- Game: Pro Evolution Soccer 2 (2002)
- Developer: Konami
- Platform: PlayStation 2
Boom-boom tshh. Boom-boom tshh.
Buddy, you’re a boy, make a big noise
Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday
You got mud on your face, you big disgrace
Kicking your can all over the place, singin’
We will, we will rock you
We will, we will rock you.
What you read above is not just the words of one of the most inspirational songs of all time: it’s the sound that serves simultaneously as honorable background and motto for one of the most cherished intros of any sports game ever released.
I know it is probably an harsh exercise for today’s youth to understand how important it was for a game to really nail its own introduction; in an age where people are constantly bombarded with all kinds of media on all devices, produced by agents ranging from billion-dollar multinational companies to your average man or woman, a video is just a video and a song is just a song, both to be consumed as a more elegant way of scratching an itch.
Plus, when it comes to gaming, all products can now be forever tweaked and tuned over time through patching/DLCs; back then, developers had one chance to get it right as their games hit the stands: which, comprehensibly, dictated that all efforts had to be allocated towards building the best possible simulation one could create from the get-go – no dicking around with promises of updates nor patches. Here, the role of a well-done intro is fundamental: it sets the tone for the experience the gamer will take part of, back when Youtubes or Instagrams didn’t exist and you couldn’t play a FIFA game while listening to a PES soundtrack on Spotify before pausing the game to check your Snapchat – but wait, there’s twenty insta stories and thousands of unread tweets and many Facebook notifications. Uff, modern life is complicated…!
PES2 goes all-out-attack and produces a spectacular opening sequence, helped by the musical masterminds of Queen, featuring football as a worldwide phenomenon, played and admired by everyone from younger to older, white to black, rich or poor. From the discreet and unpopular training sessions to the big matchday witnessed by millions; from the scrappy, intense moments played as mud and the pouring rain set the scene, to the wonderful skills and goals that make the stadium roar in exhilaration: it’s the essence of football encapsulated in just two minutes. As the iconic “We Will Rock You” solo comes to an end, before the curtain falls, an ambitious promise is made:
They will rock you.
Well, in the end, did they?
I dug in to find the answer.
PES2 was my first-ever PlayStation2 game – the first of many! – so, naturally, one would expect me to retain the loving memory of having enjoyed such an important milestone on my gaming ‘career’. While I do remember playing countless matches controlling Portugal’s National Team – PES2 was the last of the ISS/PES games which didn’t have at least the three most popular Portuguese clubs; Portugal’s team was indeed all I had back then…-, when it comes to the actual footballing experience itself, I hardly remembered anything. This is strange, for I absolutely recalled with precision the gameplay and graphics of both previous iterations such as ISS Pro Evo, as well as subsequent ones like PES3. Now, given PES2 is one of the least popular retro-PES iterations of the classic-PES era (PES on the PS2), my expectations for this particular retro venture were quite low. I went in with an open mind, and prepared myself to be disappointed.
For some reason, I was convinced that the game only had National Teams available to play outside the Master League mode – the latter, naturally, provided the opportunity to control and play against them. I was wrong: those clubs can participate on all remaining game modes as well. The selection is limited to a bunch of the best teams of the world – PES only introduced full, real football leagues two years later in PES4. PES2 features a wide selection of players with real names, as well as many others whose fake names you’ll be able to identify more often than not, providing your knowledge of early 00’s football is somewhat comprehensible. Unlike on later editions, those fake names are not wildly creative, hence the Ivan Bocordas (Ivan Cordoba) and Cisbans (Biscan) and Gigsi (Giggs). Moreover, the legendary Oranges are also present: a collection of (real) Dutch players whose names are not “Konamized” as the ones I mentioned above; rather, every single one of them has what I can only describe as a personalized “series number” after “Oranges”: Oranges001, Oranges002, Oranges003…what certainly was a licensing issue produced one of the most iconic things about the Pro Evo series.
I choose to play my first PES2 match in certainly more than fifteen years (!) as…Portugal, unsurprisingly. Fernando Couto, Rui Costa, Figo, all of them in their prime: what a team. The chosen venue is Porto Folio, which was exactly the first stadium I played my first-ever PES2 match in, also using Portugal. This is the closest anyone has ever been to creating a time machine.
