Let’s be brutally honest: PES has been inferior to FIFA in recent years. I know it, you know it and even Konami seem to acknowledge it in a recent interview with Eurogamer. So, as I have done for the past three years, I keenly anticipate each new snippet of PES news as I sit playing the latest iteration of FIFA and feeling like I’m cheating on my first love.
Eurogamer has had a preview in Japan and they’ve had some special access to “Seabass”, the man in charge. Ultimately, when you get under the hood of Johnny Minkley’s flowing prose, we’ve got exactly the same news as we’ve had for three years now. Konami claim their new PES game will be revolutionary, it’ll be vastly improved and it will once again provide serious competition for EA’s fluid footy game.
So the record appears to be broken over in the PES offices and for the last few years those claims have turned out to be largely unfounded but this year there seems a new humility that gives me renewed hope that one of my historically favourite franchises can rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes and show those FIFA boys a thing or two. For now, I’ll reserve judgement and look at these EG screens.
It’s looking pretty good, can the gameplay live up to the visuals and, more importantly, the claims? We’ll see…
