I wanna play football soccer....

...football soccer the greatest game of all.

That is the main lyric of the cheesiest song I have ever heard in my life, it plays a lot in the menu screens of the latest Pro Evolution Soccer incarnation. I fear it may slowly drive me mad over the next 12 months, if anyone spots me singing it just shoot me no warnings it would be a mercy.

Anyone that knows me will know of my love of the Pro Evolution Soccer series of football games. I have been playing since it was International Superstar Soccer Pro on the original Playstation. I didn't buy the SNES versions which I believe were meant to be pretty good. Anyway PES 2008 is out and I've been play the X-Box 360 version with added glossy shiny next gen trimmings.

I have some reservations, yes initial impression is that the main game is true to the spirit of the series and that is one of the most important things. I'm still getting to grips with using a 360 controller over the PS2 one, but I can't help think it's a little rough around the edges. The much trumpeted improved AI I don't see many signs of yet, how it interprets some passing options is a bit shaky. Not dreadful, it is possibly just that one has to take even more care to things like your players body shape and what foot he is using than before and that when fully acclimatised to the new version these things will not happen. There is still a lot of promise and it is infinately better than the bodged 360 version of PES6 which I had the misfortune to even play at all.

Other less important but still annoying grips include the editing system, it is quite frankly poor. In theory the amount one can shape the players face should allow great flexibility but in reality I find a lot of the players just end up looking rather similar. In previous versions one could use this build face option or choose one of many different stocked images. It was fairly easy usually to find someone that looked a bit like who you were trying to imitate and get a reasonable likeness. What would be ideal would be allowing ayou to choose from a list of templates and then aloowing you to use the tools provided to tweak these images into something a bit closer to desired effect.

The choice of templates for strips is also smaller, about 12 basic designs to choose from. To edit in a Motherwell team I had to use something that was like a 1950's throwback. That said the abilty to scan in images and use them could drasticaly improve this aspect, I haven't yet investigated how to utilise this side of the editing process.

The harshness of some of the referees is also beyond a joke, cards a flying for next to nothing. Red cards for slightly late challenges with player in corner. The new dive option I approve of as it is part of the game but ref books you for it 95% of the time, which I would object to if real refs were only so consistent. But in reality play should just be waved on more often. You can't seem to choose the referee and the number of stadiums seems to have been reduced. Like the classic teams maybe more can be unlocked as you achieve success in cups, but the PES shop has been done away with for straightforward rewarding of success.

Every new one takes some time to get used to and it is more positive than negative so far, I'm sure once mastered the game a bit better these minor niggles will seem trivial. One improvement is the replays seem to be a touch longer incorporating just that bit more of the build up to goals. Mind you on the downside the first showing of any replay is strangely jerky and annoying, only for goals once you get to the bit where you can control it can you truly enjoy the repeat of your masterful play.