This game is much more effective than it's rival when it comes to take fun out of football... And goals!
You can't say that it doesn't have it's flaws - every game has them - but this game is fun to play. Just that simple, fun!
I say this because when you're playing a football game you want to see great graphics, great physics and that is definitely what makes the so over known game-play develop a great role in the whole bunch of things to appreciate.
And that's it... This game is all about game-play and the enjoyability it brings. You can do everything that you're supposed to in a football match in many different ways, some being more effective than others depending on the occasion (and there comes in your judgement - or skills).
What I found rather exciting on this game is the physics on the shooting matters, which is absolutely overwhelming as you can shoot with a mediocre player and still do damage - to do so you just have to apply what I mentioned above - and it's not extremely hard to do it.
On the first 4 levels of difficulty you can practice that and then accurate your fingers and get ready for the top notch AI level.
This game is very good. It's the best value for money I've ever spent in a video game and it makes me sad thinking it'll just be another one on the shelf as I already started playing Fifa 10 and, so far, I'm enjoying it, though it's a more technical game and not so fun and entertaining as PES 2009. Perhaps I'll change my mind soon enough...
N.B.: I'm not giving a full top rating to this game just because it lacks on 2 things towards it's 09 rival. Soundtrack and XBOX Live multi-player. The first one you can just forget about or turn off the music but the second is a glitch that I hope will be solved in the future developments of the series'.