Recent reviews by Sambrowski

# 2.

You heartless bastard.

First things first, this isn't a defence of Konami. Providing PC players with the same lighting/textures as xbox360/PS3 players is inheritly lazy and extremely short sided. If Konami see PES as a long term franchise then treating a big chunk of your community as a cash-cow is only going to make the game a harder sell in future.

I'd readied myself for dissapointment. The initial PS4 reviews/gameplay footage made me optimisic from a gameplay perspective but I was under no illusions that the PC version was going to be anything other than a "hybrid" of old-gen and current-gen since the PES Franchise Manager Adam Bhaati announced it on Twitter in mid-August. The 5gb download suggested the same low res textures as PES 2015. The same-old seperate executive file for saving resolution and graphics settings suggested Konami's treatment of the PC crowd was to be the same as last year.

However, despite all that, I'm really enjoying PES 2016 on PC.

The increased physical interaction between players is probably the first thing you'll notice if you are coming back from 2015. Players jostle, stumble and bounce off each other. The ball too will bounce and spin free of a player's control if they're put under the right kind of pressure. The physicality too, thankfully, is enhanced by much more lenient refereeing which creates more em and flow. I hated the amount of fouls and breaks in play that we had on PES previously which only benefitted dirty defenders. Now, it's more akin to the Premier League, where referees turn a blind eye to tussles around the pitch in the interest of the spectacle.

Passing has also had a massive overhaul. From the mundane sideways pass to raking lobbed through balls, passes feel great and fair. I play with the default passing assist set to "1" which is essentially one notch above manual control and I found that my intended pass was the one I performed. If the pass went astray or was intercepted this felt like my fault. It wasn't until I started playing as players noted for their passing ability did I see the depth and variation to the animations within that system. Depending on the situation, players might simply pass with the inside of the foot, flick the ball behind or bend it around a defender with the outside of the foot.

The success of a football game can hinge on the balance between shooting and it's goalkeepers. Whether or not you like that dynamic this year is probably down to everyone's personal preference and possibly how you play the game. The shooting is undoubtably great. A powerful accurate shot is dependent on the player's ability, the player's body position in relation to the ball and the target as well as how you aim. If you're able to hit a dipping volley in to the top corner from 25 yards with Patrice Evra you can claim take the credit. At the same time, miss from six yards with only the keeper to beat then it's your own fault. Your body position was wrong. Too much power. Go play Mario Kart.

A decent shot becomes forgetable if you don't trust your goalkeeper though. For the most part, the changes to goalkeeping this year are positive. The new physicality system means that if a keeper attempts to claim a cross through a crowd of players you are more likely to flap at the punch and create a problem for your defence than claim the ball clearly. Powerful shots aimed straight at the keeper can be parried in to the path of goal poachers. The likes of Cech, Neur and Courtois are capable of pulling off incredible saves, particularly at top difficulty settings. However, poor to average goalkeepers offer little resistance. At lower difficulty settings this is exacerbated. This isn't much of a problem in singleplayer where you can ramp up the difficulty to create more of a challenge. In myClub however, PES' variation of FIFA's Ultimate Team, the default goalkeepers are useless. Poor stats make these folk chocolate teapots - you should make improving that position a priority if you want to avoiding conceding 4 or 5 goals every game.

I'd really been hoping for a return of Peter Brackley for the 20th anniversy of PES/ISS - nope. Not this year. . PES have instead replaced Jon Champion with Peter Drury. Drury, for better or worse, gives it his all. The guy's Twitter handle is @Football_Poet and he managed to bring that Grade A pretentiousness to Konami's recording studio...by shouting. A lot. Every time I've scored I'm reaching to turn the volume down on my speakers. There's only so many times you can hear "FRANCESCO TOTTI IS A GENIUS!!!" in one game before deciding never to play as Roma again.

This isn't game breaking. In fact, this year the overall presentation has improved in terms of how the game replicates TV coverage of the sport. Intro sequences are finally back, the camera tracks the players and staff from the tunnel to the pitch as Drury reads out the starting line up. It's a massive improvement on PES 2015 where the omission of any sort of intro sequence was unforgiveable.

There's no new addition in terms of game modes. myClub returns and the Master League has been given a facelift. At the time of writing this I've not yet started a Master League. My reasoning is that I refuse to start a Master League until the player transfers have been updated. As it stands it's the 21st of September and there still hasn't been any sort of transfer patch. Konami - If your game isn't ready or up to date please delay it. An annual football release should contain up to date transfers/player stats and I shouldn't have to manually input that detail myself or ask a 3rd party to develop it for me. This isn't just Konami doing this but it's a problem and is dissapointing.

Another thing that remains from previous releases is the dreadful online integration. Konami need to ask themselves whether "Establishing Communications" and "Testing Network Enviroment" really need to dominate your online experience before you get in to a game. FIFA is streaks ahead when it comes to implementing online play. You really need to put up with this if you're going to find any enjoyment online. Thankfully i've had very lit lag in gameplay in either myClub or Online Divisions so far.

In terms of performance - I have it running at 60fps and at 1080p on a GTX 570. If anything it runs slightly smoother than PES 2015 did. There's no longer any annoying pop-in of players faces which was a big problem last year. The textures of the kits and faces are a slight improvement on last year but this is without doubt technically inferior to the PS4 release on every level graphically.

Overall - if you can't look past Konami's decision to ♥♥♥♥ on you for being a PC gamer you probably are not going to buy this now anyway. If you can look past that though you'll find what I think is the best football game for almost 10 years (if you exclude the PS4 version of the same game).

Just one more game...

Micro Machines on legs. And in lycra.

Someone buy it. I'm lonely and it's epic.

I'm too scared to play this.