The latest edition of Konami's all-conquering football game is a bit of a strange beast. Famed for being the more realistic, slower and more deliberate of the two major football games, it continues the trend set by last year's edition and basically seems to have swapped places with FIFA.

Pro Evolution Soccer 6 was a very strong game, but the intense simulation aspect had been tempered by two steps towards a more arcade, fast-and-furious feel. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008, meanwhile, scurries a little further in that direction, with the resulting pros and cons that you'd expect. On one hand it makes matches exciting, at times breathtakingly fast and borderline exhausting. But then you can't help feeling that something's been lost here.

For while the detail and depth of control system still sits underneath Pro Evolution Soccer, the problem is that - particularly for newer players - the game moves too quickly to make proper use of it. What's more, the power of dribbling - a gripe with PES6 - has been strengthened too. It means that you no longer need Ronaldo to dance your way through a defence, and whereas before there was a feeling that real skill was needed to break through a tenacious back four, dribbling seems to unlock far more than it should. It throws the game out of balance as a result.

There's another problem too: the referees appear to have gone mad. To call them card-happy would be a cruel understatement: much of our first day of playing the game was spent trying to avoid the flurry of red and yellow cards that seemingly innocuous challenges were producing.

Rushing the keeper out in a one-on-one situation feels a bit like roulette, for instance. There's a sporting chance that the attacker will simply collapse under the challenge, and the ref will send the keeper off. That's a realistic implementation of the rules, certainly, but the problem here is how frequent an occurrence the game engine renders it. We approve of them booking every time for diving, though, which is a returning feature to the PES world.

Contrast that with FIFA 08. It's bizarre that we talk of FIFA as the slower, more precise game now, but there really is a changing of positions going on here. Last year, we had a real feeling that FIFA was still the weaker game of the two, but was evolving quicker and taking more interesting risks. The same conclusion can be drawn here, and the worry for Konami must be that the gap is getting incredibly close.

Granted, it's tried to humanise the superb Master League a little more with fan feedback and a bit of player interaction, but it doesn't enhance the game particularly. Likewise, while FIFA's graphics have eaten up all the processing power before them, Pro Evo's look a little better, but that's about it.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 is still a very good football game, and it still does edge out its rival. The problem is that it's now, as a result of the gameplay changes implemented, not a better game than, say, Pro Evolution Soccer 4 or 5.

And with Konami seemingly taking its eye off what's made its key annual franchise so popular for the last two versions, the battleground this time next year is going to be interesting to say the least. For now, Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 earns a healthy recommendation, but there's paradoxically a feeling of must-do-better about it too.

It's still the planet's finest football franchise, but Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 has muddied its own formula slightly, and put its crown under real threat.