The sun shines bright as both teams enter the Yokohama International Stadium, which of course is Porto Folio’s unlicensed name in real life. Right away I notice how remarkably decent the graphics look, particularly the lighting. Though PES3 would end up improving some visual aspects later on, particularly the player faces’ design, I have to admit that PES2 is probably the classic-PES game whose graphics have “aged” the best – yes, I know, games don’t “age” because they’re not human, so they don’t get wrinkles nor talk incessantly on family gatherings; what I mean is, it’s obvious that with the limited technology that the developers had back then, they were successful in reproducing an environment that rightfully passes as the real deal. Later classic-era PES games, perhaps pushing too hard to get the most out of the potential of the PS2, unintentionally ruined a lot of the nice aesthetics that early PES PS2 titles produced. In PES2, however, the visuals are impressive enough without putting too much pressure on the console to run it.
Even the player faces and models are very well done; there’s something to them that was progressively lost over the classic-PES years, particularly as player likenesses began to feel rushed – especially for the less popular footballers, while most are surprisingly decent in PES2 – and for some reason the player physiques were changed into a much bulkier, totally unrealistic type – contemporary FIFA also developed this stocky fetish, so it was definitely a (strange) trend. Fortunately, PES2’s footballers actually look like the slim professional athletes they should be; and if you consider how lifelike many of their faces are, as well as the above-mentioned stellar visuals, you get a football game that was graphically ahead of its time, and one that manages to survive the passage of time for how easy on the eye it is.
Now, the tricky part: the gameplay, the football. This makes or breaks a football game, rendering all other aspects useless. Was it because of a poor gameplay experience that I had completely forgotten about PES2 over the years? I feared so. But as the ball starts to roll on the beautiful Porto Folio pitch, I am astonished to find that I really enjoy the brand of football put forth by Pro Evo 2.
One of the things that are obvious after the first few minutes of play is how similar the overall ebb and flow of the game is to that of the ISS Pro Evo series – and if you’ve been reading the Libero long enough, you know how highly I regard it, especially the first iteration of those. Even the player animations still resemble a lot of that PS1 ISS/PES that completely catapulted the series to stardom back in the day; PES2 is definitely the last of those ISS Pro Evo-ized iterations, as from PES3 onwards, a new fundamental footballing identity began to take shape. Here, we understand one of the reasons why PES2 is one of the “black sheep” of classic-PES: it honestly looks and plays like a modernized version of ISS Pro Evo – even if ISS PE’s default game speed was definitely not as frantic as that of the (sadly unchangeable) PES2; beyond the visual “facelift” and the more realistic animations, the core of its footballing brand remains exactly the same. And since Konami had been recurrently setting the bar stupendously high, football gamers expected a proper footballing revolution to take place after the PS1-PS2 transition, something that just didn’t happen before PES3 carved an identity of its own and put the Evolution in Pro Evolution Soccer by finally taking the next step in football gaming – PES1 and PES2 ended up merely helping that transitive process.
But one of the many advantages of going retro is that one can appreciate each game for what it brings to the table: and in this particular case, while in the past PES2 could have been disappointing for having failed to deliver that much-expected revolution I spoke of; in the present day, however, I am not bound by any of that: so, Pro Evo 2 as a modernized ISS Pro Evo is actually an interesting footballing offer for any football gaming enthusiast.
And so, being a descendant of the ISS Pro Evo footballing brand, it’s no surprise that PES2 feels a lot like playing football “on rails”, even more so than usual – much more than on PES3 and subsequent iterations of the series. This system worked beautifully for early PES/ISS Pro titles, and it does so on PES2 as well; this gives you the feeling that at any moment, regardless of the player you’re controlling, you might lose possession either because of an intercepted pass or an opponent’s tackle. The same goes for the CPU as well. Even the likes of Zidane, Totti or Rui Costa sometimes have trouble making it in this system, one that seems to favor both the speedsters and the physically stronger players. Yet, while in ISS Pro Evo those midfield maestros had an obvious influence on the play during long periods of play, in PES2 the rigidness of the player controls when in possession prevent these stars to truly shine as they should – of course they’re still as threatening as ever, but don’t be surprised if the Emile Mpenza-like speedsters or the Jan Koller-type panzers steal their thunder often.
