The Pro Evo series has been a mainstay of the hardcore football game-fan for many-a-year now, mainly because its simulation-like gameplay made up for what it lacked beneath its veneer. Last year's Pro Evo was the first to go next-gen, but was incredibly shallow (for an example, see the average footballer's wife) for a game so in-depth on the pitch and took something of a backwards step in terms of what it had to offer off the pitch. A bit like Ryan Giggs when he signs a new contract. Although this year's iteration goes some way to re-establishing the game's off-field content, it still doesn't quite live up to its predecessors.

Disappointingly, for English fans of the game, 18 of the Premier League's football teams only exist on the game in the guise of badly thought of and really rather lamely named substitutes. Gone are the days, however, of there being hardly any teams from your favourite league. They're all there; Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Aston Villa, Chelsea and the like, but only Tottenham and Newcastle have their real names and official kits. The players are all there, too, even the latest editions to the squads, which is something of a turnaround for the Pro Evo series, as previous editions were out-of-date as soon as they were released. The inclusion of an edit mode (which was notable only by it's absence in last year's next-gen version) goes some way in relieving the pain of not having your team's real guise, it can do little more than replace names such as Man Blue and Berkshire to Manchester City and Blackburn respectively. You can also give your team's kit a bit of spit and polish to get it looking something like the real-thing. You can't replace your team's emblem, though. You can, however, use the Live Vision camera to take a picture of a real jersey and map it onto the game's, the final product can look decidedly low-res and will take a few attempts to get right, if you have the patience. The England team's kit, as well as most other international teams, is present, however.

The pre-match menu system has always been a bit of a pain to navigate, it still is here but slightly less so as it has been refined with one or two more top-menu options than before. Still, it could do with being a bit more user-friendly as even after a fair few hours play it can be rather confusing. You can get the computer to do most of it for you, with options such as auto-substitutions, so as to avoid using most of what the menu offers, but where's the fun in that?

So, you've picked a team and finally, now it's time to get on the pitch. Apart from the graphics, the first thing you'll notice when you kick your first game off, is just how quickly into the game you'll get. This is mainly because, despite feeling slightly more fluid, it doesn't feel that much different to last year's game. This is somewhat surprising, as even hardcore Pro Evo veterans normally have trouble getting used to each new game's nuances. It normally takes two or three games for the training wheels to come off, but this time you'll be playing exactly how you played last time. It's hard to decide whether the fact it takes no time at all to get into is a good or bad thing. The much-lauded "Team Vision" aspect seems to have been somewhat sexed-up, as even though it's noticeable, it's hardly the revolution you were led to believe.

The graphics are a little hit and miss. The upgrade from last-gen is hard to notice from afar, which, unfortunately, is how you'll be viewing the majority of the game, unless you use the 'zoom' camera, which looks cool, but shows less of the pitch and means you can only see a little of your selected player's immediate surroundings. Up close in replays, however, the differences are obvious. The most famous players look incredibly like their real-life counterparts thanks to face-mapping technology. Even less known players look something like how they do in real-life. Get a load of players on the screen at the same time, though, and the frame-rate drops to a 'choppier than Vinnie Jones' level. Although it'd be far more to the detriment of the player if this were to happen during the actual game, it's still a bit frustrating when that beautifully-placed-straight-into-the-top-corner-free-kick replay looks little better than a flick-book animation.

The exclusion of the Master League mode in Pro Evo 6 was one of the biggest crimes in gaming, even though it was as present in the PS2 version of the game as it has ever been. This year sees the introduction of Master League to next generation consoles, and, seeing as this is where you'll be spending the majority of your time on the game, its presence is quite heart-warming. Like the return of an old friend who has had a nose-job and read a few books, it looks a fair bit better and is slightly more in-depth than before. Although it doesn't reach the heady heights of games like Football Manager in terms of what you can do and how addictive it is, it's still the best part of the game. Building up young players to be world-conquerers and buying those that already have achieved such feats is just as good as it has ever been. In fact, it's even better, seeing as there are now 20 teams in each league, rather than 16 in the Pro Evos that have gone before.

Despite all it has going for it (especially when compared to last year's 360 version) it's still quite disappointing. Although it made financial sense to focus on the PS2 version last year, this year there is no excuse as to why the Xbox 360 version just hasn't got as much going for it when it's not kicking the ball around. The progress that has been made is encouraging, it's just that it seems as though its fans would be hard-pushed to become the detested 'glory-seekers' and search for pastures-new to find the perfect football game in the years to come.