REVIEW – Awww „bad developer” on one hand and „hats off to you” on the other. Konami (1996) started developing soccer games only three years later than Electronic Arts (1993), but only Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 hits the mark that FIFA usually ups every year. This year the PES fans are in luck as Konami released their game a week before FIFA.

I would like to point out that I always favored EA Sports’ game, but every year I tried the PES games. I can now say that yes PES 2016 hits the mark. Konami really did the best thing possible, however it is questionable as to what FIFA provided to gamers what Pro Evolution 2016 could not? Now we can asj the question, what did PES provide, that FIFA could not.

Konami rights

What I still miss from PES 2016 is the Bundesliga, as only FIFA got the rights for the German Bundesliga. Same can be said about Barclays Premier League, which is the number one league in the United Kingdom. Although Konami did not get to use the team names, so because of this the English teams get fake team names, and fake banners.

Bundesliga does not have this, and Konami got the rights for three German teams, that are under the „Other European teams” sections.

Almost photorealistic

Until you do not try this game, you will not believe how detailed graphics are in PES. It is especially worth noting how detailed the players are, I could not believe my eyes, when I saw some of the „celeb” players. It is unbelievable how life like they look, as if we were really watching a live match on TV, really pretty. From the smallest skin problem, to the player’s hair, everything is top-notch and identical to real life. Of course not all of the players are this well-crafted, the lesser known, and unknown players get a Basic look, bit different physique, but with realistic properties, so the performance of these players matches with real life players.

Out of the blue

The list does not end with the graphics, as the other reason the game became more realistic – and we are talking about gameplay here – is the dynamic weather. We mean this quite literally as the minutes pass ingame, and the weather will also change. This means that it might be sunshine and bright colors, but maybe if there are a few clouds up in the air, rain might fall. Of course this is true vice versa, your first half might be in rain, but by the second half it could become sunny and dry. At the same time, we could even play in fog. All of these are dependent on seasons, as the developers even took the time to implement them, which means we get an ultra-realistic game in the end.

It still hurts

Pro Evolution Soccer 2014’s biggest new feature was the movement of players, and we noticed the brutalities of tackles. This is the part that Konami did not think through properly.  When you tackle, the opposing player gets slaughtered, especially since the tackle is against the ball, but for the player’s leg. So you’ll end up with a yellow car regardless of how you try to do it.
This is an eternal issue with PES, and this was not fixed in Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 unfortunately.

Thank GOD, we can have a career

When I mentioned „bad developer” Konami, well we have not gotten any normal career mode since Pro Evolution Soccer 2013. The PES fans did raise their voice towards Konami, and the publisher realized that PES 2014 did not perform as well as their previous games. Mostly because people went with FIFA that year, as it had a normal career mode. Although there was some form of career mode in PES 2014 and PES 2015 it felt like a struggling whale on a beach. A really forced mode churned out by the developers, which basically had a calendar that showed future matches. That is it, and nothing extra was given to the players, well one thing was extra the player switches between the teams was nearly unnoticeable, annoying and the transfer market was just a mess.

It took two years for a massive change to be made in the series. In Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 we finally get a career mode that looks like a FIFA career mode, and is actually fun to use the transfer system. Of course we get a premade calendar with matches, but what is plus in the career mode is that management of players, and we can renew or even terminate player’s contracts. The transfer market works just like in real life, we can negotiate with the clubs, and if we cannot come to an agreement, or if we offer to little money the other side might reject our offers. Only after paying a huge sum might the other side accept any kind of offer from us. As in FIFA , here we also get „fresh transfer news”, if a mail arrives, the papers might also leak some information about a transfer as rumors.

Yo coach! Sometimes I don’t want to play anymore!

This was the absolute feature for Pro Evoution Soccer 2014, where we got to see how our players feel. Maybe they had a good or bad day, and this depends on a lot of things. The first and most important thing that determines the mood of a player is the team’s performance, how many tackles, shots, goals, and saves were made successfully. If a player does not perform well enough they’ll feel it, and will result with the shrinking of the player’s „net worth”. Net worth here is for example the combination of sprinting speed, tackling ability, defense, so all of the skills combined into one number.

The other important factor is how you treat and trust the player as a coach. The way to do this is to let him play the entire match, start as first in the match, and you do not take him off the field for someone else. This is how he’ll feel you trust him. If a player has a very bad mood, not even putting him in the first 11 players in a match will help. In order to brighten his mood you’ll need to manage him during training sessions. There is a separate menu for trainings in PES 16. You can determine what training the player should do, for example: passing, shooting on target, defense etc. This will result in some skills leveling up, but this will also occur during normal matches.

One thing at the end: a pro evolution soccer 2016 patch would be welcome…

-Blokad-

Publisher Konami

Developer: Konami

Genres Sport

Publication September 16th. 2015.