This rigid “on-rails” football might not be very welcoming for most, but it’s undeniable that it somehow finds a way of realistically depicting the hardships of top-tier professional football. Ever since PES3 up until the modern day, developers have focused more on allowing the gamer to step in the shoes of football players, making sure those are depicted as skillful as they are known to be in real life – generally at the cost of infantilizing the experience itself, because the sport is much more of a complex, highly-tactical team game rather than an individual talent show. Pre-PES3, however, it seems that the focus of, in this case, Konami, was to create a realistic simulation of the sport itself. Therefore, PES2 is arguably the last game of the PES series to feature one of the notions I have applauded the most in ISS Pro Evo: the idea of virtual football not just as entertainment, but as a teaching experience (years later, PES5 tried to re-introduce this concept in its gameplay and was close to recapturing that magic…close, but no cigar!). Using a speed burst with your big, bulky, 60-agility CB when building up play from the back? The game will punish you severely and instantly. Recklessly sending a through pass with Triangle when on the midfield? Bring out the electric chair. Abusing the R1 speed burst when on defense? Life sentence. PES2 will keep kicking you until you finally understand how to properly simulate real-life football, and until you stop doing stupid things from a top-tier football perspective. PES2 is the last of a line of merciless bullies, a relic of a bygone era that was succeeded by the rise of the idea of football gaming for everyone, from the tactical mastermind, long-time football fan to your girlfriend who has never played a football game in her life and just wants to share your hobby to please you.
Perhaps that is why PES2 felt like one of the hardest retro-PES games for me to adapt to. It takes time to understand exactly what works and what doesn’t; and even when you finally get it, you’re still one slip up away from getting kicked in the balls yet again. This, in addition to the rigidness of player movement, are probably the two fundamental reasons why PES2 has missed out on the retro-PES frenzy so far. Don’t expect a warm welcoming committee as you enter the world of Pro Evo 2, rather pray that you’re able to make it out with all of your limbs intact.
The ball physics of PES2 are quite special. It features what is possibly the heaviest ball of all ISS/PES iterations. You can almost feel how hard it must be for your virtual footballer to find a way to move it around, particularly when shooting, as it looks like an almost superhuman effort is needed just to lift it off the ground. Still, surprisingly, this doesn’t affect the overall realism of the ball’s behaviour, unlike for example that of PES6 in which its very much inflated weight ruins the realism of long passes, clearances, some shots and deflections as well. On PES2, the trajectory of the ball has a more pronounced, lifelike arch when airborne – how I love those rugby-style punt-like clearances with the Square button; I must’ve murdered countless virtual birds with this ‘technique’!…- which gives a distinct appeal to aired through balls and long passes, as well as those archaic clearances, because for a moment, you get to witness a different aspect of the complex ball physics of PES2, and not just the weighty heavy football the game plays when the ball is on the pitch.
Perhaps the truly problematic element of the movement of the ball is the shooting. At least, the game’s system is coherent: you need to apply more power to your shots – much more than on the vast majority of retro-PES games – if you want to avoid sending in a laughably weak, timid attempt on scoring a goal. This takes a while to get used to, especially given that on a number of retro-PES iterations, sometimes even a slight tap on the Square button is enough to produce an airborne, strong shot. Here, not so much. I have to say I agree with this system, anyway. A powerful shot requires more often than not more preparation on the shooter’s behalf, as more time is spent on applying the increased amount of pressure on the ball. That should translate to the player having to fill more of the power bar to achieve that kind of potent shot; whereas a weaker attempt needs less power and less preparation.
If this idea is correctly implemented on most types of shots, long attempts are pretty disappointing. Whether it’s because of the lack of proper player animations to perform the action, or the action itself is not built-in properly, it is a struggle to hit the goal from distance, as most shots either end up massively under-powered or way wide – at times, simultaneously! On one hand, I applaud the concept of upping the difficulty on such a complex footballing moment, especially given that in later classic-PES games, quite often it looked as if the ball had an automatic aim towards the goal; yet in PES2 this is too exaggerated, to the point where many long attempts will even look ridiculously bad, especially if the shot you’re trying to do would have to trigger a player animation that just doesn’t exist in the game.
I was surprised to see how decent the AI is. PES2 absolutely does not break the beautiful tradition of the ISS Pro Evo days and presents a game which remains as challenging as it ever was on both ends of the pitch. As a result, and this did become one of the fundamentals behind ISS/PES’ success, every match is unpredictable and dynamic: not only it is impossible to know what the following encounter will bring to the table, on just 90 virtual minutes of play, the footballing “tides” change with that exact same unpredictability, leaving the player on a realistically chaotic environment which is so typical of the beautiful game.
