It's much easier to keep up the momentum and produce flowing football, and there are plenty of things that contribute to this. In general, dribbling and passing the ball around feels much more crisp and responsive - even more so than WE7I, about which we made the same observation. Rather like a team emerging after a summer break with a few transfers in place and a new boss (lord almighty this writer is anxious about Benitez' opener next weekend), some of the things that marked the last outing have been dialled down, while some new elements seem to be turned to 11 in case anyone misses them. And it's certainly changed significantly. In fact, we suggest you refer back to our review of the Japanese Winning Eleven 7 International if that's the case, because for the purposes of these impressions we're mainly addressing changes above and beyond what we saw in that game.
If the last Konami football title you played was Pro Evolution Soccer 3, then WE8 is going to come as a big shock. And rather like a lot of summer trialists, it makes a solid first impression the only question now is whether the new additions will survive in front of the capacity crowd. For now though Winning Eleven 8, the product of much summer spending and a good few weekends in Malaga, gives us a chance to see some of the gaffer's raw ideas in action. The side that lines up again later this year for Pro Evolution Soccer 4 will be very different - a lot of the personnel will have changed, their haircuts will be more authentic, they'll be fitter and a lot of their new ideas will have had time to bed in, and they'll be trotting out on more formats than ever before. But in terms of Konami TYO's calendar of releases, it's very much split in two - and Winning Eleven 8 marks the kick off of the first half of season 04/05. Pre-order Pro Evolution Soccer 4 now from Simply Games.