7.5/10 Controls- great attacking, terrible defending.Try before you buy, you will love hate, or enjoy - o
First off, the controls (attacking) are fantastic and Konami deserve full credit for attempting a new method of controlling a football game. Dribbling works fine (too well actually but thats not the fault of the guy who engineered the dribble mechanincs) - with a press of the A button you indicate where your player should dribble, and if you move the cursor further away from the player, his speed increases (who needs a shoulder button for sprint? Not Nintendo certainly!) Passing is a dream with the B button and you can also move a fellow attacker into space with the B button - when the button is released you pass it to him.
However, they are being either foolish or too optimistic by removing the old controls completely, this option could have been a choice at the initial loading screen. This would have created 2 games in 1, old PES and the new......it would be a nice extra (although admittedly slightly pointless as the graphics are not any sharper than PES5 on the xbox1, the system I upgraded from)
If attacking is brilliant with the new interface, surely the same can be said of defending? Sadly not.......I have no earthly idea what they were thinking of when it came to the defensive controls. Quite apart from the terrible man marking system now in place and the fact that you are basically a spectator until one of your "drones" wins the ball back (or you wave your nunchuck when the cursor changes colour to perform a sliding tackle) there is one MASSIVE fault - all the CPU players run away from the ball on occasion, so in an attack of 1 vs 5 defenders a quick shimmy or a little wriggle will - sometimes (its all a bit hit and miss you see) - see you through on goal. Dribbling is king, along with the "drag your man into space and pass it" functionality of the B button. Again a question from a defensive point of view - how on earth do you counter this? Defending should be done as in years past, with the nunchuck used to control the nearest player to the ball (or at least for there to be an option for this)), with the defending team able to switch player with the c / z Button. I thought that was the whole point of having the nunchuck/remote combination, to enable analogue stick control where needed? Well, its sorely missed here.....
Also, there is no skill in swinging the nunchuck to shoot as the wii calculates shot power and direction, based on the players stats. This will surely be replaced by a variable shot power / direction for the next version, but I would have thought it could have been included in this one (again - me and my options, it could be an option which both teams would have to abide by). Cynical me says its been left out to make sure you get PES 2009.......
The other occasion you swing the remote (apart from slide tackling) is when clearing the ball: another wave on the nunchuck and your defender hoofs or heads the ball out of your half. Although its actually quite good fun, this says one of two things to me:
(i) Damn it, we didn't put enough buttons on the controllers
(ii) Damn it, it's motion sensing technology and we are damn well going to use it at every opportunity.
Training camp is also very hit and miss for me, when you try to do what it is telling you on the screen, the computer does everything for you, leaving you to try the move out for the first time in the certificate zone at the end of each tutorial.
I regard this game as a beta version of what may possibly be the best game ever created on any format, PES2009. Whilst certainly being fun - which seems to be Nintendo's mantra (which is no bad thing, incidently) - its also frustrating. One instance, I was 3-0 and a man down after 20 minutes against Holland, coming back to lose 4-3. It was fun (there,the "F" word again.....), but at least 4 of the goals wouldn't have happened under previous versions of PES, as the defence wouldn't have been so erratic. I think 0-0's will certainly be thinner on the ground in this version. And therefore it its fun appeal both in 2 player mode and vs the computer is hugely diminished by (legitimate) complaints from the defending team - its almost a soccer version of basketball where the team with the ball are expected to score.
The "to do" list for 2009 to get a perfect 10 game:
(1) Rework the defensive controls completely, the CPU AI, and add options as to how you control blocks of players (Gain of +1.5 pts)
(2) Add variable shot power (and direction?) or option to map a shot power gauge to a button (there must be one available) (Gain of 1 pt)
(3) Improve training camp, maybe add 100 real life situations to copy history or change it - ie Michael Thomas through on goal against Liverpool in 1988/89, needing to score to win the title on goal difference. Or Utd in 1999, a goal down with 1 minute to go in the CL final.
OR
(4) Add classic controller to list of control types - won't be necessary if they do 1 2 & 3 - in fact might even be a backward step.
As its fun, I think 7.5 is a fair score - rent it first if you can. If you can forgive the defensive controls you may think its a lot better than that. I'm astounded its getting 9 and 9.5's with reviewers basically saying "if the defending working in any way shape or form I'd give it 10".