Offensively speaking, I found that our esteemed computer adversary is competent enough to keep us guessing, exploring the whole pitch when both building up play and creating chances, switching between long/short passes, solo runs and team efforts, crosses and tiki-taka-like plays – the younger player might be a bit astonished with the amount of long balls played, but believe me, before the Guardiola-ization of football, the sport was actually played like that more often than not! Still, the magic of Pro Evo is that one never knows what might happen. On an European Cup in which I controlled Norway, I was able to beat the mighty Italy (Nesta, Cannavaro, Totti, Del Piero…a scary team indeed) 2-0, managing to create more chances than them, dominating the entire match. On the next one, I was trashed by Olisadebe’s Poland (0-3), a much weaker side. Then, I ended up meeting Italy again later on in the competition and was rightfully eliminated after a horrible 0-4 defeat. Indeed, you’ll have a few matches which will raise some doubts about PES2’s attacking AI, but you’ll eventually see it’s just the simulation attempting to reproduce a “bad day” for otherwise influential attackers. Yet, even on those bad days, I don’t think I’ve ever had a PES5-like encounter in which the CPU barely gets any attempts on goal, so one always has a challenge when facing the machine in this game.
Defensively, the game is competent though not brilliant – a recurrent PES theme, indubitably. The CPU is active on trying to deny passing lanes, and is often able to intercept passes as a result; plus, it is competent when it comes to reduce or eliminate space to the player controlling the ball, sometimes even bringing an extra one or, rarely, two individuals to help. Yet, as usual in the PES series, at times you’ll see even the best players committing themselves to questionable, if not downright strange footballing decisions, which were not that common in the ISS Pro Evo series – though it had to work with less impressive tech than PES2 on the PS2. Much of the defensive stability of the teams in this game seems to be due not only to the effect of the players’ attributes on the simulation but also due to the formations and tactics each team employs; unlike on later editions of the classic-PES era, here, the AI is not that dynamic when it comes to “allow” CPU-controlled players to find a collective solution to a defensive problem, even if that means getting out of position to cover some space that needs to be dealt with. PES2 is much more rigid on this regard so the importance of finding a balanced formation is very much pronounced on both sides of the pitch.
A very important aspect of any football game’s AI is the goalkeeper behaviour, which was one of the few criticisms the general audience had towards the brilliant iterations of classic-PES. For some reason, I saw a lot of beautiful – and rather helpful! – keeper animations that just aren’t present in neither of the subsequent PES PS2 titles, not even its immediate successor PES3, particularly a few where the goalkeeper truly realistically dives for the ball, using the whole of his extended body to make a save: after PES2, these were replaced by a much stiffer movement, making it look as if the keeper is not really giving his best to stop the shot. Surely this is why the keepers in PES2 are often superb, much more helpful and trustworthy than on most retro-PES editions: they have the proper tools here. However, as is typical in the whole history of PES games, they might put out a couple of impossible saves and then in the next play, they’ll fail to stop an obviously simple shot, either because the right player animation was not triggered or because the simulation itself failed to recognize exactly what was going on at that time, failing to react properly. Also – and it seems PES3 corrected this later on – they’ll at times struggle with spatial awareness, not so much on crosses and long/through balls but rather on one-on-ones – an area in which retro-PES typically shines, even on iterations where the goalkeeper animations were far from stellar. Fortunately for the overall health of this title, their stupendous animations somewhat mitigate this issue.
Speaking of player animations, PES2 is not as technically advanced on this regard as it should be when compared to ISS Pro Evo titles. In fact, generally, again it looks like it’s basically ISS PE, now on the PS2. If I couldn’t criticize that admirable iteration for how modern it was for its context, it’s a bit disappointing to see that PES2 couldn’t demonstrate any palpable improvement over that older title. This game deserved more. It’s no surprise then that often found myself trying to perform some footballing action that the game just didn’t have an animation for, such a thing barely happens on later titles like PES3. Still, as in most classic-PES games, regardless of how many player animations there are, almost all of the player movements are faithfully recreated; here too PES2 totally pulverized its competition.
The condiments have been checked. Time to taste the footballing soup.
One of the secrets of the classic-PES era’s success is the realistic effect of the players’ attributes on the action. I found that PES2 is no exception to this rule, and can truly be included in the bunch of games in which those player stats matter the most. No, it’s not purely mathematical, the overall best team won’t always beat the worse – things such as player condition/fitness and match momentum are part of the equation – but if you want a game where an individual’s stats-sheet is truly visibly translated onto the pitch, PES2 has to be on your list. So, it’s fair to say that this soup is not savorless at all; it is vivid, dynamic and authentic – even more so if you compare this simulation with its contemporary rivals, which were several light-years away from PES’ greatness. Here, strong players are strong, agile players are agile, slow players are slow, and the most talented ones are obviously better than the rest. If that wasn’t already enough to fulminate PES’ competition, the AI considers the players’ attributes when choosing what action it shall perform on the pitch controlling each individual. So expect an older Prosinecki (on his way to retirement) to save his energy and dictate the play with his tremendous technical skills, expect speedster Mbo Mpenza to try to beat the defense with solo (unbelievably fast) runs often, and expect utterly all-around unimpressive players to be totally overwhelmed and fail to participate in any important way on the match being played. Players not only have skills and defects, they have proper footballing identities.
