Dave’s Football Blog

The new Soccer FanHouse isn’t the only thing taking up all my time these days. I’ve gotten myself totally hooked on Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 for the Nintendo Wii.

This is the first time I’ve ever gotten seriously into a soccer video game, and the reason is simple — the entire interface is point-and-click. You just point the Wiimote at the screen and put the ball and your players right where you want them. Through balls, one-two passes, man marking, you name it. It’s perhaps the most tactical soccer game on the market, and not only is it surprisingly addictive, but it beats the pants off FIFA 08 for the Wii.

A nice long review (and an explanation for that headline) is after the jump.

On the downside, EA has more licenses for FIFA 08 than Konami does here. Most of the major European leagues are represented in this game, though Konami was only able to secure licenses for two Premier League clubs, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle. However, they do have a nice little feature where you can edit the names of unlicensed clubs. So if you can figure out that “Merseyside Red” is Liverpool, “East London” is West Ham and “Middlebrook” is Bolton, you can go in and set it right. All the players are there, though, as they are for Spain, Italy, Germany and many Champions League clubs and national team sides.

No MLS, though, and no license for the U.S. national team. So Clint Dempsey is only “Clint Dempsey” when he plays for Fulham. Go figure.

The basic play modes — single match, full league season, cup competition — are all there, so you can try to guide your favorite club to a league title or your home nation to a World Cup. There are also plenty of training sessions along the way to help you master specific moves.

My favorite mode by far, though, is Champions Road. This is where you start with a side full of scrubs, and as you beat other clubs, you take players from them and climb the ladder into more difficult leagues. Your players also gain experience points and become stronger overall players as your team progresses, and you’re given missions — score on a header, complete X number of specific passes, etc — that unlock extra features.

The trick, though, is that you can’t choose specific players. After you win a match, the game lays out playing cards and gives you hints as to who the player might be. So you can try to get a specific player, or you can just try to get the best player at a specific position. Some hints are easy — the Fulham player who’s “shooting is absolutely world class,” for example — while others are trickier. Two attempts to get Dempsey from Fulham left me with Paul Konchesky and Moritz Volz. Also, I tried to get Brad Friedel from Blackburn, but ended up with Peter Enckelman.

So once you win the four-team training league, four paths show up — the Atlantic Leagues (mostly Spanish and Portuguese clubs), the Continenal Leagues (French and Eastern European clubs), the Mediterranean Leagues (Italian and Turkish clubs) and the Northern Leagues (English and Scottish clubs). Once you win a four-team level 2 league, a six-team level 3 league opens up. You have to win all four Level 3 leagues, though, to get to the next level. As you might guess, the competition gets harder as you move up the ladder.

Once I won my first Level 3 league, though, I got a mystery invitation from an unknown club. I figured it was a random all-star team of some sort, so I accepted the challenge…

It was a team full of Miis — including a bunch of the celebrity Miis that I plucked from one of Nintendo’s Check Mii Out channel. Whoopi Goldberg was up front with my old roommate Dennis, who created his Mii at one of my Wii parties months ago. Charlie Brown was a holding midfielder, while Lucy Van Pelt was at left back. Waldo was in central defense with one of my favorite swing dance partners. And the goalkeeper? Darth Vader.

Once I finally stopped enjoying the awesomeness of this — which didn’t happen until Dennis scored on a header midway through the first half — I settled into the game. Long story short, it ended with Brian McBride smoking Darth Vader twice in the second half and my side winning, 2-1. The Force is strong with that one.

Unfortunately, the game wouldn’t let me add any Miis to my squad. A shame, really. It would have been fun to have DaMarcus Beasley on one wing and Jack Black on the other. (Ironically, my Wayne Rooney Mii didn’t crack that team’s lineup.)

Anyway, McBride and Beasley are two of the three Americans on my squad, along with Michael Bradley. I guessed right on Bradley early on, took him from Heerenveen and put him in as an attacking midfielder, just to see how many goals I could get him to score. Unfortunately, Bradley is only a two-star player (out of five) in this game, and I’ve maxed out his character, so he’s good, but he can’t get any better. I’ve just unlocked the ability to get four-star players, too, so I don’t know how long I can justify keeping Bradley in the starting lineup.

Beasley is easier, because I’ve built up his speed and stamina to the point where he can run around all day for me. Same with Mariano Gonzalez from Porto, whom I put on the other wing. Beasley does get pushed off the ball a little easily, though.

As strikers go, I had a three-man rotation featuring McBride, Roque Santa Cruz and Bobby Zamora, who has an awesome left-footed shot in this game. However, I recently added Shabani Nonda from Galatasaray and Francesco Tavano from Livorno — two guys that I’d never heard of before, really — and they’re doing much better for me against non-English competition than Santa Cruz and Zamora. McBride, on the other hand, is almost maxed out and seems capable of scoring on anyone — including Sith Lords.

Oh, and Jens Lehmann and Phillipe Senderos are both better in this game than they appear to be in real life.

Anyway, that’s Pro Evolution Soccer for the Wii. Awesome game. Give it a try. And if you have a Champions Road side and want to challenge me via WiiConnect24, leave a comment here. I’m think I’m almost ready for some human competition.