Ah, there was a time when leaves falling from a near by tree, more
and more rain and the temperature dropping meant the release of the latest
instalment in the Pro Evolution Soccer series. Pro Evolution 4 comes with more
teams and animations than before and a whole host of fully licensed leagues. So
without further hesitation let us see if the follow up to the excellent Pro
Evolution 3 lives up to the standards it set.
First of all this version of the series looks better than the last
graphically, still not beautiful perhaps but everything does a functional job
of representing a game of football. There are now Eighty European clubs in all,
including the whole of the premiership (though they are unlicensed). Fully licensed
leagues come in the form of Serie A, The Spanish league and the Dutch league-
presumably thrown in as part a buy two get one free offer.
Most players have their real names, that is until you get to
international teams. A very strange thing seems to have happened, presumably
due to some licensing red tap. Players can have their real names at club level
but not at International level- meaning a strange mix of real and fake names
whenever you pick international teams. This also raises another slight issue as
it means there are two versions of a lot of players in the game- meaning if
your building your own team in the master league you can end up having a team
with Nedved on both wings and two Kluivert's up front.
More leagues, more teams, more players, more licenses, it all
seems like a dream come true. Indeed if they had left the engine more of less
the same as in Pro Evolution 3 we could have had little complaint (aside from
the tackling issue). But it seems Konami having upped the animations have
changed how the game works and unfortunately this creates a few problems. First
of all is the issue of throw-ins, more often than not there is simply no-one to
throw to. Then we have the utterly stupid computer AI. This does not really
effect the opposition much aside from them constantly kicking the ball out of
play when you get within a mile of them. But it is fair to say on far too many
occasions your team mates show all the intelligence of a house brick.
This lack of intelligence manifests itself in a whole host of ways.
When playing a through ball players don’t run onto it, instead when they reach
the ball they stop dead then start running again or walk along the side of the
ball for a couple of seconds before putting their feet on it- making fast attacks incredibly hard to
initiate. Furthermore, players will not
go after the ball unless you are controlling them, all too often the ball will
be right next to a player and he will simply run the other way. This would not
be such an issue except the AI seems to get confused in deciding which player
it would like to let you control- One second you will be running towards the
ball then suddenly you will have changed to a player running off into the
distance watching the player you where controlling a few seconds before standing
motionless as the ball rolls past him.
And the Problems continue- Passing is far too random most of the
time with the player you are controlling often passing in a completely
different direction to way you want the ball to go; sometimes it is to another
of your players, sometimes it is to the opposition. Defending can also be one
of the most frustrating/hilarious things you will ever see as three of your
players and goal keeper all wander around aimlessly vaguely looking at the ball
bounce around on the ground for a good couple of seconds despite you hammering
the clearance button. This normally occurs just before a single opposition
player rushes in and scores.
Luckily shooting suffers far less from the problems apparent in the
rest of the title. As expected there is a wealth of different shot types
available, and like the previous title if you are skilful enough you can score
any type of goal you want. However, this is now much harder than before due to
most shots being automatically aimed at the centre of the goal. Goal keepers
are also there to help or hinder your cause with some unusually inconsistent
AI- Changing from super human to terrible in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately
headed shots are a different matter; unless the delivery is absolutely perfect
players will head the ball up instead of down. Your player could be Ronaldo
standing five yards from goal completely unmarked and he would still head over.
Then we come to the issue of the 60Hz mode. All Gamestyle can say
is simply do not use on the PS2. We are not sure what has happened but for some
reason the mode creates terrible slow down effects whenever the ball is lofted
in. Furthermore, the screen ripples as if made from water from time to time and
the players cannot seem to actually run when they have the ball. These Issues
are not apparent in the Xbox version but massively hinder the Sony release.
However, though the game does have a lot of frustrating issues, it
does play a good game of football. The problem is that it is highly debatable
if it is better than Pro Evolution 3. Yes it has better graphics and more of
everything but where as last years game was a joy to play- this year’s title descends
into frustration on far too many occasions. Most problems do disappear when playing
against another human but trying to build up a team in the master league or win
all the cups can be a completely joyless task.
Problems are not always apparent and things do improve the more
effort you put in but it just seems stupid that when Konami had an almost
perfect game the previous year that they would change so much. All that was
needed was a small amount of tightening up with the tackling and a few other
issues; instead it seems they have used a wrecking ball where a screwdriver
would have done. When all is said and done Pro Evolution 4 is still a good game
of football, and excellent against human opponent- but it far from being perfect
and the overall score reflects a game that has taken one step forward
cosmetically and two steps back in terms of play mechanics.
Overall 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment