It was a while ago that I made my mind up which of the two major football game franchises was superior. The question is, does the PC version of the latest Pro Evolution Soccer game continue in its forerunners’ footsteps by both pushing the boundaries and exposing EA’s latest FIFA offering as over-styled, superficial and ultimately soulless?

The main strength of Konami’s series has always been the focus on realism and longevity rather than razzle-dazzle and instant aesthetic appeal. In fact, this focus on gameplay development has meant that, although I’ve loved them all eventually, I’ve found transitioning into the last three Pro Evo releases an unsettling experience at first, with each feeling like a significant departure from the last. With the pre-release hype focussing on the supposedly revolutionary ‘Teamvision’ A.I. and other gameplay tweaks, I expected (and hoped) that the new Pro Evo would also take me on this now familiar journey.

With PES 2008, however, the initial strangeness is missing. Despite all the talk, on the whole the gameplay feels surprisingly familiar and, with only minor changes to elements like the Master League and Edit mode, the most obvious differences this time amount to a graphical overhaul and the inclusion of a few ways of showing off these aesthetic enhancements.

For the first time I find myself asking of a new Pro Evo game whether mostly superficial changes justify splashing out – and I’m just not convinced that they do.

Although it is difficult to see the impact over a short period, the ‘Teamvision’ A.I., which claims to adapt in response to your playing style, does seem to add a genuinely interesting element. Also on the positive side: better close ball-control, increased player strength and physicality, improved commentary, improved replays that show more build up, better attacking awareness and run-making from computer team-mates, and significant improvements to the look of players, shirts, pitches and the crowd are all apparent. The tinkering, however, has also created some weaknesses.

There are some ‘minor’ annoyances: goalkeepers now regularly spill shots, it’s way too easy to dribble for long distances, human opponents can win penalties against you by diving, the camera angle for facing penalties is ridiculous, the improved, 3-D crowds are made up of about four blokes repeated again and again, the music is terrible, the title-menu is unintuitive and annoying to use, and the enhancements to players’ faces are ruined because they make the classic mistake of regularly opening their mouths which (true-to-life) leads to them looking ridiculous.

There is also the ever-thorny issue of the team licenses – although there are technically more fully licensed leagues in PES 2008 than previous versions, English and German fans are likely to be disappointed (with Spurs and Newcastle the only licensed Premiership teams and Bayern Munich the only German team full-stop). One major advantage of Pro Evo, of course, is the community of dedicated online editors who will no doubt produce a variety of patches to overcome these restrictions.

While these pros and cons probably pretty much balance out, there is one major problem with PES 2008 that makes me less enthusiastic about it than I’d hoped. The major impact of the graphical overhaul is that it makes the game feel bloated and annoyingly sluggish, even on a top notch system – the controls feel less responsive, the menus are slow and cumbersome to navigate, and the replays and in-game videos just chug slightly. It’s a paradox: a slimmed-down, arcade-like approach which actually lumbers more, not less.

Only relatively high-end machines will extract the best the game has to offer graphically (as always, ignore the ‘minimum spec’ and treat the ‘recommended spec’ as the minimum), but for those with a slightly less capable rig, the graphical ‘improvements’ simply make for an even slower experience.

Don’t get me wrong; even if it has borrowed a small leaf from EA’s book, PES 2008 is still much better than FIFA ’08. The hurdle on which it ultimately stumbles, however, is its failure to be significantly better than its predecessor. If you don’t own Pro Evo 6 and you have a high-end PC, you’ll probably love it – if either of those is not the case, you may well be let down.

Ayes: Gameplay is as good as ever
Graphical enhancements improve the look
Commentary is by far the best around

Nays: Over emphasis on looks makes it over-bulky
Menus, music and mouthing players annoy
Not for last year’s PC

Overall: 79%