Can I Beat The Pro? (Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (PS2))

Member Name: naughtyjennifer

Product:	Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (PS2)
Date:	02/01/09 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High Playability

Disadvantages: Takes A Lot Of Time To Be Great

Now I first played this game as my boyfriend is a huge fan of the pro evolution franchise and being a huge fan of videogames myself I made it my main priority over the next four weeks to become very good at this game. I know this may sound sad to some of you but hey I love beating my boyfriend in games and to beat him in his own game would be out of this world and give me bragging rights for a long time yet.

I figured this would be a simple task, however once practising against the computer on 2 star which is one of the lowest ratings I soon realised that this was not going to be an easy four weeks. I will give you details about the game now before describing about my four weeks or personal pro evolution enlightenment.

This is the sixth version of the game available on the PS2 hence the name Pro Evo 6 and on top of the fifth version there is a definite improvement in the game play with a faster style and more importantly there is less fouling. I did not find myself being stopped by the referee every two seconds thank good for just simply touching the opponent player. This is a contact sport after all and Pro Evo 6 more clearly reflects that with only dirty fouls being rewarded with cards. Also there is not the stupid handball feature that old Pro Evo games have incorporated in recent years. Let me explain that although this is realistic it is not something the user is in control of. I want to be fully in control of my team and player and sometimes I am through on goal and a handball happens and the opponent is given a free kick. There is nothing I can do to stop this and this was a definite flaw in the game and thankfully Pro Evo 6 is handball free.

Of course there are updates on the teams with all the most recent players up until a few weeks before the game being in their correct teams. Of course if there is the odd mishap by the Konami team then you can always go and manually change the odd player and put them in the correct team. Again the licenses are not available for the majority of teams in this game, however Pro Evo has always been a game play and if you are the fickle to let this affect you then you really do deserve to belong to your beloved Fifa. It does not affect the recognition of the players with their names only slightly miss-spelt and the teams names are different for the clubs, however does this really matter. At least they are recognisable as Merseyside red and Merseyside blue clearly distinguishes between Liverpool and Everton. Even if there are people who really can not live without the real player teams and names there are memory card updates available for a small price that updates all of this and even the kits with the correct sponsors and details added so this really is no excuse not to purchase the game. Now onto my personal experience of playing the game over the four weeks.


Week One

As mentioned earlier on I attempted to play the game in two star difficulty and aptly got thrashed four nil in a ten minute game. My defending actually was OK but I could not create a chance on goal for the life of me. So over the rest of the week I participated in the excellent training mode and worked out how to use all the controls properly. Over this week I scored like a thousand goals in training from all over the pitch in many different teams and circumstances and felt ready to take on the computer opponent once again.


Week Two

So I played the computer again and this time the score was 2-1 to the computer. Ok I got beaten but the game definitely was a lot closer this time and I mustered a few chances on goal. Over the next few days I started to win more and more and moved up to three star difficulty and had about an equal amount of wins and defeats against the computer. I generally played with Chelsea and Barcelona and had been told my friends that these two teams are generally superior to others in the game.


Week Three

I was now accomplished at three star level and tried playing on four star difficulty. I was generally getting defeats here but was only conceding one or two goals per match maximum and could not really create many chances although against certain teams I was finding weaknesses and attempting to exploit them. I did win the odd game by the end of the week and really felt like I was a decent player at the game now.


Week Four

Now I tried on five star difficulty and could not win at all. Even sometimes when I was leading and felt I had the upper edge the computer would just find a way to break my team down and make a comeback. Occasionally I took the computer to penalties with a 0-0 score line as my defending was pretty decent and this seemed to be the only way I could win. I then told my boyfriend that I wanted to play him in a match in which he laughed at me when I told him I had been practising.


The Match

So I chose to play with Chelsea and he chose to play with Man Utd. To his dismay in the first two minutes I scored. My goal really was a joy to behold and I cut in from the wing with Joe Cole and knocked a simple tap in with Drogba. He was shocked and I was in the ascendancy so it seemed. He mustered up maybe ten chances before half time and hit the bar twice and really was fighting hard to score. In this time I could not do much and unfortunately kept giving the ball away needlessly, but hey I was winning at half time and job done so far  . Straight away in the second half he ran from the half way line with Wayne Rooney and scored a stunning long shot. The strike really downed me but I was still in this and he was now mocking me that he was going to run away with the game. Towards the end he did score another two goals in quick succession with ten minutes of game time remaining now. Somehow I scored after that with my first chance in a long-time and then with seconds remaining I had an open goal and somehow missed. My big chance was missed and I lost the game 3-2, but a message was definitely crossed and he has refused to play me since.


Overall

Well from my experience this was definitely a great game and needs a lot of experience to be amazing. It does takes months and years to get this experience but scoring goals in Pro Evo is very satisfying and definitely beats Fifa that I used to play many years ago with my little brother. What I would say though is that Fifa has received critically acclaimed reviews in recent years and seemed to have overtaken the Pro Evo Franchise, however Pro Evo 6 is a quality game and a definite improvement on the previous version with higher quality game play and more fun then ever before.

Summary: I Had A Great Four Weeks Playing This