You'll be able to test your skills online from later this year in Europe and early 2005 in the US.Ĭheck out the teaser trailer for The Little Mermaid, the upcoming live-action reimagining of the animated musical classic. Multiplayer competition is at the heart of this game and being able to challenge your friends at any time is a huge bonus. No-one would reveal anything before Game Stars Live but a quick browse of the menu revealed that the Xbox version will feature online matches and penalty shoot-outs that the PS2 version lacks, making the Xbox the console to own this on. PES4 marks the debut of the series on the Xbox, and Microsoft have scored one hell of an exclusive by being the first to bring the game online. Although many will spend most of their time playing with human opponents, the AI of both CPU opponents and teammates has received a nice boost and are now extremely astute at finding open space into which to run and will try various wily tricks to try and give their markers the slip.

Other tweaks are subtle but nonetheless further improve the gameplay as happens every year. Players who receive the ball can shield it from their markers or approaching opponents, and the more-skilled players can do this swiftly and smoothly before the defenders have a chance to even challenge for the ball. Like FIFA, close control is what has received a large proportion of the tweaking.

Chances are if you're reading this you already know how good PES is, so what you really want to know is what has changed in the last twelve months. The fluidity of gameplay and similarity to how a real soccer match plays are often cited as the reasons for the Zen-like devotion that some people display when perfecting their skills, and all of the gameplay of PES3 is intact for this iteration. FIFA may be more commercially popular but PES is undoubtedly the better game as any of its growing ranks of devotees will tell you.

Despite the lack of variety in their games on display, the fact that the booth was consistently packed to capacity shows the popularity of PES, and having played it it's not hard to see why.

Pro Evolution Soccer 4