With each PES that is about to be released we get a lot of news about how good it's going to be and each year I get excited and believe what I read and hope for perfection. Unfortunate though, while it's an improvement maybe on the last couple of versions, there are still small disappointing gameplay issues with PES 2010. The keepers are fairly poor, getting beaten at the near post and when the striker is shooting from a large angle. They are also slow to recover from a save and sometimes make huge errors. The referees also are frustrating and are way-way-way too lenient. Other small issues like the AI passing it around the back for way too long exist also along with the online lag not being fixed among other things. On the positive side of things though, the presentation and features/options of game modes has all improved. It's a good football simulation but there are still some poor gameplay issues that were not in PES games 4-5 years ago. Two steps forward one step back. Gameplay 3.5/5 Graphics 4.5/5 Sound 3.5/5 Difficulty 4.5/5 Originality 2.5/5

This is my first PES for a while on anything but PC, so it makes it hard to compare it to previous versions because as I have read it is different on PS2 as opposed to Xbox360/PS3 or PC, but I will anyway. Apart form the substitution bug which appears in the PS2 version only, the game is pretty good, but again there isn't a huge amount new to the franchise and a few things such as edit mode worsened. Gameplay 4/5 Graphics 3.5/5 Sound 3/5 Difficulty 4.5/5 Originality 2/5

The main issue with this PES is that it is a lil buggy. The keepers are terrible and make poor mistakes, the camera sometimes losses the ball when you have a shot, and there is no crowd at times. There are some new things added like the ability to add your face to a players, and add/remove players to a wall, but overall the faster, dribbling based gameplay and the bugs makes it the worst PES, and the beginning of PES failing to be the brilliant game it was and being a long way ahead of the competition. Gameplay 3.5/5 Graphics 4.5/5 Sound 3.5/5 Difficulty 4/5 Originality 3/5

When talking when PES hit its peak, I cite PES5, but many fans mention PES6. For me this went away from the super realistic feel of PES5, going slightly more towards what we saw with the forgettable 2008 more arcadey, speed influenced games. Still an excellent football sim, but I was disappointed with this after PES4 and 5.

This is the PES that I think is the most realistic and challenging. It took a while to adapt to it after coming from PES4 as it had the slowest gameplay yet which made dribbling around players harder and you had to work more for your goals. This is what you want from a football game, realistic gameplay and to feel relieved when you put one in the onion bag as you've had to work for it. The pinnacle of the series for me. Gameplay 5/5 Graphics 4.5/5 Sound 3.5/5 Difficulty 5/5 Originality 4/5