Hello all, it’s /u/Saadieman here or as know on the steam chat White Wolf and I’m going to request a game.

Most of you know me as one of the biggest Witcher fans, which is true, and would say “you already own TW3 and the Expansion Pack, what are you going to request now?” and then I will answer, PES 2016. Pro Evolution Soccer 2016.

Soccer?!

Yeah, Soccer. I also don’t know why it’s called soccer and not football but I don’t care about it that much since I call it PES or Pro Evo. But besides that, yep I love football/soccer. I’ve played it since I was young with my father(physically) and still play it with my friends(physically). I’ve played FIFA 2002(PC) when I was young and I’m still playing PES 15(PC). And between those two I’ve spent weeks, if not months, of my life for football/soccer. So I’m a huge Witcher fan but also a huge football fan. I’ve played it and gamed it and (almost)always loved every minute of it!

The Past

My first interaction with football was when I was just 4, I was playing against my dad in our backyard and I lost with 9-10 or something. But what I did afterwards just kept coming back my whole life. I cried, I shouted but above all I hated it. I couldn’t stand losing. I really had to win and because my dad isn’t so nice(still love him) he always pushed me to my limits just to let me lose! Even though I really disliked losing I just kept playing against him and never gave up, and to this day this still occurs. After I had discovered the magic of the PC when I was ~6 the first game I could play was Fifa 2002. I always started world cup mode and tried to win it. Yet I never won it. I played as Brazil, France, England, Spain, Portugal, Argentina and Germany but never won. I reached the finals with Brazil but I lost. But then...I played as Italy. To this day I still remember how I won the finals! It was the seventieth minute when Francesco Totti received the ball at the halfway line. He ran towards the goal but when he had just 20 meter between him and the goal he let the ball leave his foot. And how it went in…That moment was just a huge explosion of my emotions I cried, laughed, shouted and even danced, but then I realised that I still had to play the other 20 minutes before I had won the cup. But I was so determined to win it for the first time in my life that I wouldn’t let it slip. And it didn’t. That moment was the start of everything, my love for football, my love for Francesco Totti and my love for AS Roma(his club) Since that moment I knew that I loved the game they call football.

Since then

I played Fifa 2002 till the year 2005. At that moment I switched to PES series. My uncle gifted me PES 5 saying that PES is better than Fifa. At that moment I was still a kid and didn’t really care as long as I could play football. And damn what was it hard to go from Fifa 2002 to PES 5, I literally lost every game and couldn’t score because the mechanics and controls were different(That’s because I went from PC to Xbox) I even began hating to play it because I was losing almost all the time. But when I thought I’d quit it the same uncle gave me one very valuable tip; “Every game has a soft spot, for PES 5 it’s that Henry is way to good. Try shooting everything with him.” And yes, he was right. I scored almost everything with him. And because I scored so much I began to love the game. And when I began to love it I became better and scored with other players as well. And that’s when my love for the game returned. I played PES 5 for a year or 2 but then discovered a very different game. Super Mario Strikers for the gamecube. And being the child I was I loved the arcade style of the game. I played it with friend and family and began loving it even more than the PES I had. But as you know, nothing lasts for ever. It was 2008 when I saw UEFA Champions League 2006–2007 for €5 in a game shop. Even though I still loved Super Mario Strikers I had to buy this. After begging for some money I bought it and played it on my PC. And by the gods, what a beautiful game it was. It had scenarios where you were dropped in the game in the 70th minute and had to draw while being 2-0 behind. It was so addicting to try it and I played it almost every day. That is, until I got a DS Lite somewhere in 2009 with Fifa 09. And again I found a new game I could enjoy for days but this changed very quickly because of the quality. It was literally a potato in terms of quality. Even PES 5 looked better than Fifa 09 so I quitted it after a half-year(If I recall correctly) and went back to Mario Party. It took me almost 2 years to try another football game. Pro Evolution Soccer 2011.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 and 2013

And hands-down, this beauty is one of the best soccer game I’ve ever played. I got it for my 360 and I literally played it till I had all the achievements, won the league title 6 times as a manager and 8 times as a player.(Different modes, so I won the league title 14 times in total). Won the Champions League 7 times, 3 as a manager and 4 as a player. Won the cup almost everytime and also the World Cup for clubs. As a player I grabbed the ballon d’or(for the best player in the world) 4 times and the best player of Europe 6 times. I grabbed the World and European Championship each one time for my country as a player. Long story short; I won everything. I did everything. But most important, I enjoyed everything. I enjoyed this game so much that when I bought PES 2012 I still played 2011. It took PES 2013 to make me focus on one game again.

