Pro Evolution Soccer 2

THE BAD:

SUMMARY:
Intro -

The first thing you will notice about the game is that it's a little more modern looking. While it isn't quite as fancy as your average FIFA game, it's a vast improvement from the dreadfully dull presentation of the original PES. The intro scene is wonderfully backed by Queen, who have licensed two songs to the game, We Will Rock You (intro) and We Are The Champions (winning cups).

The Good -

Onto the good, and there's a lot of it. Starting with the Master League. The difficult levels are Easy / Normal / Hard, and Extreme. Extreme difficulty is for advanced players, which automatically saves your game after every match, meaning you can't replay a match if it means you go bankrupt. The other 3 levels can be changed at any time.

In hand with there being 40 club teams, you now have a 3 division Master League. The lowest division - where you start off, features 8 teams that play in a 14 game season. The top 2 divisions both have 16 teams. A new feature is that of cups. The 3rd division has a small cup for the league participants, while the top 2 divisions have one cup between them, which is played out throughout the season. This really works well and getting far in the cups is extremely rewarding financially. The opportunity to play the top clubs once you're in Division 2 is great fun too, a great challenge.

Also in the Master League is a fantastic new feature for 'Promising Players' - where you can buy young players and build up there stats as you play them. You can only do it for one year though, or you'd end up with god-like players. The more you play them, the better you can make them.

The edit mode is far more advanced this time round. You can now edit players without copying them and you can set up all the teams exactly how you want, including recreating club flags and changing the strip around. In effect, you can pretty much make your own club.

Some music to your ears is that the commentary is actually good. Well, it might not be as good as some games, but compared to PES - it's frickin awesome! You get things like "Corner kick - no sorry, it's a goal kick" - which occurs when you think you should have a corner kick, or vice versa. Brilliant!

The training feature now has extra options, including challenges like dribbling and free kicks. If you rank high enough in them you can unlock extra stuff in the game, though it's far from easy.

The Gameplay -

I'll cover both bad and good here. To start, the flow of the game is a lot more realistic. You have far more time on the ball and getting caught in possession is much less of an occurance, for both you and the opposition. I'd say this makes for a more realistic gaming experience, but whether it's more enjoyable is something I remain unsure of. If I'm playing in a year, then I'll know.

Minor details. Some of the player animations are a little over the top, which is very noticeable, but you get used to it. Once again you'll find yourself getting frustrated as you hit pass and the ball sails off into nowhere. Heading the ball towards goal is a lot different this time round, which takes a lot of getting used to, but it does work better overall. There is still no visible referees, which personally doesn't bother me in the slightest, but some people have complained, of course.

My main problem with PES2 is the aiming system. Be it for manual passes or shots, it's just not as good as in PES. In PES, the ball went exactly where you aim. It's hard to explain how it works in PES2, but you don't have the same feeling of being able to aim at a tiny gap and shoot at it. I guess I'll get more used to it over time, but I am still a little unsure why they changed the PES system, which was perfect.


The Bad -

Seperate to the gameplay issues I mentioned above, there really isn't much wrong with the game. The failure to secure an official license does indeed return to haunt us, meaning hours of editing if you want it all right. There are some players that are named correctly, moreso than in PES actually. There is also an option to load the PES option file, so if you edited a load of players last time, you won't have so much to do this time. For some strange reason, they clubs are not named right when you start. Changing them is easy enough, but still the odd names continue in the commentary. Liverpool are called Europort for example, which is both weird and annoying.

Summary -

If you liked PES, get this game. Don't expect the same thing, because it's very different. I played PES for a year solid and never tired of it. PES2 does have the same feeling about, so I would genuinely suggest to anyone to buy this game. I truly believe this game to be far out in front of everything else - the best game ever.


Superfast Oz