Pro evo makes a succesful debut on the Wii
The Good: New innovative control scheme that works well – Decent online mode – Great animations – Pro Evo is back on a Nintendo home console
The Bad: Music is a bit repetitive – Lack of many licensed teams
_______________
Football/Soccer on the wii has been nothing but a disappointment so far, first with Mario Strikers Charged which was decent but not really great and then with Fifa 08, which turned out to be the worst game in the series in years, and let's not even talk about Kidz Sports: Soccer. But now Konami decided to release their venerable Pro Evolution Soccer franchise in a Nintendo home console for the first time in years, and it's not only the best soccer game for the Wii, but also the best of this generation so far.
The first thing you'll do in this game is a long but necessary tutorial, and this is a must do, why? Well because Pro Evo 08 is completely different from every other soccer game out there. There's a pointer on the screen that helps you select the players and move them, you can also move with the nunchuck and that works better, but the pointer is necessary when it comes to pass, you'll do this by aiming at the player and pressing the B buton. Shacking the nunchuk makes the player shot the ball, swinging the wiimote makes him throw a chip shot. That's about it for basics, they seem a bit complicated at first but they are pretty easy to do and you'll master the controls easily.
This is the best controlling so far in any football game, because you can control every single player on screen with the pointer, still there's a flaw in defense, because you don't really do much, and this is probably the worst part of the awesome gameplay. You just press A on the opposing player and the closest defender will attack him, you can tackle by shacking the nunchuck and holding the Z button and that's about it. It's not really effective when you're being overwhelmed by opposing players, so that's a bit disappointing sometimes, still, it works well.
The game can get confusing at times, especially with so many lines being drawn on the field, but it flows well and it's a bit more tactical than other PES games, but don't be fooled, it doesn't loose the arcade, simple styIe that makes PES so fun.
When it comes to game modes, PES is a not short of them. There's single match where you can play against the computer or another player. League, where you can play some of the big leagues in the world like the spanish primera and the calcio. In Cup mode you can create custom cups and play in especial ones like the Konami cup. Champions road is the main mode of the game and the one that will take more of your time, you start a custom team and you play in leagues so you can earn trophies, get new and better players and upgrade their skills, is not as good as Fifa's manager mode but is a great main mode. In training you'll train...duh. And the last one is the online mode, which is lag free and pretty good, even if it's a bit basic.
The game only supports two players, which is good because otherwise the matches can get extremely confusing. You can also save replays and save your custom teams on the wiimote. The game doesn't really have many licensed teams to play with, there are a couple of leagues that have the complete teams, but the rest are made up, some of the examples are found in the english league where you'll see teams like London F.C. and Man Red. The funniest part of this game is playing with your Miis, you can bring them to the field with their gigantic heads, they're not the best players, but damn they're funny.
The presentation is great, the menus look good and are easy to navigate, and the game intros are good. You can set the menus in one of three languages (spanish, english and french) and the commentators will change depending on which you chose. All the commentators are great, so no matter what language you chose you'll hear great comments.
On the visuals side of things this game looks great, especially the character animations and physics, they're very realistic, there are some jaggies and graphical glitches here and there but they're forgivable. The music fits the game, but is a bit repetitive, especially the main menu music, which is just na, na ,na, na over and over again.
Pro Evo 08 is a successful game, and it's so great that it's back on a Nintendo console after all this time. Konami did a really great thing bringing it to the wii and making it one of the best and most complete football games of all time, in fact if it wasn't for Fifa 07 this would definitely be my favorite. So if you enjoy football you'll love Pro Evo 08 on the wii.