It may seem to you as if I skipped 2012 but I still got a fair amount of playtime on that one, I even got about 60% of the achievements. But it was Pro Evo 2013 which led me concentrate on one game again. I don’t know what it was but it was just like 11 but better. That’s why I still don’t know whether 11 or 13 is better. The only thing I know though is that I still play thirteen on my 360 whenever I’ve got some leftover time and ain’t too lazy to connect it to my television. What happened in 2011 also happened in 2013. I won every prize there was available to win and enjoyed every moment of it. But what made me play 2013 even more was the fact that when PES 14 came out, it was made on a new engine and thus was again very different for me. I was quite optimistically but when I tried out the demo I literally sucked. I sucked so hard that I quitted it and skipped 2014. And that’s why I played 2013 even more than 2011. I played it for a solid 2 years while being an “adult”(or at least not a child anymore) and thus I knew what I was doing and was content with it. But when I got bored of 2013 I got 2015 for(at that moment) my new PC. And once again I fell in love with the game.

Now

To start with some stats, Here is my stats page I always play my matches on 10 minutes at least. So a small touch of math reveals that I’ve played it for 75 hours. 10 x 448 = 4480(minutes) / 60 = 74,67. So to be precise 74 hours and 40 minutes. And this is pure gameplay, so not afking in the menus or making my starting eleven. This game was kinda bare but it still had the biggest weapon of PES. It had some perfect gameplay. You had control of almost everything in the game. If you wanted your team to pressure more you could do that, if you wanted your left winger to always stay behind when attacking from the right side you could make that real. That’s what made PES 2015 so amazing but also so “normal”. If they just would overhaul the Manager Mode I always play...but wait...what have they done in 16?

Love the past, play the future

The new slogan of PES 16 is Love the past, play the future. If you were still wondering why I described my intense love for the PES series then here’s your answer. I loved the past and can’t wait to play the future. Why you might ask, well because they are celebrating their twentieth birthday! I’ve talked enough over why I loved and played the past, time to talk about playing the future.

Pros

Realism

There’s one thing which is definitely improved. The realism of the game. They’ve introduced an enhanced collision system where you won’t get some crazy glitches where the player flies 5 meters before hitting the ground or where one player carries the other one on his back and runs with him on it. No, players react right according to the moment and or action. See this. The player which scores(Willian) jumps over the defender and has to jump again over the goalie but can’t do this very well because he’s not balanced enough after shooting the ball. In older games he would just run through them after scoring or fly because after scoring the animation for celebrating a goal would be activated or the collision system and the goal celebrating system would collide.

Another point are the duels for the ball. A player like Luka Modric(1,74 m) won’t win a header from Zlatan Ibrahimovic(1,95 m). Neither would he be able to get Zlatan from the ball just by using his physics, he would really need to slide or tackle him before he would be able to get the ball.

The third point, every players acts different. Where an Arjen Robben would try to run down the right side and then come in and try to curl the shot into the far left corner whereas a Neymar will try to enter the 16 metres box and try to get in by using his trick moves. Besides acting different every player also has a much better AI. If you run forwards with a defender your midfielder will fall back to fill the gap. But also the fact that when you are playing the first 45 minutes under a cloudy stadium and then go to your dressing room you can encounter rain when entering the stadium again. And what happens when you are playing on a wet field? The ball rolls further, you lose your grip and thus are more likely to slip, when sliding you slide further and the ball won’t bounce as much as it did on dry grass.

New

One of the new things in PES are the goal celebrations. Before PES 2016 your celebration was decided, 9/10 times you’d do one of the standard 5 and if your player had his “own” celebration like this one of Ronaldo he would do that one. But in PES 16 you can do what Fifa had already implemented for a long time. You can decide your own celebration by pressing a combination of buttons. A very nice one was this one in PES and this one in real. As you can see, this is a combination of both realism and a new technique. But what’s even more important is that it’s Totti! Another one which is both new and realistic is the fact that you won’t encounter rain in the first 45 minutes but can encounter it for the other 45 minutes. I placed it just a few lines above this line under the Realism point. But, for me, the best new item is the overhaul of Master League. My gamemode.

