the lack of new features is the fact that generally, the players don’t feel quite as individual as they did previously. Sure, superstars like Thierry Henry and Christiano Ronaldo have unique animations, but it was always a major PES strength that even the lesser lights felt uncannily like their real-life equivalents, with the subtleties of their abilities making team selection a fascinating exercise. Now, a lot of them move and play generically. It may be something to do with the new graphics engine, which obviously favours realism over the cartoony and characterful PS2 models. There’s also the fact that any serious PES fan uses the wide camera angle to get the best view of the pitch, which coupled with the inclusion of widescreen (finally) which means the players look tiny on screen. Overall, 720p visuals are crisp, smooth and detailed, just not mind-blowingly so. Meanwhile, on the audio side, the new commentary team of John Champion and sad sack Lawrenson is a major improvement. Sure, repetition creeps in - Champion seems obsessed with complaining about refs not having officiated at the highest level - but the banter flows nicely and it fits the context perfectly.

So then, back to the original question: what do you want from PES on PS3? Simple: for it not to be broken. Because what would have been a disaster was if Konami had implemented a long list of new features but messed up the basic gameplay. Because the longer you play PES, the more you understand that changing any of its key elements – passing, shooting, tackling – has a big knock-on effect on the others. The fact that all those elements have been tweaked, yet 2008 still feels unmistakeably like PES in all its mercurial, collar flicked-up brilliance – is a triumph. Yes, there’s plenty of room for improvement; there always is. And doubtless, a couple of years down the line, this version will seem crude. But here’s the thing – there is no other game on PS3 that you’re guaranteed to still be playing obsessively this time next year. PES is magic because it is football in all its glory and madness, and as such, you’re never really finished with it.

9/10

[Via 360Indians]