Speaking of commentary teams...commentary teams! As always, FIFA’s Martin Tyler and Alan Smith are excellent, but as always, despite the fresh additions to his repertoire, much of Tyler’s general banter is getting a bit stale.
The commentary in PES, meanwhile, has had an almost total overhaul. Goodbye Jon Champion, hello the ever-excitable Peter Drury, a man I find utterly unbearable in actual football games, but whose fervour seems more at home in a video game where I’m directly in control of the action and doing ridiculous things.
An all-new commentator means an all-new series of calls, but even then, it doesn’t take long for Pro Evo’s failings in this area to show up once more. Both Drury and his sidekick Jim Beglin are often stuck saying their lines out of context, robot-like, Konami failing to string together the right set of tones and inflection. “Hello everyone, and welcome to this all-important cup match between Liverpool and Bournemouth.” There’s also way less lines in total than you find in FIFA, so it doesn’t take long before you start noticing duplicate/spamming commentary calls.