After a while of playing this game, I started noticing how similar its rhythm feels like to that of a much more recent PES iteration, PES2010. Both have the same “on-rails” footballing system and almost everything that happens on the pitch is a bit too fast, at times scratching the arcade-y ceiling – curiously, in both games, the only thing that seems to have a more realistic pace to it is when a player controlling the ball is abruptly changing the direction of his run. A recurrent theme in classic-PES titles is that the rhythm of the match is almost always as intense as the quality of the teams facing each other is; tone it down to a Australia-Wales or Saudi Arabia-Northern Ireland and the frantic pace shan’t be there, given the lack of talent on either end will force both the player and the CPU to take more time to produce their attacking plays.
What truly differentiates PES2 from the rest of the classic-era PES games regarding the footballing experience as a whole is how dynamic the changes in momentum are. I mentioned previously that the CPU is vastly unpredictable throughout the match; but the same can be applied to the player’s team. On yet another of my recent PES2 ventures, Australia’s Kewell had just scored a hat-trick on just 60 virtual minutes of play against Wales on the opening match of the World Cup. After having gained a comfortable lead over my opponent, I just kept spawning ball after ball to Kewell for him to improve his already stellar record…but my ambition took its toll: a guy that had been divinely inspired up until then, suddenly found himself out of ideas, losing possession often, progressively becoming useless out there, before I finally decided to sub him. Players seem to gain and lose inspiration, get encouraged or discouraged; they’re not just random blokes on a screen. PES2 feels like a living footballing ecosystem where millions of different things are happening at the same time, therefore giving life to this particular world. This much-lauded “essence” is a significant part of the series’ success, one that seems to have been “streamlined” over the years and decades.
Most PES games in the history of the series have been criticized by the lack of interesting match commentary, an area where FIFA has always shined very bright. PES2 confirms the stereotype with an utterly insipid, uninspired duo – on any of the available languages, really – whose quality just doesn’t match that of the actual action on the pitch. Don’t be fooled by the video shown below; you’ll miss out on little if you turn the sound off. Still, an interesting and particular aspect of this game is that the commentators actually pronounce not only the real player names but also the fake, “Konamized” inventions. I first noticed it when I heard Peter Brackley announcing the whole of the Croatia’s National Team’s starting eleven as if he were having a stroke. “Narij, Prekinovski, Kobsic, Bibilan, urgghdurggh…back-to-yourghh-Trevorrggh…”, collapses on the floor. Who the hell are those guys anyway? Well, turns out, he was pronouncing their fake names: Jarni, Prosinecki, Boksic, Balaban. This is a very nice, borderline hilarious touch to an otherwise bland area of the game, one that sadly was eliminated from the subsequent PES titles – except for the callnames of both the ML Defaults as well as the PES and WE United invented players. Consider yourself warned: if someone on your TV mentions that Aragon will be playing Europort at Trad Bricks Stadium, hoping that Oranges038 scores a few goals to win them match and consequently the Konami-Umbro Cup, you’ll know PES2 is on. This game’s one hell of a fever dream…
It is worth noting that PES2 features an All-Star selection match, in which you can participate in what can only be described as an orgasmic battle between the best players of Europe and the Rest of the World, winner takes all and dominates the Earth. Plus, though both teams feature a default list of distinct world beaters, you can manually select other players, which means this mode is similar to the lauded Random Selection Match introduced later on in PES6.
Yet, since this is classic-PES we’re talking about, people only have eyes for the legendary Master League mode. And rightfully so: in addition to the elements that made this experience so unique since the ISS Pro Evo era, PES2 is the first and last retro-PES game to feature a third division! Why was it scrapped from later editions, beginning with PES3? Well, we’ll never know. Anyway, the introduction of a D3 was a fundamental moment in this series, giving this game a literal depth that no other could even dream of matching at that point in time. Perhaps the experience of trying to climb out of the 3rd tier was so brutal for us the players that it had to be suppressed…? If you’re in for the challenge of your football gaming life, accept the premise of the ML mode in PES2 and take charge of the iconic Master League Defaults in a footballing world comprised solely of the best clubs around the globe and, perhaps using clever transfers and acquisitions, providing you have the necessary PES Points, you’ll achieve virtual greatness.
