Pro Evolution Soccer 2016, Konami’s famous soccer-sim, will be premiered at Gamescom this week before becoming available as a demo for all PS4 and Xbox One players on August 13. The new PES cover photo (Above), featuring Alvaro Morata (Juventus and Spain) and Neymar (Barcelona and Brazil), was also unveiled.
Stealing a march on EA – who are yet to announce a FIFA 16 Demo – the PES developers are hoping to build on their successes of last year by stealing yet more fans away from the more commercially viable FIFA franchise.
It’s 20 years since the first PES game was released and Konami are celebrating that landmark with a special anniversary edition of the game.
Last year PES finally got back to basics and, with help from the incredible FOX Engine, regained a lot of the credibility it lost during the 7th generation of consoles.
The major problem it still, and will probably always face, is licensing. EA maintain the right to use pretty much every logo of every major team in the world, meanwhile Konami, despite having the rights to the Champions League and Europa League, are missing a lot of licensing, particularly for the English Premier League; the most commercially successful league in the world.
While this leads to some pretty hilarious name changes – for instance Manchester City becoming ‘Man Blue’ and Liverpool becoming ‘Merseyside Red’ – a lot of fans are put off. These games of course pride themselves on realism; pretty hard to achieve when you can’t use real team names, strips, badges and stadiums.
All-in-all however, PES should be able to make further ground on FIFA. From gameplay trailers, it currently looks better than EA’s offering. 6 major new features – dynamic weather, goalkeeper ID, a revamped Master League, dynamic camera angles, celebration control and an image data transfer tool – add a bit more depth to previous outings.
Of course, if you’re not sure about buying, try out the demo! That’s what it’s there for.
Original Author: Jay Michael