Pro Evolution Soccer 3 Review

The annual release of the latest ‘Pro Evolution Soccer’ is certainly one for football fans to put down in their calendars over the last couple of years, so it was with a great deal of excitement that the latest, ‘Pro Evolution Soccer 3’, finally arrived through the post-box.<br><br>Usually we’ve gotten used to minimal alterations with every new adaptation in a football series, seasonal transfers and new kits largely being the main source of change; however KCEJ have certainly chucked out the rulebook on this one. Perhaps the biggest change and certainly one that causes the most debate is that ‘PE3’ does away with the elegant dual run system featured in ‘PE2’, instead opting for one shoulder button to run whilst another allows you to perform a variety of tricks and stunts.<br><br>The ‘Pro Evo’ series has rightfully won the praise it has because it is a skill based game, you have to be good to get anywhere in the game and practise rewards perseverance immensely. No other area demonstrated this more aptly then the running system in ‘PE2’; whilst many were left bewildered by players’ inability to sprint past players in their sleep ala ‘FIFA’, the true fan realised the technique of balancing the two different types of run to perform a wide range of moves to gain the upper hand. As such players could take a long ball under control with the slow run and lead this into sprint by switching over to the fast run. <br><br>To counter for the lack of sprinting options, the run speed has been slightly increased and as such you’ll see more runs from players then in any other version. This has been helped out by the vast improvement in animations and player movements; without wanting to wax lyrical about this too much, this one aspect makes the game all worthwhile and helps to lift ‘PE3’ way beyond all it’s competitors.<br><br>Instead of players running in straight lines as in ‘PE2’, the improved animation in ‘PE3’ now results in players bending their runs, cutting inside of defenders and changing direction with just the flick of the analogue stick. The occasional moments in ‘PE2’ when everything just locked have been completely eradicated, resulting in a overall game that flows beautifully and makes you wander why we all loved ‘PE2’ so much – oh yes in keeping with KCEJ tradition, ‘PE3’ makes ‘PE2’ completely redundant.<br><br>Increasing the number of animations not only makes the game look more authentic and graceful, it’s also opened the book up for KCEJ to include a wider range of moves accessible to the player. The first you’ll notice is a ‘reverse flick’ with a quick back-forward motion on the analogue stick, the resulting action sees your player completely baffle the opposition by flicking it over his head and running onto it. Zidane’s masterful ‘spinning drag-back’ makes a return from the PSOne days; simply by rotating the stick you can collect a pass on the turn and twirl your way between a couple of defenders whilst everyone watching the TV screen stares on in amazement – it truly is that remarkable.<br><br>So ‘PE3’ is an absolute joy to play and makes previous versions look as good as ‘FIFA’ in comparison, however the busy guys at KCEJ have also been hard at work at other areas on the pitch. <br><br>The AI of your teammates and opponents has been notched up a level or two; players run into space much more, whilst the build up now encompasses the whole team instead of a choice few players. In fact the overall game bears a closer resemblance to the real-life sport then any other game; if you find yourself on the loosing side with little time to spare, you’ll notice your defenders making overlapping runs and even centre-backs joining in the attack - although we’ve yet to see a keeper come up for a last minute corner.<br><br>The passing system has also been vastly improved upon last year’s release. As a result of the improved animations the game feels a lot more responsive, making it quicker and easier to string one-touch passes together to weasel your way through the defence. It’s the lob pass that has seen the most improvement however; whereas in previous versions it always felt a little light and floaty, it’s now possible to ping cross-field balls to the wingers or whip in low crosses between the defenders and the keeper.<br><br>Although the changes to the actual game will grab your attention, soon after you’ll notice the visual improvements that KCEJ have implemented. We weren’t expecting much to begin with, however the talk of a new graphics engine certainly looks to be true as ‘PE3’ features some truly fantastic visuals. As we’ve mentioned above, the trademark animation has been improved on a vast level, however now the character models and stadiums are finally on an equivalent level. The character models also feature full facial animation, ideal for capturing the disgruntled look on players’ faces when the ball crosses the line. In keeping with every other football game released this year, ‘PE3’ features a very neat depth-filter effect to make the overall look very convincing during replays and cut-scenes.<br><br>Thankfully this improvement has been carried out across most of the presentation aspects; replays no longer loose focus on the ball, whilst the remixed replay music sounds miles better then that in ‘PE2’. Unfortunately the commentary is still atrocious; the main reason behind this is because it follows the actions on the pitch too closely - one such example saw the commentators claiming that the team had played a good half and then as soon as the ball was lost they made an abrupt turn and commented that this hadn’t been the best of half’s. When compared to the level of American sports videogames in particular, the commentary seems woefully inadequate, which is a big shame because there’s no real reason why they can’t get it right. Other noticeable additions include the ref’s ability to play advantages; whilst this is still a little hit-and-miss it’s definitely a good inclusion and a first for the genre.<br><br>Unfortunately ‘PE3’ doesn’t cure the bane of all Pro Evo supporters, as a number of player names (particularly the Dutch) are still wrong. It’s an improvement upon ‘PE2’ but once again destroys the illusion until some clever so-and-so develops a hack for the game to correct all player names. Whilst we can forgive Konami in the tricky situation of securing licenses, we cannot however excuse the lack of recent transfers; Manchester Untied (or Trad Bricks as they’re known in the game) look particularly weak with none of the summer signings to replace the loss of David Beckham and Fabien ‘butterfingers’ Barthez still between the posts. Codemasters ‘Club Football’ was released a week earlier then ‘PE3’, but still managed to include all the recent signings, so there is simply no excuse for overlooking this.<br><br>As Pro Evo fans will no doubt know by now the ‘Master League’ has been expanded to feature four leagues and a ‘Shop’ to buy a variety of goodies such as new stadiums and haircuts with the points you accumulate by playing in this mode.