Welcome to the definitive Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 review. That’s right, you can now officially ignore every other PES08 review. Well, perhaps I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here. The reason for this, is not that my review is simply of superior quality to all the others. Indeed, most reviews were many months ago, so in that regards I’ve missed the boat. But what time has granted me though is something very important, updates 1.1 and 1.2. That's right, patches! Nothing quite like them to fix a broken game (not that PES 2008 is broken). Regardless, the latest update runs at over 130mb, takes a good while to download (especially when you just fancied a quick game of football), but as far as I’m concerned, significantly improves this game.

The game itself is the Pro Evo which we all know and love. Regardless of the different reviews, most agree that Pro Evo allows you to play a better game of football then the Fifa games do, I subscribe to this view. Fifa has improved in its latest outing, but still doesn’t match up to Pro Evo, especially in the realm of the all important gameplay. The game itself plays very similar to its previous incarnations, but believe me, that’s a good thing. Those experienced to the series will have no trouble just jumping straight in, for those new, the controls are easy enough to grasp. There are several new features that have been implemented, perhaps the biggest is the ability to copy many of your favourite, players and to take a dive. This ability however is generally used very rarely, the reason for this is that you are more likely to be punished and shown a yellow.

The master league mode is back and works a treat. This alone can keep you gripped for many hours and, to me at least, features that ‘just one more game’ mentality. There are also a variety of other tournaments and trophies to battle out for and to win, as well as a range of difficulty settings if you start finding all too easy. This shouldn’t happen as easily as it did in previous Pro Evo games however, as in this one the teams you play will change their tactics etc, to best counter your style of play. No longer can you find a formation that works and just rely on it throughout the whole season.

Multi-player is where this game really shines. Offline at least. Four player Pro Evo games have for a long time been a staple of my multi-player script. And is just as much fun as before, yelling at your two opposition players, as well as your team-mate, and acting like a child whenever a goal is scored. Online however, is a bit of a different story. Before the recent updates, lag was a significant issue online, with the ball randomly jumping around. If you want to play this game online then do not by this second hand. You have to enter a code in-order to register, however the code only works the once and you are in a stick situation if your code has already been used.

The graphics for this game are a mixed bag. The menus, players and stadiums all look good, suitably next gen. However their attempt to animate the crowd, while a commendable objective, did not go according to plan. They all move etc, but don’t actually look that good, and what’s more they contribute to some significant slowdown. Or at least it was significant before the patches. It occurred in single player, but even more frequently during multiplayer. Especially when you were in the box, here the frame rate would suffer. You could have helped this, by removing stadium effects, commentary etc, but you shouldn’t need to. The replays were, and to a lesser extent now, just unwatchable, some of the worst frame-rate issues I have ever seen, regardless to say these are skipped every time. The patches have helped on this, slow down in game is almost non-existent, pity I couldn’t say the same for the replays.

Also it’s a shame the patches could do nothing about the game's music. This has never been one of its strong points, but this year is particularly bad. It’s just a relief they only play the music while your at the menus and not actually during the game. The commentary, on the other hand, is well done, improved from previous versions in the quantity and quality of what is said.

There are a few extra little niggles, the lack of stadiums as well as some extra unlockables wouldn’t have gone a miss, neither would extra licensed teams. This game does give you the option of installing a few gigs of data on your hard drive, if I were you I would take it. It improves loading times and generally offers a smother experience. Despite the issues raised, this game still provides a great game of football, on your own or with mates, just make sure you're able to download the patches.