Pro Evo 2008

[DANGERMAN]

Do you like learning new things? Being patiant, practicing and rehearsing new skills before putting them into use? Spending an hour with your new game before you can actually play 'it'. then this game is for you!

Don't get me wrong I'm not slating the game for it, Fifa was the same, you can't just dive in like you could the traditional style football games.

Beyond the training I've played one game, which I won 3 nil Shooting seems easy enough, just shake the nunchuck. Passing can be set to automatic if you didnt buy the game to play it, but otherwise it's a matter of pointing and pressing B. It works quite well except for a couple of things, through balls down the wing aren't as automatic as they would ordinarily be, so 2 against one against a full back seems to favour the defender. Also because A is used to run (analogue works too but doesnt sprint, A basically is a knock and run into space) B pass, but A&B is a 1-2 you'll accidentally to a one two tather than a pass.

That being said i scored 2 of my 3 goals by spotting a gap and playing a through ball, one with quite a bit of grass infront of me to run into and one right on the edge of the box.

The downside is that I don't know how to cross, I'm sure it was just pass, but on corners and the like it's just hitting the ball low. Also I've forgotton how to tackle, but that will just come with reading the booklet and practice.

Graphically it looks fine, it's really zoomed out so it's pretty much irrelevant how it looks. However the team selection screen is without doubt the best such screen ever.

So far it seems like it could be a really deep game, just a matter of everyone you know learning the controls before you can play multi

[DANGERMAN]

It's battery draining is what it is! I'm enjoying it quite a lot actually, I'm not sure it's a recreation of football the way Pro Evo used to be, but you can put togather some awesome moves.

I've worked out how to cross, i'm not sure it actually tells you but it's pretty obvious (double tap pass), but there's still a lot of occasions where you tap A either to run or to drag a player and it'll do the other.

There's no master league instead there's a Road To... mode, which is like the DS pro evo I played. You enter tournaments and if you beat a team you can get their players (assuming you're allowed to acquire their star level, which is a bit shit). Also you can't start as a name team with their players, you can go the team but with a bunch of randoms, and as that team probably hasn't got the right name in the first place (Man Red for example) it's a bit hollow. I guess it gives you something to complete though rather than the endless Master League

[Sambob]

It's battery draining is what it is! I'm enjoying it quite a lot actually, I'm not sure it's a recreation of football the way Pro Evo used to be, but you can put togather some awesome moves.

I've worked out how to cross, i'm not sure it actually tells you but it's pretty obvious (double tap pass), but there's still a lot of occasions where you tap A either to run or to drag a player and it'll do the other.

There's no master league instead there's a Road To... mode, which is like the DS pro evo I played. You enter tournaments and if you beat a team you can get their players (assuming you're allowed to acquire their star level, which is a bit shit). Also you can't start as a name team with their players, you can go the team but with a bunch of randoms, and as that team probably hasn't got the right name in the first place (Man Red for example) it's a bit hollow. I guess it gives you something to complete though rather than the endless Master League

I like the endless master league, although the gripe I have with it, (this is probably completely agreeing with your comment) is that after maybe 5 seasons of the master league youve either bought the players, or they just wont come to your team, youve won all the trophies and the best players are getting old and there is no one coming through apart from the stupid thing the game does of once a player is old enough to retire, they put him back in as a 'rookie' I got van der saar at age 17 on one season, which was kind of good.

The allure of the master league for me is to do about 5 or 6 years of one and then start another one in a different league, to get the feeling of going through it again and building up the team.

I quite like the Wii's take on the master league, theres no hiding the fact that its massively limited, but the limit to getting a certain highly rated player encourages you to do the missions and stuff. I just really wish they would combine this gameplay with better graphics and a fuller game. My dream game would be to play the 360 version with wii controls, I cant get passed the bad PS2 graphics when i score a goal.

Im also a little bit worried at the minute that the difficulty isnt just right, I will have to toggle it a bit and see what suits, but im finding it a bit too easy to actually forget doing fancy passes and actually do the old Pro evo staple of running through midfield right up to the goal and toe punting it in.

The controls are wonderful though, really really good. I was a bit sceptical at first just how much they would make a difference but its great, I cant wait to play this on the next generation Wii because at the minute I would still buy pro evo 2009 over this game, and will be doing so.

[DANGERMAN]

Yeah i dont dislike Master League, it's more that this one gives you something to complete, it's a proper tournament game mode rather than a continuous footy manager type thing (which isnt a bad thing)

I didn't mind the graphics, they're a bit weird but not bad and it runs smooth and quick enough

I know what you mean about the difficulty though, I've not played it that much admittedly but I've yet to lose a match. but you get the feeling if you put it on hard you'd get destroyed.

I should play this more

[Sambob]

Yeah i dont dislike Master League, it's more that this one gives you something to complete, it's a proper tournament game mode rather than a continuous footy manager type thing (which isnt a bad thing)

I didn't mind the graphics, they're a bit weird but not bad and it runs smooth and quick enough

I know what you mean about the difficulty though, I've not played it that much admittedly but I've yet to lose a match. but you get the feeling if you put it on hard you'd get destroyed.

I should play this more

Well im quite happily surprised with the way it plays, and to answer wiivos question yes it does re-invent pro evo, the team select screen is like those little figures you used to get (maybe still can) with the massive heads that looked vaiguely (sp?) like the footballers they were meant to be.

Its like playing an entirely new football game, with all the extra attacking and defending options the controls give you, its much easier to mark players, because -in the same way you can see space opening up on the attack- you can see where your defenders need to be and who they need to mark, and you can actually tell them to stick to a player, or run to space in order to cover that space for a pass.

I still dont think ive fully realised the posibilities that the controls give you yet, im pretty much scoring the same kind of goal. I think that where the new system will come in really handy is things like corners and especially free kicks, where before your players would stand in the lest helpful positions, you can tell them all where to be and then put the ball there.

You definitely need to play this more, everyone.