We've all heard the ongoing argument of FIFA vs Pro Evo, which breaks the age barrier to take place in school playgrounds and offices alike all across the land. The FIFA side argue for authenticity, licensed teams, stadiums, songs and God knows what else, while for Pro Evo it's all about the realism and quality of gameplay. This year the standards have been raised on both sides however and thus the arguments are more intense than ever! Having literally lost hours of sleep on what I like to call "Pro Evo Eve", I rushed out to buy my copy knowing it would be the best PS3 game to date.

When I got home and loaded up Pro Evolution Soccer 2008, I was a little bit taken aback. Firstly, I was presented with an odd looking menu where you can only see one option at a time. This was a bit of a shock, as the traditional menu has always been a perfect layout, leaving absolutely nothing to be desired. To be honest this led to a bad feeling that Konami had brought nothing new to the table and were making a dire effort at trying to make the PlayStation 3 version at least look different from the PS2 one. Thankfully those fears were quashed about ten minutes in. A new and welcome feature is that rather than having the same song playing over again when on the menu screens, as in previous games, there are loads of tracks to choose from. You even have the option to edit the playlist to get rid of the annoying ones or to just choose your favourites, albeit that the songs seem custom written for the game and are performed by unknown artists.

The obvious thing to check out first would be an exhibition game, and having chosen your settings you are ready to begin working out which team is which. Almost every team on the game is now licensed, except for the best league in the world! Konami only managed to snatch licences for Tottenham and Newcastle, which leaves about 95% of England having to pit Man Red against London Blues! However, the hardcore Pro Evo fan should be used to this by now and should realise that this can all be remedied with the edit mode.

As soon as the ball has kicked off I like to pause the game and zoom in on the players faces' on replay. As I was hoping, the graphics are ridiculously good. Most of the players you see will have you gasping at their likeness, although conversely some of the lower end of the table will have you laughing at how awful they look, so it's a mixed bag to say the least. Unfortunately, when you zoom out again a lot of the detail is lost and the graphics only look like a small step forward from the last title in the series.

Pro Evo is most well known for its incredible feel in gameplay; it's a game that draws you in and totally hooks you, and you can literally lose weeks of your life playing it. The best way to describe this year's gameplay is that the first match you play is by far the worst. Having been used to the smooth and silky gameplay on the PS2, Pro Evo 2008 feels jagged and rocky at first on the PS3, due to the infamous slowdown issue plaguing certain PS3 titles that everyone's ranting about. Just in case you're unfamiliar with the term, cast your mind back to an early PS2 title, where maybe a car crash or a large explosion took place and the game seemed to run slower and felt very "stoppy starty". This is sadly the kind of thing to expect here; when the ball is passed forward, the camera almost cannot keep up and so it feels like frames are constantly being dropped to catch up. Honestly speaking, after a few games you probably won't notice it at all and Konami are currently working on a patch to help solve the problem, but it really shouldn't have been there in the first place, especially not in a football game where smooth action is so vitally important for making those precision passes, interceptions, tackles and shots on goal.

It is a real shame that Pro Evo seems to cursed with this frame rate problem, as the gameplay is better than it has ever been. Last year's release of Pro Evo on Xbox 360 led to unfamiliar, slow gameplay, where players never seemed to get out of first gear, and I worried that the PS3 version would be the same - but thankfully the gameplay and physics are better than ever. Having played both FIFA 08 and Pro Evo 2008 on the PS3, Pro Evo definitely has the edge when it comes to gameplay. Teammates run into better positions, passing is crisp and accurate, and the AI is incredible. Konami claimed that the CPU would start to pick up certain patterns of your play and then try to prevent it - while this sounded like an ambitious feature to implement, they've actually pulled it off! The end result is that your AI opponents' adaptive capabilities lead to more varied gameplay, which is an absolute delight to see, as watching your mate run down the wing to cross the ball in and header it into an open net for ninety minutes wasn't always a joy in previous games!

Network mode is more than likely going to be the most used feature of this instalment - but at present it is shocking. Depending on the signal strength of your connection, as well as that of your opponent, the in-game slowdown can reach unplayable levels. If both users are on three bars of signal then the match is fine, only suffering from the normal, almost unnoticeable amount of lag. However, any less and pauses of about three seconds can see your opponent on the halfway line in one frame and then the ball in the back of your net on the next. One of the worst, yet laughable cases, came when I scored a screamer from outside of the area. Next thing I know, the referee gives a corner. I got back up off the floor, put my shirt back on and cried. Again, Konami are constantly updating the online mode and have promised a patch, but they really need to hurry up because cries of 5-1 against the Germans are waiting to be shouted!

On the upside, the Master League is back and better than ever. Not a lot has changed here, the only proof that Konami have heard of the phrase, "If it ain't broke…" Expect the same frantic rush for transfers and last minute penalties that leave you in a heap on the floor trying to stop yourself from throwing the pad through your TV screen. This will be happening a lot more due to the 'dive' feature, which allows you to theatrically throw your player to the ground. I say simply, but the frantic tapping of every button on the pad can be heard as your opponent enters your penalty area! I'm not sure if some players are better at wining free kicks and penalties through this feature, although the only two players I've won a penalty with were Christiano Ronaldo and Nani.

The saviour for people who hate the idea of playing with fictional teams in Pro Evo has always been the extensive edit mode. The good news is that it's back - however, it is possibly the worst it's ever been. The lack of being able to edit emblems means that when you are selecting your teams you still have to navigate around with abysmal default 'wannabes'. The editing of kits has been scaled down enormously and the best way to get a decent result is to use the 'scan' feature, which sees uploading a picture either using the EyeToy or a picture from the Internet to take a picture of the kit. The result can be very good if you are willing to put the time in to get the perfect picture, but that's a lot of messing around compared to the old and probably better way of editing the kits. The EyeToy can also be used for face-mapping, where you can upload a picture of a face and it will be transferred onto a player. Once again, the result can be jaw-dropping, but don't be expecting a two-minute job - once you've taken the lighting etc. into consideration and taken the 'perfect pic' you might find it took you more like half an hour! This is the only step forward in the edit mode, as the idea of mapping all of your mate's faces into a team is an exciting prospect and certainly would give a bit more incentive to take your team all the way in the master league.

Only time will tell how good Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 is. At present it feels like one of the worst games in the series to date, with issues such as slowdown and poor editing options hampering the experience. Yet it still has the potential to be without a doubt the greatest football game yet. If we can push past the issue of only being able to edit eight kits and get the full premiership looking decent, then brilliant. And if the patch from Konami solves the slowdown issue online as well as off then the gameplay will be absolutely faultless. Until then though, it'll have to make do with a nine out of ten and a scribbled note of "Must try harder!"

Reviewed by Ross Helsby for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).