The ML environment is all the more enriched by the possibility of editing all of the elements of not just the club team one’s controlling, but all of the others as well: from team names to flags, kits and stadiums, your ML save can be permanently refreshed over time as you move forward with your save – if you’re in for the extra work, of course. This is another great feature that was removed from post-PES3 iterations of this series – and again, I’m not sure why. Given PES2 was the last PES to feature an all-unlicensed collection of team clubs, and considering licensed clubs are by default un-editable, this was the last PES platform in which one could shape the totality of its world – everything and every club is editable.
This wouldn’t be a PES review if I didn’t address the lack of licenses, not just for players as I mentioned previously but for club teams as well. If on some cases the logic behind the necessary renaming is perfectly understandable – Fiorentina is “Toscana”, Juventus is “Piemonte”, Barcelona is “Cataluna” -, to this day, no one has figured out why, say, Manchester United is…Aragon. “Aragón” is a Spanish region. Chelsea is “Liguria”, which is a region in Italy. Aston Villa is “Dublin”. Real Madrid is “Navarra”, a Spanish region…but not the region where the Madrileños are located. Whoever taught Geography to the guy in charge of the club naming process has failed miserably. Either that, or this is some kind of elaborated joke or prank…? With Konami, one never knows…
Finally, the training mode in PES2 is interesting enough to feature on this article. As usual you can use it to freely practice your skills on many areas, and in addition to that, you’re able to partake in the activities provided by the Umbro Pro Training Centre, a training hub containing a list of challenges from free kick shooting to dribbling, short/long passes, etc. I do remember I spent a lot of time on this particular game mode back in the day, more so than on any other classic-PES titles or later iterations of the series. This, combined with the (plain) tutorial mode, where you can learn the basics of the PES experience, allows one to study and master the art of playing the game in order to avoid further brutal beatings by the reckless bully that is PES2.
The Good
- It’s classic PES: a simulation that realistically captures the essence of football in a fun, but challenging way.
- The graphics: from player faces and models to the match atmosphere, the visuals in PES2 are superb.
- Features one of the most interesting editions of the Master League, mostly because of the ephemeral appearance of 3rd tier football.
The Meh
- It is “ISS Pro Evo remastered”: feels and plays like it, only faster. PES2 does not reinvent the footballing wheel at all.
- Lacks team and player licenses, though the Edit Mode is deep enough for one to be able to correct all of it.
The Ugly
- Limited player animations and a general “on-rails” feeling turn PES2 into a rigid, fast-paced footballing experience.
Score: 8.0
Did they rock us? Ironically, little did everyone know that just like the brand of brilliant music Queen had been popularizing decades earlier, the brand of football presented by PES2 was also on its way out: this was the last of a line of tough, merciless, reckless and no-nonsense PES games which had begun with the king ISS Pro Evolution. We see a lot of ISS PE in PES2; in fact the bulk of the experience is so similar that it forever tainted this game because it just didn’t evolve as much as people had expected it to. Devoid of a particular, unique identity, PES2 focuses more on wowing us with its jaw-dropping good-looks, as well as a few tweaks and innovations which, while still very much welcome, are not enough for it to be able to build its own footballing ’empire’ as its great-grandfather ISS PE did. Still, it manages to honor and respect its legacy well enough to find its way in the exclusive list of classic-PES titles: PES2 is indeed one of the most admirable and likable of all retro-PES games, even if it stands on the shoulders of a giant; and so, it gives us a relentlessly realistic depiction of the sport, which is as frenetic as it is multifaceted, unforgiving and unpredictable at all times: a game that will, indeed, rock you.
Libero Magazine 
Excellent review!
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Glad you enjoyed it, almost anonymous commenter!
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Great write up Migs!
To me the introduction is one of the best even though i don’t really like Queen, but the build up to the guitar solo adds to the build up of the intro.
I don’t remember the game too much but I am sure that this was the first game I had played when a goalkeeper got sent off. Guess who?…Barthez.
Gee
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Much appreciated Gee!
We’ve had a few legendary intros, remember the one from PES5 with Kasabian? Another classic.
Barthez in PES2 is the poster boy of the typical PES goalkeeper: saves a few impossible shots, and on the very next play he’ll forget to try to make a save.
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