Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 Reviews
PES 2016 lives up to the hype and is a wonderful tribute to 20 years of hard work from Konami and PES Productions.
Pro Evo is still struggling to match FIFA on match atmosphere, presentation, accessibility and commentary – all areas where Konami could and should be doing better. Yet it's a fantastic football game once you hit the pitch, with brilliant close-up graphics, superb animation, convincing ball physics and player interactions and a fantastic feel for the ebb and flow of the match.
PES 2016 is undoubtedly a great football game, as good as it's been in years. Sure, it's better on the pitch than PES 2015, but it's let down somewhat by some cavalier keepers who couldn't catch a cold.
PES 2016 is a fantastic sports game that every avid football enthusiast should own.
This is a very solid entry into the series and one that fills you with hope for the series future, even with all the continual negativity surrounding Konami's video games focus going forwards. It's one I can recommend wholeheartedly. What's even better is that as this review goes to press, you can easily find a copy of the game for £25 in many retailers, should you wish to give this a punt. Which you should.
PES 2016 gives players a great choice besides FIFA and if you're a fan of one series or another, migrating to another game can be difficult. Konami have also listened tot he players and PES 2016 is definitely one of the most all-rounded soccer games from their franchise that successfully tweaks the gameplay to create a great next-gen experience on the PlayStation 4.
While there's a robust simplicity to the gameplay that is engaging, right or wrong, we've all got used to a level of completeness and polish that PES, even twenty years on, is still sometimes missing.
Side by side, Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 doesn't stack up to FIFA 16 in licenses, game modes, or team selection, but Konami's annual soccer series once again positions itself as a more complex and realistic soccer experience than EA's flashy, but predictable, offering. With individualized players, explosive tactical potential and unparalleled realism, PES 2016 redefines what a soccer game can be.
Despite problems with fouls, this year's PES is very close to being the best in series history.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 is going to be fierce competition for any soccer games coming up. This is currently the definitive vision and version of how being on a real teal should feel.
Football for the connoisseurs
So has PES finally staged a winning comeback? The answer is almost. The gameplay is faster and undoubtedly easier to get into. It's let down by inconsistent defensive AI and poor menus, which keep it from achieving perfection. Nonetheless, it's a step in the right direction. We can't wait to see what Konami do with PES 2017.
I wanted to like Pro Evolution Soccer 2016, I really did. Sports games are a specialty of mine, and I'm always excited to try the latest versions of the big time franchises. My disappointment with the game rests solely on how recycled everything feels. I want some innovation in my sports games, some new ideas that will challenge me and test my limits, but here I get the video game equivalent of a uninspired shrug. Konami, if you read this, please try something new with PES 2017, as I really don't want to be disappointed as soon as I press start next year too.
The best football sim to date.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 is a big step forward for the series and manages to show the complexity and the beauty of football while also emphasizing the hard work that's required from a team looking to put together a string of victories.
Meanwhile, PES is the football game for people who love the elegance, grace, and flow of the sport. PES has always been good at that, and this year's edition, while only making subtle tweaks to the on-field engine, has done so so effectively that it has become the definitive take on the sport.
I've felt over the last few years that Pro Evo was starting to get somewhere again as a football game, and with 2016 they have nailed it. The gameplay is the best it's been in years, the licenses issue is not really an issue any more with a little bit of extra work that will just take an hour. I just hope the commentary gets some looking in to next year as that was one of the biggest issues I had with the game, and stopped it short of being a perfect football game.
It's hard to go through the bargain bin of any hole in the wall game store without seeing a plethora of sports games priced at a solid £1.99. PES 2016 sets itself apart from these throwaway titles. Although it doesn't innovate, it does everything very well. Where many games want to just make the yearly mark, PES 2016 seems to have demanded, of itself, a level of quality that many yearly instalments could really learn a lesson from. Hopefully they will, because if this indicates anything, yearly instalments can look and feel beautiful.
PES 2016 offers some notable improvements, especially for series veterans, but a lack of polish in certain areas keep the game from reaching higher ground.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 is a strange entry in the series. The improvements are obvious and clear to see from the outset but the areas in which it has taken a step backward take a lot longer to actually uncover. You don't realise that you haven't conceded a free kick for ages until you've played more than a handful of games. You don't realise that the keepers pretty much can't save low shots until you've conceded a dozen goals in the bottom corner. This means that your time with PES this year will be spent playing for an hour or two and then putting the controller down in frustration. It's to Konami's great credit that it somehow always calls you back to it.