Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 will officially be released In Europe on September 15th, a full two weeks before EA releases its own FIFA 17 title.
With PES 2017 soon to hit the shelves, the official demo has now been released for PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360, featuring nine playable teams; Arsenal, Atlético Madrid, Barcelona, Boca Juniors, Corinthians, Flamengo, France, Germany and River Plate.
This year Konami has been able to secure an official partnership with Spanish giants FC Barcelona, granting them exclusive use of the club’s Camp Nou stadium in their Pro Evolution Soccer titles. This partnership is big news for the future of PES and demonstrates Konami’s commitment and dedication to the Pro Evolution Soccer series, striving to keep taking the games forward and adding further authenticity and realism. The Camp Nou stadium features in this demo, as does the fictional Neu Sonne Arena.
The Barcelona deal is big news for Konami, but what’s more exciting than anything here is the Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 gameplay. When playing the PES 2017 demo, the individual identities of the teams included in the demo are abundantly apparent; Atlético Madrid play very much like their real-life counterparts, Barcelona play a fast and fluid football game and are extremely potent on the attack with their MSN strikeforce, whilst Arsenal… Well, Arsenal struggle to score goals.
Even when you play out a 0-0 draw in this demo, it feels like you’ve been involved in a real battle and the game is a lot of fun to play. Aesthetically the game certainly doesn’t look as appealing as EA’s FIFA titles and some of the animations are a little on the clunky side, but it’s very hard to find fault with the gameplay itself and surely that’s a major factor in why most people choose to play video games. Sure, in a perfect world we’d have a game that both looks and plays beautifully, but the PES 2017 graphics are far from terrible anyway and the gameplay just feels incredibly authentic.
FIFA 17 will no doubt have a more thriving online community and there will surely be a strong argument for owning both games, but based on the Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 Demo, Konami’s PES 2017 title is definitely a football game to be taken seriously and should be a huge amount of fun to play. If you’ve not yet taken the time to download the PES 2017 demo then I’d definitely recommend doing so. PES 2016 was an impressive game with an excellent offline gameplay experience, and with PES 2017 Konami seem to have taken an already very solid football game and made it even better.
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
