Yes the passing is better , though I would argue on Human team AI not being up to what is required. There is to big a gap between players on the human side and they don't come to support the player on the ball, they stand in there positions and make runs from there and this has you running more with the ball than you should.
Keeper as above ..
L1 change player control, this needs to be opened up more to have more than 2 players near the ball. I see it all the time , your on the ball a tackle comes in and knocks the ball away you have a player in the path of the ball you hit L1 and some other player in your team highlights and the cpu is away with the ball.
And its worse when defending, cpu backs or midfielders running from there own half, your hitting L1 time and time again and its your players (forwards?) running from behind to catch up that the icon is jumping between when you hit L1. This causes goals or creates space for the cpu and the wrong player highlight when you have others in better positions.
This cpu picking which of your team to highlight when you press L1 aslo messes up passing. You on the ball, your facing in the park to lay off the ball to an oncoming team mate. You tab the pass button and the control icon jumps from the player passing the ball onto some forward someway inside the box and at a different angle, your player turns away from who you were wanting to pass to and hit the ball into the forward.
The game is still the best football game out there but there is a hell of a lot needs to be worked on to make this a true next gen game.
The base of football is passing, if you can't pass the ball where YOU want and not where the cpu decides to make you pass to then it will not move forward.
I can only hope seabass's BIG BIG changes for PES2009 mean that at last we can put the ball where we want and not where the cpu wants it to go..
game is ok nothing more..