PES 7 Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
Year 1994, Konami publishes a title meant to become THE game of the year: International Superstar Soccer (IIS). Year: 1997 the first version for Playstation shows up with the name of International Superstar Soccer Pro. But it’s only in 2001 that the true game evolution takes its own shape and the enthusiasm of people increases: Pro Evolution Soccer is born. None of us in those years could ever imagine that Konami, a Japanese brand, would have created the best football game on the market, but so was it. PES3 represents the first version of the game, available both for Windows and for all the main consoles. Today, we have got the honor to review the brand new PES 2008 (Pro Evolution Soccer 7).
The plot
If you select an existing team or if you create your own one, the purpose of this football simulator is always the same: to win. You may enter National Leagues, Champions League, National competitions and World Cups. You may grow your players’ skills up and by the rich business engine you may even get your team better by taking it among the top 10 of world football. As in previous titles, every mode can be played both in single or multiplayer. Besides, there’s an online mode for the ones who love to get their own football curriculum richer also outside their country.
Gameplay
The controls are intuitive and, most of all are always the same as its predecessors. We advise you to use an external controller besides your keyboard; in this title the default controller is the XboX’s but we’ve tested the game by a Playstation joypad connected to an Atomic adapter. The players’ moves are realistic. To say the least and lots of natural moves were added. The rotation of the player is much more real both in the head shoot and in the dribbling. The player who got the best improve was the goalkeeper. We can now appreciate spectacular saves with more real jumps and movements. But you need to be careful to his new initiative in the out coming and in deciding his own position during the actions; it may often be the cause of an easy advantage for our opponents. As always, we’ve played by using the Champion level and the top difficulty. We’ve found a better AI under any profile: a more complete pressing of the opponent, more initiative in shooting from far away and in jumping in a face to face. We’ve still noticed that the teams fit their game to the module they use, for example teams with a 4-3-3 tactic often change the game several times and fastly serve the forwards to get the goal in few passes. The opponents’ realizative skills of penalties were also decreased (in PES6 also the worst teams scored almost every penalty) and so our difficulty to shoot them was also decreased. An important step on was made about the tackles, because they’re now punished with a better precision. A noteworthy piece of news, maybe added for an evolution of the game to reality, is the possibility to simulate a fault. Well, our player can dive to try to get a penalty shoot; in case you can’t fool the referee, you’ll surely get severe ammunition.
Graphic
We’ve tested the game on a Core 2 Duo 4300, 2gb of ram and a Geforce 8600GT 256mb video card, all of this a t a 1440x900 pixels resolution (highest details). About this, let’s note that the top resolution included in the original game is 1024x768, so to play widescreen; you need to download a certain tool. The commands response has got better than PES6, moreover in the multiplayer mode. We’ve played with 4 players and the engine didn’t suffer of any slowing. The faces and the movements of the players are more and more personal, and the textures are of a very good quality. The stadiums are accurate reproductions of the original and the stadium-entering animations are well cured in the direction.
Sound
The soundtrack of PES7 is complete to say the least; we’ve the chance to select any musical genre’s track (rock, acid jazz, etc). The samples of the fans are always the same. The sounds from the field are richer indeed: now we can hear the ball touching with more emphasis, the players’ screams when they get crashed, etc. The play-by-play disappointed us very much, we expected the chance to select more commentators, and instead we’ve found the usual Civoli and Sandreani, even with samples copied from the previous version.
Conclusions
In the end, PES7 is always the best football simulation game on the market nowadays. For the ones who know it it’s a compelling purchase, for the ones who never heard of it (maybe Martians just arrived on Earth) we advice to go to the nearest videogame’s store. Unfailing for hours of fun. |
FrancescoPontillo - 31/10/2007
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Title: Universe At War: Earth Assault
Platform: PC
Release date: January 2008
Genre: Strategy
Author: zsinger
Vote: 7.6
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Universe at War: Earth appears to be, at first sight, an attempt to deliver and old style RTS game, with some innovations. Petroglyph developers have introduced three new alien races, two of which never seen before in RTS gaming.
Plot
“And the earth stands on the brink of destruction…” it’s the year 2012 and the alien forces called The Hierarchy have descended upon the planet earth destroying everything in their path. As human force prepare for strikes back, a new mysterious alien force arrives: the Novus. Novus are sentient machines whose only will is to destroy their nemesis, The Hierarchy. .... |
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