Andy Naylor reviews PES 2016…
Last year’s PES [read our review here] was promising. It showed some footballing intuition, it felt better than any PS3/360 incarnation ever did. With this in mind, there was a trickle of excitement at how, in the following 12 months, Konami could tweak and improve upon the positive steps taken in PES 2015 that could make for an even better PES 2016. Sadly, it appears the internal troubles that have blighted Konami this year may have had a negative effect on PES 2016.
It’d be a mistake to say there hadn’t been any improvements, the menus are far easier to navigate – a map is longer required to understand where the simplest of settings might be located, it’s actually quite intuitive. The licensing is a pro and a con; first off the licensing for all the various world-wide tournaments is an excellent commodity to have and added to, especially as it keeps it out of the hands of their major competitor, FIFA 16. The downside of this is that each tournament has it’s own mode, which becomes very samey and over exposed. Each is essentially a cup competition and a more pleasing way to package this in the menu system would be a nicer user experience.
Let’s get to the nitty gritty, the crux of the issue with this year’s edition and why it is such a horrid footballing experience – the passing. This isn’t a matter of the lack of a footballing brain, or a lack of skill, this is poor control and execution at the heart of the game’s code. With 15+ years (if not more) of football gaming experience, finding the utter lack of control in the passing game was astounding. Maybe, just maybe, 1 in 3 passes went to the desired player/location. A little tap to the inside player often resulted in some dreadful longer (ground) pass to a player 30 yards away with 2 members of the opposition between him and the ball. There are a number of adjectives that spring to mind for this, poor, ridiculous, woeful – take your pick, none of them are positive, which often resulted in fury for this particular reviewer. The ability to cock up the heart of the game of football is unforgiveable, not to mention the surprise behind it, considering how positive last year’s was. Before any raises the possibility, this was not a difficulty issue, this occurs on all levels of difficulty using a variety of teams covering the spectrum of quality throughout the footballing world.
Anything past the above issue is inconsequential; passing is the tool of the game – it doesn’t matter if you play like Barcelona or play like Wimbledon circa 1990, the ability to pass to your own teammates is essential. If that ability is ripped out of your control what is left is not a football game but a game of chance and fluke that has stripped away your ability to craft a beautifully worked wonder goal, something akin to pulling an Ace of Spades out of a deck of cards when asked to do just that. There’s no skill, no finesse, no joy, no craft, no quality, all that remains in pure luck and a poor football game. While this year’s FIFA may as well just be a patch update on last year’s, at least the ability to pass the ball correctly has not been stripped from your grasp.
Rating: 4/10
Andy Naylor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=Bk0vOUI3iFU
Originally published October 14, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
