Pro Evolution Soccer 2009

[Baddar]

For those who don't know, there's already been templates made for all of the logo's and kits in the EPL and La Liga at PESGaming.com.

[Guest deknegt]

Just got the game for the pc.

Finally 360 controller support so i can play correctly

And im just addicted to the legend mode. ^_^

I just gotta learn to score from angles...

[King Ellis]

What position is your legend?

[Scott McFly]

So my bro's got a pre-release review copy of this for his Xbox website and I played a bit last night and today. I'm trying so hard to like the game, but nothing is really explained clearly at all and the manual is so useless. You don't normally get a manual with promo copies and quite frankly they would've been as well not including one. There's a lot of abbreviated and shortened terms next to numbers and bars and the manual does nothing to say what they are. I did critise FIFA for spelling out everything, but Pro Evo is the exact opposite, it seems to think you'll know what everything means without ever explaining it.

But even aside from that, the gap in difficulty between Amateur and Regular seems to be huge. I played games as Regular and barely managed to score a goal getting beaten all over the place, played a couple of games as Amateur and won 4-0 and 3-0.

So I gave up on the competitions and tried the Be A Legend mode. The create-a-player seemed pretty extensive, lots of options for changing your face, body, clothing etc. Not a lot of options for hair to be honest, only 3 lengths and the same 4 options for each (wavy, perm, dreadlocks and something else). Or you can have no hair.

But I made my player, picked his position (left midfielder/winger) had a game where the scouts attend and signed for Portsmouth. Then played a few games in the reserves and I really enjoyed this mode to be honest, made a nice change from the main game. I wasn't very good, but still was a lot of fun getting to play as the one player trying to keep in position and do well with the ball. Only thing I would say is that the camera was a bit mental, had a flick through the other options but none seemed to give an overview of the pitch that you need. Was kind of tricky to see whether your team had the ball or not so as you knew whether to be going forward or back.

But there's just so much that is pretty vague and the options are poorly organised and worded, and stuff is hidden away that you would expect to be have instant access to. I mean, when your first team plays a game, it just has a badge for the team you're playing (not ideal when most of them are fake and even some of the real ones you won't know) and it wouldn't have killed them to put the name there. Then instead of just putting the score or even "win, draw, lose" it puts either a triangle, circle or X. How the fuck am I supposed to know what they mean?

As I said, I've tried so hard to like it. The commentary is actually very good (Jon Champion and Lawro) and there's other bits that I did like, but all-in-all it just seems like too much hard work to understand the most basic things. Details are laid out so confusingly sometimes and from what I played of the FIFA demo, the game stats are far more detailed and everything seemed to be where you'd expect it to be.

But if anyone's got any specific questions about the game I can try to answer them before my bro sends the game off to the person that's going to review it.

Edited October 15, 2008 by Scott McFly

[King Ellis]

What are Hull and Stoke called?

Also, you played for the Pompey reserves? Who else was in the team? Who did you play against?

[The Future]

Is there any Champions League specific mode?

[Scott McFly]

I think Stoke were The Potteries. Hull I don't remember, will check. I swapped Stoke and Fulham out for Celtic and Rangers in the league for Become A Legend.

But yeah, after you play the scouted game (which was two seemingly random teams) I got 3 offers from clubs - Pompey, West Brom (Midlands Stripes or something) and Wigan (Lancashire something) and had to pick one. So you start off in the reserves just playing training games against the first team. Initially I was playing alongside Kanu, Nugent, Diarra etc. against the first team - Crouch, Defoe, etc. You could choose to skip these games or play in them in order to get into good enough form to make your way to the first team bench. After every game the teams will change depending on who's playing well, so after a couple of game Kanu earned a callup to the first team and Defoe came down to play with us. Then they swapped back the next game. But the manager will change formations slightly each time, so occasionally I was playing far back in left midfield, then I would be playing regular left midfield and once I played as a left winger with Nugent on the right and Kanu through the middle.

I was pretty much getting a 5.5 rating every game except where I scored my first (and only) goal where I got a 6.5. You really need 7-8 consistently to get into the first team it looks like.

[Summers]

It sounds sexual. I want now.

[King Ellis]

Get back to CoD4 you! Who said you could leave your station?

[Summers]

Girlfriend is on VP2.

