Football hasn't been NGamer's friend lately. The teams we support are all embroiled in relegation scraps, so chances are that someone is going to be weeping into their scarf come the final day of the season. Which makes the arrival of the new Pro Evo all the more timely, as we can escape into a lovely fantasy football world where an edited Plymouth Argyle side can hammer AC Milan 8-0 in a cup quarter final. This, friends, is the beautiful game.
Glancing back at our review of last year's game, which we loved and heaped 89% of praise upon, we discover that the few niggles we did have are ironed out in the 2009 offering. If you were a fan of 2008, there are sufficient advances both on and off the pitch to merit splashing your cash. Let's take a look at the ones on the pitch first.
Defence has greatly improved. You've now got full control over your player's movement and timing when going in for a challenge, unlike last year's somewhat random point-click-and-hope semi-automatic affair. You can still bring in a second, AI-controlled player to close down an opponent, though.
PES 2009
Official trailer
1:26Wii trailer
PES 2009
Official trailer
1:26Wii trailer
Age Restricted Content Please enter your date of birth below in order to verify your age before watching this video
You must be at least 0 years of age.
Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again..
Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular
Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page
Goals goals goals In front of goal, you can now use the remote to direct where you want to shoot, which is very tough to get to grips with but ultimately more rewarding than the timed nunchuk-shake (which is still part of the control set-up). The incredibly detailed training camp tutorials are a must for getting your head around the system or you'll be firing blanks for ages.
The rest of the on-pitch action plays very much as before, which is fine by us. However, it's a very different game if you elect to use the newly implemented Classic Controller option. Do this and you've essentially got yourself the game that has been doing the rounds on PS2 for years.
In terms of options, this is a far beefier package. We've waxed lyrical about the Master League so often we're even boring ourselves, but suffice to say its inclusion here is great after last year's mysterious absence.
There's more meat to the Champions Road mode, too, where you're given tasks to complete that will improve your club house and suchlike in addition to winning new players. There's a full edit mode as well, meaning you can cheekily change all the rubbish names to the real ones and sort the kits out too.
While many licences are still absent, the jewel in the crown of this year's PES is a fully fledged Champions League mode. Sadly, not a competition any of our teams will be enjoying next season.
FC Konami deliver another excellent game of football. The additions and on-pitch improvements mean this is well worth forking out for. The lads done good.
Excellent - I really enjoyed the first Wii PES, but this sounds much better.
Might just have to pick this and Madworld up - they'd be the first Wii games I've bought since Ghost Squad (picked it up cheap when Zavvi was closing).
Absolutely loved the first one, but could be a bit frustrating at times and I was annoyed at lack of features.
Looks like they've almost fixed all complaints and then some. And with options of classic controller, who can complain?? I can finally ditch pes5, if i want some old school 2 player pro evo!
Absolutely loved the first one, but could be a bit frustrating at times and I was annoyed at lack of features.
Looks like they've almost fixed all complaints and then some. And with options of classic controller, who can complain?? I can finally ditch pes5, if i want some old school 2 player pro evo!
Wii version looks like the definitive version.
Yeah - it certainly looks that way these days.
It's a shame really, I'm one of those that has defected to FIFA on the 360 this year (it almost pained me to do it, but it's really good and miles better than PES2009)...the past few PES games have not been worthy of the name, but the Wii versions at least keep some life in the old horse.
The review on IGN said unless the Champions League is really important, it might not be worth getting if you have 2008.
Mind you, that may have been the US review and I'm not really going to take an american's advice on a footy game as gospel, especially if the differences are subtle and slightly tweaked, but make a lot of difference. Defence needed some work.
I thought 2008 was amazing, even more so for a first attempt. I had to play about ten games before I even started to get to grips with it (man marking being absolutely key in defence) and if more developers thought a little bit more 'outside the box' (I hate that phrase but what other cliché can I use? Blue sky thinking? Pushing the envelope??), the wii wouldn't have so many idiots saying it's a gamecube with pointless gimmicky controls.
The review on IGN said unless the Champions League is really important, it might not be worth getting if you have 2008.
Mind you, that may have been the US review and I'm not really going to take an american's advice on a footy game as gospel, especially if the differences are subtle and slightly tweaked, but make a lot of difference. Defence needed some work.
I thought 2008 was amazing, even more so for a first attempt. I had to play about ten games before I even started to get to grips with it (man marking being absolutely key in defence) and if more developers thought a little bit more 'outside the box' (I hate that phrase but what other cliché can I use? Blue sky thinking? Pushing the envelope??), the wii wouldn't have so many idiots saying it's a gamecube with pointless gimmicky controls.
The inclusion of the Master League is more than enough justification for getting this one if you already have last years.
The Champions Road thing was fun, but it was no ML.
The review on IGN said unless the Champions League is really important, it might not be worth getting if you have 2008.
Mind you, that may have been the US review and I'm not really going to take an american's advice on a footy game as gospel, especially if the differences are subtle and slightly tweaked, but make a lot of difference. Defence needed some work.
I thought 2008 was amazing, even more so for a first attempt. I had to play about ten games before I even started to get to grips with it (man marking being absolutely key in defence) and if more developers thought a little bit more 'outside the box' (I hate that phrase but what other cliché can I use? Blue sky thinking? Pushing the envelope??), the wii wouldn't have so many idiots saying it's a gamecube with pointless gimmicky controls.
The inclusion of the Master League is more than enough justification for getting this one if you already have last years.
The Champions Road thing was fun, but it was no ML.
That's true. I forgot about that, I don't know why they didn't include that last year. And the changes between football games year to year nearly always pretty subtle, but they can make massive differences.
Playing it last year was like first playing Kick Off for the first time after play Tomy Super Cup Football.
It's on my 'get when I have more money' list. As are all games at the moment.
wiigodboy, mario strikers is the worst game ive ever played. it looks pretty, but its not football.
now thats off my chest, im rejoicing about the improvements. i may just p**s my girlfriend off and go and buy it now. o8 was pretty good, but from what ive read and seen this looks like the shiz.
this game is realy good i like it its better than last years but im having problems i went to playonline and i downloaded the new stats that you have to do,but i started a game and i was doing ok in the match but every time i went up to my opponents half outside his box the ball was automatically down my end then and my opponent scores but i nevr even lost the ball to my opponent,i notices this glitch a couple of times have you not noticed it in your review??online is seriously flawed.
i bought and returned it the day after. I loved 2008 version but after few months of online tragedy i sold it.
This yeas I really hoped for an ONLINE improvement: NOWAY The online code is still TERRIBLE so when you play offline you feelin paradise but you suddenly reach hell when connected to Nwfc.
too bad...if you like to play online this is a disaster game
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
