GC 2008: Hands on with Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 for mobile

Konami has a dedicated mobile section of its booth at GC 2008, where it's showing off a few new titles, including Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.

Naturally, we got thumbs on with it. The game's playing very crisply, maintaining the slick feel we enjoyed last time round. Pinging passes around the pitch is simple, and it took just a few seconds for us to be stroking the ball around like Brazilians.

Kind of.

The one-button control system is working really well, with that button handling a different action according to your context on the pitch. Last year, we ended up using the many-buttons system anyway, but this time round, we can see ourselves gravitating to the simpler option (both are included, again).

Other improvements? The goalies do seem a bit better, saving shots you'd expect them to save, while not being too ninja to beat.

It took us less time to adapt to the shooting bar's sensitivity (i.e. we weren't blazing shots over for the first ten minutes) than last year, so we think that may have been tweaked, too.

Oh, and there's Bluetooth multiplayer, which we didn't get to test out on the stand. But it looks simple enough to set up – one of you chooses to host a match, the other connects, and away you go.

Overall, we're impressed. The question now is whether the finished version lives up to this promise. We'll be interviewing the team behind the game at the show, so stay tuned for that piece.

Update: We've now reviewed Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 on mobile.