Author: Nate Ahearn | 
It's no secret that Pro Evolution Soccer is going through a bit of a rough patch this year. With EA Sports pumping so much money into its perennial footballer, Konami has had a hard time keeping up on consoles. Luckily the same is not true for PlayStation 2. With little going into the development of any PS2 titles, that gives Konami the perfect opportunity to get at least one leg up on the impressive FIFA series. But does Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 on PS2 capitalize on its opportunity or does it let it fall by the wayside?
The PS2 rendition of Pro Evo features some nice changes to its presentation as well as the all-new Become A Legend mode which actually performs better than in the sixty-dollar releases in most respects. Just as in FIFA's Be A Pro mode, Become A Legend charges you with creating a player from scratch, assigning him a position and a few attribute points and then building him up over time. It's a lengthy exercise and players will certainly enjoy the added pieces to user interface like the arrow indicating proper positioning and assigning special abilities to your footballer.
The only real issue I had with Become A Legend was its camera. It sits a bit closer to the action than it does on consoles and thus has a harder time keeping with the movement of the ball. The camera does swing fluidly but it moves around so much that it can be disorienting at times. There are also instances when a pass will come to you and just as you turn to take the ball up field a defender that you would've seen with a more removed perspective snatches the ball.
The rest of Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 plays just as you remember from last year's release. Player models are a bit rough around the edges, but that's to be expected on this hardware. Animations fare better than they do on the lesser PSP handheld but not nearly as well as they do on current-gen systems. In general the action – from the colors to the environments to the player models – simply don't pop the way they manage to in FIFA 09. That said, PES is a good football engine and it's still rewarding to nail that perfect lob thru ball and bury one in the back of the net. I just would have liked to see a step forward on a grander scale.
Case in point: online play. There is absolutely none included, much to my dismay. What there is, is an oddly placed Community mode where players can create user names and assign icons to themselves to play against other users who have stored their identities on a console. It's useful for setting up local tournaments but seems like it belong in an online world, not a disconnected one.
It's too bad that Konami didn't flesh out the rest of PES's modes. You'll find the usual exhibition, list of cups, World Tour, and the management-centric Master League that allows you to control every move your team makes. There's also a thinly featured training mode that offers little to no actual training. Toss in Become A Legend and the list of modes has legs, it just so happens that the majority of the gameplay is old hat. Nate Ahearn
The PS2 rendition of Pro Evo features some nice changes to its presentation as well as the all-new Become A Legend mode which actually performs better than in the sixty-dollar releases in most respects. Just as in FIFA's Be A Pro mode, Become A Legend charges you with creating a player from scratch, assigning him a position and a few attribute points and then building him up over time. It's a lengthy exercise and players will certainly enjoy the added pieces to user interface like the arrow indicating proper positioning and assigning special abilities to your footballer.
The only real issue I had with Become A Legend was its camera. It sits a bit closer to the action than it does on consoles and thus has a harder time keeping with the movement of the ball. The camera does swing fluidly but it moves around so much that it can be disorienting at times. There are also instances when a pass will come to you and just as you turn to take the ball up field a defender that you would've seen with a more removed perspective snatches the ball.
The rest of Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 plays just as you remember from last year's release. Player models are a bit rough around the edges, but that's to be expected on this hardware. Animations fare better than they do on the lesser PSP handheld but not nearly as well as they do on current-gen systems. In general the action – from the colors to the environments to the player models – simply don't pop the way they manage to in FIFA 09. That said, PES is a good football engine and it's still rewarding to nail that perfect lob thru ball and bury one in the back of the net. I just would have liked to see a step forward on a grander scale.
Case in point: online play. There is absolutely none included, much to my dismay. What there is, is an oddly placed Community mode where players can create user names and assign icons to themselves to play against other users who have stored their identities on a console. It's useful for setting up local tournaments but seems like it belong in an online world, not a disconnected one.
It's too bad that Konami didn't flesh out the rest of PES's modes. You'll find the usual exhibition, list of cups, World Tour, and the management-centric Master League that allows you to control every move your team makes. There's also a thinly featured training mode that offers little to no actual training. Toss in Become A Legend and the list of modes has legs, it just so happens that the majority of the gameplay is old hat. Nate Ahearn