Anyway.

Any chance of Pro being sold tomorrow? >_>

[King Ellis]

Apparently Asda is doing it for £27 and I imagine Tesco will mirror their FIFA price of £28.97. That probably wont be till midnight (unless you get someone especially clueless on protocoll). If you're really desperate though i'm sure it's worth having a quick check in a few stores like HMV, Argos etc. Someones bound to sell it early.

Damn though, this is tempting. I have said before that i'd only be interested in picking this up for something like £25 and this is pretty much damn.

Edited October 15, 2008 by King eLLis

[Summers]

£27 really?

[King Ellis]

So sayeth the folks at Hot UK Deals. There's always the chance that a) people are bullshitting or b) it's just that particular store. Though another rumour has it that Morrisons is going to be doing it for £25, wouldn't be sure on that though.

[Whisper]

How awesome is that? Day off today and my copy just arrived

I shall report back later... though I have to say... the menus are just awful.

edit...

Yup, I love it. I've played one game and it's fantastic. First thing I noticed was how awesome the pitch looks, the turf looks better than its ever done in a PES game and some of the player likenesses are awesome. Tevez, Ronaldo, Messi all look identical to their real life counterparts. Ronaldo's penalty and free kick techniques are in there as well which is a nice little touch.

Anyway, I played on Regular difficult (as Man Utd against Barca)... I won 3-0 but that sounds easier than it was. In fairness, my goals came from a corner, a penalty and a tap in.. while Van Der Sar made a string of saves and they hit the post. Incidentally... my first goal on this game belongs to Park Ji Sung... a bullet header of all things.

I found it difficult to get in behind the defence, but the passing feels much more fluid and controlled. I can't explain it, it just feels like real football. Some of the animatiosn are awesome, the tackling i'm extremely impressed with. SOme people will point thsi out as a negative but I like it; the way you can give away free kicks just by making contact with a player. It's frustrating, but that's what happens in football. It's no longer a case of just holding A (X for playstationers) and letting your guy chase people across the pitch.

The thing i've been most impressed with is what i'm always impressed by on Pro Evo, and thats the ball physics. Goal mouth scrambles and stuff look better than ever, players are much more reponsive as well, just kicking at anything that moves until its cleared

Shooting is hard, the couple of times I did get space to hit one, I sent it ballooning over. There's so much I like about this already that I'm bound to miss stuff, but I really can't see why anyone who likes football would dislike this game. Well on course to be the best Pro yet i reckon. Now for some Be a Legend...

Edited October 16, 2008 by Whisper in the Wind

[King Ellis]

Apparently the £27 Asda deal is advertised in The Sun. I think it's just this weekend though. I think I may be getting it this weekend, may make it one of my Xmas presents but just get it early.

[ZJ Penn]

I need educating. I'm getting this tomorrow or Saturday but it'll be the first one I've ever bought for the 360. Normally I get them on the PS2 and one of my friends has one of those max drive things and does all the kit updating and whatnot for me. What I'm wondering is how would I go about updating my Xbox version when the update is released.

Oh it's not online by the way.

[Whisper]

A word of caution if you play online: make sure you can defend.

People just give the ball to Kaka, Ronaldinho, Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Torres etc and run with it. Stupidly hard to tackle them, especially if you get a bit of lag.

Played 2 online so far... won one 3-2 and drew the other 6-6 after extra time.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Played two games, first impressions are that tackling is stupidly impossible, and your team-mates seem to have less intelligence then before, especially in defence, and a few little things seem to have been taken out (like when setting up an 'International Cup' the all clear option so you can select entrants from scratch seems to have vanished) On the plus side, it looks good, taking people on is better, and it seems to be the fairest Pro Evo yet in terms of everything not going the computers way all the time, though the computer seems perfect at the through-ball. Passing is generally the same, though it horribly misplaces some passes.

Its fun though. Don't expect ANY clean sheets, ever. EVER.

Edited October 16, 2008 by timmayy Aaron XXIV

[Darloboy]

Wait, so is this out already?

[King Ellis]

The wonders of early delivery/stores not caring about street dates.

Any of you early adopters know what the deal with online legends mode is? The demo vid hinted at 4 people playing together, is that just four of you against the computer? Can you have, say, two of you against two other legends but they are on the opposing side?