Let me tell you a little story, a tale of my gaming past. Now, I've always been into gaming. However, when I trundled off to university gaming took a bit of a backburner. Firstly, I was skint most of the time, but more importantly, on the whole I was generally far too drunk to hold a joypad, let alone coordinate my fingers. After university I went and lived in Asia for six months, so by the time I returned I was well and truly out of touch with the gaming scene. This was 2002, and the last machine I'd really invested time in was the Saturn.

A couple of days after my return to the very cold and windy shores of our fair land, I went round a mate's and noticed a tucked neatly underneath the TV. Intrigued, he turned it on for me and booted up Pro Evolution Soccer. I was absolutely amazed. The best footy game I'd played previously was Sensible World of Soccer 96/97, so this was a whole new world. Not only did it look amazing but when I actually picked up the pad it played like an absolute dream. My world had changed, and I knew I'd been away from gaming for too long. Within two weeks I had my own PS2 and copy of the game, and I've never turned back since. Since then I've been a religious follower of the series and its improved remarkably with each incarnation. PES2 offered further a refinement whilst PES3 offered far more of an overhaul. I remember that it took me a good few games until I warmed to PES3 - it felt as if too much had been altered at first, though eventually I saw the light and bowed in worship.

Up until now, in my opinion, Winning Eleven 7 International has been the best version on offer. For those of you that aren't familiar with this complicated tree, let me explain. is the western name for Winning Eleven, though bar some minor tweaks they are more or less the same game, even more so in later years as the differences between the two have become less pronounced. The International versions of Winning Eleven are released in and the US about 6 months after the release of the original, and that time allows for some extra development. So Winning Eleven 7 International can be thought of really as PES3.5. The differences are subtle. The front end and menus are identical, though the on-pitch is more refined and a distinct improvement.

So to round up, Winning Eleven 8 is the engine on which Pro Evolution Soccer 4 will be based, though the between the two does allow for tweaking and refinement. And in the case of WE8, that's surprisingly quite a good thing. This game represents probably the largest overhaul of the series to date, and the painful truth is that the results represent a very mixed bag. Let's not beat around the bush - I think WE8 is the best title in the series to date. My hint of uncertainty however is because I'm used to being blown away by new PES titles. Whilst elements of WE8 have certainly impressed there's an unusually high number of question marks still sloshing about in my head, even after two weeks of playing the title.

It must be noted that unlike the International incarnations that kindly offer an English language option, WE8 is quite Japanese heavy. Whilst it's quite simple to get a match going, it's trickier exploring the hidden depths of the title tucked away behind several layers of Japanese menus. Whilst there's several communities alive on the net that offer menu translations and edited option files (and bless them for it) it's still hard work. Therefore, there are undoubtedly things that I'm completely unaware of and for that I apologise.

What I can comment safely on however is the action on pitch, and I can confidently say that it is... good. No, very good. Excellent even. My hesitation? Well, it's a complicated answer. WE8 has tweaked the control setup more dramatically than previous updates, so whilst series veterans will still instantly be able to pick up the pad and get playing the numerous subtle changes do take some time to adjust to. Crossing and heading represent possibly the greatest change, and whilst it's nothing fundamental it's certainly enough to throw you off balance when you first start playing. To put it bluntly, it's harder to score from crosses and maybe this isn't such a bad thing. Double tapping the cross button is now needed to sweep in a low, powerful cross, and heading accurately is now more reliant on good timing.

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  1. Glimmer Unregistered 5 years ago

    Nearly every jap import of Winning Eleven in the past has had slowdown issues, but it has always been fixed by the time it makes the transition to Pro evolution Soccer.

    I wish I could read japanese.