 Review By: Nick Arvites |
Developer: | Konami |
| Publisher: | Konami | |
| Genre: | Sports | |
| ESRB: | Everyone | |
| # Of Players: | 1-2 | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | Xbox Live (online play) |
The league licenses are nowhere near as deep as FIFA, but I honestly did not miss it that much. It would have been nice to choose any team in the world, but I’ve found that I (and most of my friends) mainly stuck with the Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A anyway. The only one I really missed was the German Bundesliga. If you were or are trying to recreate the UEFA Cup or Champions League, the lack of the other leagues is upsetting.
I was able to look the other way concerning the club licenses, and I really didn’t mind that PES didn’t have a bunch of second and third tier leagues that I would likely never use. However, the International rosters are a different story. PES 2008 has most of the major international squads with the actual players. However, notably absent were the Euro Cup runners up German National Team and the United States. I’ve been trying to justify as to why either team is absent, and I can’t really come up with a reason. The Germans simply should be included as a major European team. The US team should be included just because they specifically ported the game to the US market. It sounds stupid as they don’t even have all of the European teams (though they should), but it’s hard to sell a game on its merits if it doesn’t have the local national team and its competition does.
The robust editing mode does allow gamers to skirt around the unlicensed clubs and rosters. Sick of seeing Man Red instead of the real name? Simply edit the team’s name to Manchester United. Players can be edited as well. PES 2008 makes great use of the optional camera to act as a scanner for both faces and uniform kits. Transfers are relatively simple to perform, and editing national teams is easy (since it lists a pool of licensed players from that particular country). I would suggest looking on the Internet for an “option” file for the community, but thanks to Microsoft’s draconian policies that make it impossible to simply transfer a file via a USB key. Indeed, most of the instructions involving a downloaded file blatantly state that doing so will likely get your Xbox banned from Live. Unlike the other versions of PES, community option files aren’t an option. Hopefully in future iterations of this series, Konami follows 2K and EA’s lead by including a built in file/roster transfer program that allows users to exchange files over Xbox Live.
There are also only 15 stadiums in the next gen version. This just seems light, especially considering the PS2 version has almost twice as many stadiums. I would have preferred more fake stadiums than real ones if it would have ensured that I won’t see the same stadiums constantly.
Game modes are basic. You can play an exhibition match, set up a tournament, play through a league, or join the Master League. League play is fun, though it gets old since you cannot skip through matches. The real draw of the offline single player mode is the Master League. This mode allows you to build up a team through scouting and transfers and allows you to rise up through multiple seasons. The mode is incredibly deep, and if you’re a total control freak it is interesting to play. The problem is that it just lumps every team in one giant super-pool league. This is incredibly entertaining if you just like the fantasy aspect, but if you’re looking for something more true to life, you won’t find it here. You can’t start out in the English League 1 and rise up over the next few years to the Premier League and eventually reign as the UEFA Cup Champions or Champion League champions. The mode is fun and interesting, but it isn’t anything that I haven’t seen in prior iterations of FIFA and really feels basic compared to what FIFA offers in terms of a “franchise” mode.
Online play feels incredibly basic. You can play in ranked and non-ranked matches, but there are no online leagues or tournaments. The modes, while fun if you can get a match, just feel like they’re dated by at least a generation. The addition of online tournament modes would certainly help, as would adding features like official roster updates and a user-roster file sharing system.
A side note, the music in this game is terrible. While some of the tracklists from EA Sports and 2K Sports titles are questionable, I can usually find a few tracks I like to play through the menus. I found none in PES 2008, and often had the TV on mute until I was in a match. The commentary is fine, but the music during the menus is horrid. Granted, I would rather Konami use any licensing fees to acquire the rights to more International teams and more club teams/leagues than music.
Bottom Line:
I enjoy playing sports titles, but in order to keep my interest over a long period of time they need features. PES 2008 is a fun game, but it has too many incomplete areas for me to truly enjoy it. The lack of Germany and the US national teams really killed offline multiplayer sessions for my group of friends. I don’t mind that all of the leagues aren’t included and could easily ignore the missing leagues and teams if every International roster was fully licensed in the game. The online offerings feel extremely dated, and the editing features are negated by the difficulty of getting community updates without being banned from Xbox Live or spending countless hours doing it yourself. The Master League is deep and entertaining, but I personally prefer realistic settings more than fantasy settings so the appeal was lost after a few weeks of playtime. Overall, the game isn’t bad, but it certainly needs more licenses, online features, and modes to justify recommending it.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 6.5 |
Posted: 2008-08-14 16:36:31 PST