PES 2019 (PS4) – football never looked better

Back and looking more beautiful than ever, PES 2019 should be the game football fans turn to. Unfortunately in its launch day state it is marred by one glaring flaw.

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When you think about it, sports franchises are quite odd stood aside the rest of the gaming industry. Nowadays each new release carries much of the same content, the same commentators, similar menus, and, obviously the same teams and players. It does make you wonder why you keep coming back.

Perhaps most noticeably, these cross-sport titles carry little to no new features. The stalwarts of each sport – FIFA, Madden, NBA 2K – barely innovate (tip of the cap to NHL 19 and it’s World of CHEL), and why would they when sales figures remain strong?



Essentially, sport franchises are waiting for Fortnite’s Battle Royale moment – something to truly revolutionise the genre rather than an annual battle for league licences.


Until then, we’re sort of stuck in a perpetual year-round review of games that are largely very similar and only offer the consumer gameplay tweaks here and there. And as ever, on the football pitch we’re left to decide; PES or FIFA?

That question produces the very same answers as the year before and the year before that though. PES is stunning and allows a tactical brand of football, while FIFA has the licences, the authenticity and an addictive Ultimate Team mode.

On both fronts, there isn’t much new to grab you. myClub has been revamped and improved, while Master League does give managers more to negotiate with but that’s mostly the extent of it. So the debate ends up boiling down to what best represents your interests, leaving PES’s licensing issues as one of its biggest turn-offs, even if in real terms it’s negligible with the community pushing out datapack releases.

We got our hands on the game at Gamescom and came away enthralled by the latest edition of the Konami classic. It felt gratifying, it looked superb and everything that was great in PES 2018 seemed more refined and polished.

The difficulty with hands-on reviews is that it’s a glimpse at a game you might be playing for a year. It’s only once you’ve sat down with it for longer than the handful of matches we played at Gamescom that you begin to discover the flaws or little touches that give games their charm.

First thing’s first, let’s talk presentation. The menus are mostly the same as ever and the navigation isn’t much different either. These are minor, often totally overlooked ‘problems’ if you’d even call them that but worth highlighting nonetheless.

The most notable positive is a by-product of PES no longer catering for last-gen consoles. The graphics are crisp and in 4K you can find yourself taking your eye off the ball to admire the quality of the turf, it’s that impressive.



The stadiums of Konami’s partner clubs also look incredible after their 3D modelling and there is no greater compliment you can pay than to say PES 2019’s Nou Camp can and will be mistaken for a real La Liga game. With more partner clubs due to be announced, this is a big win for Konami.

PES 2019 (PS4) – player likenesses are top notch

It’s nothing new to say PES trounces FIFA in the player likeness stakes too, and it again becomes all the more obvious staring at a virtual Leo Messi line-up in the tunnel. It really is as good as it gets.

The game isn’t won in the tunnel though. What happens on the pitch is what defines titles and much like our hands-on review, our opinion hasn’t changed. It plays beautifully.

PES 2019 is a more refined version of last season’s excellent effort and allows users to play a brand of football that just isn’t possible on recent FIFAs. It’s simply more lifelike than EA’s offering.

Counterintuitively that doesn’t mean everything though, and it certainly won’t bring millions of new players over from FIFA. We’ve reached a point where you buy the title that suits your idea of football and your idea of gaming. PES gets full marks for team play. You build, you recycle, you work for openings and you probe until you find them. That’s what makes it feel more real. The skill level is high – you’ll need to be a very good player just to score from outside of the box, let alone take on and beat good defenders with pace and dribbling.


However, for arcade football fans, this might be a struggle. Forget fast-paced, tricks and flicks football where you expect to take on and beat half a team with one player. That just isn’t PES, at least not at beginner level. This isn’t pinball football, it’s cerebral and demanding. It’s not pick up and play, it’s put the hours in, get the rewards.

Unfortunately, it’s all a bit too good to be true. Following extensive time with the game, a lingering concern evolved into genuine fears for this year’s title.

The artificial intelligence is a major, major problem. It can’t be stressed enough. Playing offline against the computer is an unmitigated disaster, and not for the reasons you might be thinking. This isn’t a difficulty issue, it’s a broken mechanic issue.

In its launch day state, the AI will spend 90% of its attacks sending in low crosses. That isn’t an exaggeration. This tactic is so ingrained that we have witnessed strikers clean through on goal, approach the keeper and turn and run to the touchline just to turn again and put a low cross in. It is madness.

Strikers don’t shoot unless they are 10 yards from the goal and they most certainly don’t capitalise on counter-attacks.

The word ‘gamebreaking’ is extreme but we are talking about a significant flaw in the AI that makes games against the computer tedious, predictable and totally devoid of tension when you know their forwards are only looking to get into a position to cross the ball.


The hope is that this can be patched with an early update, else our only advice would be to keep your sessions online, co-op or against friends only.

PES 2019 (PS4) – best played online

Elsewhere, the iconic Master League mode has received little by way of an upgrade, with myClub receiving the brunt of Konami’s focus for this cycle of PES. This isn’t a disaster for the title. PES’s future may well be online and it’s clear that is where Konami is pushing it as they absorb some of Ultimate Team’s better features (cards over balls, featured players of the week).

Even in PES’s darker days, it was still renowned for Master League and players such as Minanda and Castolo have gone down in legend within the community. To leave Master League virtually unchanged bar some cosmetic tweaks does PES fans a disservice, and has done for years.

When games near perfection – as PES 2018 came close to doing – the obvious question to ask is: what’s next? If you can’t drastically change the gameplay, you can polish it. When you’ve polished it, you work on other game modes, like myClub. You work on authenticity and licensing. But to leave behind and neglect staples of your franchise is disappointing.

Worse still, you wonder how a product with such an incredibly glaring fault is released. The AI issue is tragic, it makes for a poor offline experience and is truly disheartening given the huge strides the series has made. And yet, it is just the offline mode that’s subjected to this – so all is not lost.

After playing PES 2019 for almost a week, the conclusion drawn is that unless Konami address the problem and issue a fix, or at the very least a tweak, this edition of PES will not be remembered fondly. As such, we plan to re-review PES 2019 in due course, assuming a patch is released.

For now though, if it’s online, co-op or gameplay with your mates, PES 2019 is still very much worth your money and deserving of the the accolades coming its way.

PES 2019 In Short: The perfect football sim for playing your mates or tackling online but major AI flaw renders the offline experience boring and uninspiring. Pros: Looks stunning, myClub enhancements a huge positive, online play cerebral and gratifying. Cons: Major launch day flaw in the AI damages all offline modes. Score: 8/10

Formats: PlayStation 4 (reviewed), Xbox One and PC

Price: £49.99

Publisher: Konami

Developer: PES Productions

Release Date: 30th August 2018