Your 90 minutes start....now (Pro Evolution Soccer (PS2))

Member Name: MR.COATES

Product:	Pro Evolution Soccer (PS2)
Date:	27/11/01 (167 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Plays brilliantly, Player looks/behaviour

Disadvantages: Lousy commentary, Budget license

It’s been a whole year since the PS2 arrived on our beautiful English shores (unless you were really eager and snapped up an import machine). In that year we’ve seen Driving, Fighting and Sports titles galore. One of the biggest sellers is still Football based games and on consoles the two big players have for years been FIFA and ISS.
That’s changed slightly recently when This Is Football 2002 turned up and showed us that there was more to choose from other than ISS and FIFA. That attention is likely to be short lived as the big boys are about to wheel out their latest incarnations and Konami are determined that they will have the big seller this Christmas with Pro Evolution Soccer.

If you’re becoming all flustered wandering why they’ve abandoned the ISS games –don’t!
Pro Evo is just the new name on top of what is essentially ISS 2 for the PS2 so essentially this is ISS 2.

Kick Off:
It becomes apparent almost immediately just how much has changed since last year’s release of ISS. There were quite a few elements that seemed somehow unfinished. Just cast your mind back to the dull and unfriendly menus, lifeless stadia, glitchy graphics and appalling commentary.
In Pro Evo the menus have had a total overhaul and now sport a clever music score that changes as you view different pages. Not only are all of the featured stadia full of life now – there are also new selections. Graphics are overhauled dramatically and no longer will you see limbs appearing out of other players’ chests during goal celebrations (more on graphics later). Commentary, well, that’s as bad as ever but we’ll get to that shortly.

The usual suspects rear their heads to much delight with League, Cup, Friendly and Training matches all being available. Just about every option within those games can be tweaked including which stadium, weather conditions, game duration, summer/winter (!) and d
ifficulty.
If there’s anything else that you feel you want to change then you really need to get out more.

On top of that you can also choose to go it alone or get some mates in for some serious multiplayer action.

Graphics:
Well if you were expecting an improvement on ISS then you’re going to be in for a big surprise – they blow ISS’ effort out of the water. One huge improvement is the look of players. Some of them (Beckham, Scholes, Gerrard and Holland’s Edgar Davids) stand out in particular. Not only do they look like the real thing, they even behave like them. No, I don’t mean that Beckham lashes out wildly etc, I’m talking movement. Once you see them in action you’ll understand.
Stadia are also now looking marvellous. The spectators have a little more life in them, the beginning of games have a superb introduction, including a look around the stadium and on the whole has a very professional feel.

Sounds:
Sadly it doesn’t all carry on so well here. Music, although well constructed, is still a little on the cheesy side at times and I do admire EA’s mainstream choices such as Fatboy Slim’s Rockafella Skank as featured in Fifa ’99. The beginning of matches though is spot on with sweeping orchestral compositions just like the real thing – if not actually the real ones which you may have heard.

Commentary was slated in ISS although I actually thought it wasn’t THAT bad. Amazingly though, it’s worse now!! The lifeless Chris James and Terry Butcher make an unwelcome return but this time they actually sound quite bored with the whole thing only becoming mildly excited at times. One major improvement though is the introduction of players’ names and that really is a welcome addition. Sadly though, due to licensing issues, the players whose names can’t be used correctly are also pronounced that way. Good (or bad depend
ing on how you look at it) example of that is Argentina’s Batistuta who ends up as Butatista. Easy to edit with the name editing tool but that pronunciation will always suck.

So switch off the commentary and enjoy the ‘footy’ sounds which are actually rather good – my favourite is that classic ball hitting the goalpost noise…..(sad git that I am)……

Playability:
Praise the lord!! The most important aspect of any self-respecting football title is playability. EA can have all of the official backing in the world – if the handling is simply alright, it will never be an essential purchase.
Well that’s where Pro Evolution comes into its own. The behaviour of the ball is just superb, it’s actually nigh on perfect as far as I’m concerned. Just like the real thing anything can, and generally does, happen. You’ll try to execute a perfect through ball and on the way it just clips another player. The ball’s path changes but only slightly. This is how accurate Pro Evo’s physics are – a slight movement can dramatically change how the ball behaves and once you’ve mastered that you’ll be in football heaven. Shots will bounce off players just for you to have a second go, others will result in a swift counter-attack that end up in your net.

Full time:
Pro Evo is back and it’s bigger and better than ever. You don’t get Snickers adverts, you don’t get commentary from John Motson and you don’t get title music by any famous music artists.
Despite these kind of ‘good points’ FIFA 2002 has somehow managed to be rated less than the previous version which has made Pro Evolution shine even more brightly. It looks brilliant, it has plenty of features and plays like you just won’t believe. Now if that’s not good enough for you – then I don’t know what is.

MR.COATES

Summary: