One of the chief concerns thrown the way of the PES series is the lack of some crucial licenses for teams, which leave gaping holes in the line-up. To be fair to Konami, this is not entirely their fault. EA own the exclusive rights to the German Bundesliga and Konami are only allowed to license two English top flight teams in each game, due to an agreement that EA has with the Premiership. Another EA agreement also prohibits Konami using any of the MLS teams in its game’s, so disappointment is ahead for anyone who was expecting LA Galaxy to make an appearance. However, these issues do not account for some of the other peculiarities in the team selection. Konami have licensed Spartak and Lokomotiv Moscow, but have left out the star-packed CSKA Moscow and Russian league champions Zenit Saint Petersburg. In another strange twist, River Plate and Internacional are in the game, but their two fiercest rivals, Boca Juniors and Sao Paulo are not included, despite being in last year’s game. These exclusions may seem a trivial point to some, but it is frustrating for long time PES players to see teams taken away every time new ones are added and for certain teams to constantly be overlooked for inclusion.

This would not be so much of an issue if the extensive Edit Mode seen in the PS2 iterations of the series had carried over to the PS3 version. Thankfully, the Edit Mode does at least make an appearance in PES2008, unlike the borked 360 version of PES6 last year, but it is still severely crippled in comparison to the PS2 Edit Mode. Although Konami have added the ability to import images from a camera to be used for player faces and the front of club kits, they have limited the number of kits and faces that can be edited in this manner. When this is combined with the new inability to write on the kits or edit club emblems, it quickly becomes clear that the edit mode is not particularly useful for anything other than getting home and away kits in the game for the English Premiership’s top four. Just to tempt fans, Konami have left eighteen free slots to create new teams, but have then failed to give us the options necessary to  create anything functional, rendering them almost entirely pointless.

Just to wrap up the negativity for now, the online portion is, at this current time, almost unplayable. Players and the ball warp around the field at will and the two participants can often be seeing entirely different games unfolding in front of them. Konami have promised to release a patch to rectify these issues in the near future, but until then the online game should be avoided at all costs.