Master League

Every single element has gone under a complete overhaul, redesigned or reworked, from the vibrant and involving menus to the new and exciting player transfer system. Thanks to the passion shown from our fans, PES 2016 will bring a whole new single player experience as we see one of the most integral modes of the series completely redefined. - Konami

These words are very promising. I know that you shouldn’t believe everything they say but they backed this up with some nice gameplay videos which show that there is definitely a change. The whole menu is different. Where it was kinda basic and boring it’s now a lot more active with a ‘news site’, a calendar standings and goal ranking on the “homepage”. Also thanks to the news site you’ll get to know what’s happening around the world and what players want to say after a game. That’s very interesting to see instead of the casual menu I see now. And one of the best things of PES Master League is that when you sign a player or when a player wins an award you’ll get to see a small cutscene where you’ll see the player performing some tricks or being very happy.

Scouting has also been improved. Where you would have a great team in PES 15 your scout would still come up with some really bad players which could be great for your team. In PES 16 this has been improved so that the scout will only choose players who are a real boost for your team if you state so. If you say that you want just young players with unlimited potential he will collect them for you. The scout also has a place in the staff and helps you to find players who are in great shape, in your team, and thus could become better with just enough training and he can also tell which players are getting all the love from the fans. After playing enough games players can also “level” for the fans. Think of this, if a player played 500 games for one club he will be a club legend. And when you’re playing next to a club legend you’ll receive a little bonus. Just that little extra that the legend “gives” you. This happens in real but also in the game.

There are also a lot of new features for another gamemode, myclub, but I never tried it. This is mainly because I never had live on the 360 and thus couldn’t try it. So I won’t try to “describe” it.

Con

Of course nothing is perfect, except The Witcher, and the biggest con of PES 16 are the same as in 15.

The goalies

The goalie is not always as smart as his teammates. Where your midfielder would fill up the gap when a defender leaves his line the goalie has trouble catching the ball sometimes. I’ve seen this a lot in PES 15 and it can really affect your game. I don’t even know how this is possible because sometimes your goalie will punch the ball away even if he has time to catch it or do something else with it. And to make it even worse, he sometimes even punches the ball towards the opposition who then just needs to score while there is no goalie in the goal. This really sucks but it also happens at Fifa, the only other competitor. More about that later.

The licenses

The licenses is something almost everything knows. PES doesn’t have the right license for the league of England, Barclays Premier League, and also not for the German league, Bundesliga. The Bundesliga completely misses but the Premier League exist in some weird form, you’ve got the real player names but the wrong kits and names for the teams. But for this problem we’ve got the mod team. Konami is very kind towards the PC Gamers and let us edit almost everything. Therefore you can edit the Bundesliga and the real player names and kits for the Premier League. That’s why I don’t care so much about this point.

Why PES 16 and not Fifa 16?

FIFA and PES are the only 2 producers of football games. I chose PES over FIFA this year because of a very small incident. I was playing the FIFA Demo when suddenly Pepe(a central defender of Real Madrid scored from 25 meters right into the goal. As far as I know this is impossible. It has never happened and would never happen because Pepe will only start attacking when Real gets a corner kick. And this wasn’t the case. As you can see I can’t stand it if something so unrealistic as this happens. But another problem of FIFA is that it doesn’t change that much. According to some FIFA players I know, personally, the only new thing this year is the fact that Women teams are now included in FIFA 16. Whereas PES overhauls one of their best gamemode(and another one a lot of people play but I didn’t get the chance for)

Why can’t I get it for myself

If you want the long story, pm me. Long story short: lived the life, got careless and had to pay for living the life that’s why I don’t have any money left.

Aren’t you asking for a pre-order?

Yes I am, and no I am not. The game will be available in under 24 hours but is already available on the PS4. So yeah, it’s still a pre-order for PC but it’s not a pre-order anymore for the PS4. If you don’t like buying a pre-order you could wait a day orso to see the reviews? I don’t know but I hope that you atleast read something which made you understand my love for the gameseries and the game itself.

Thank you for reading this.

Love the past, play the future

Saadieman