Genre: Sports
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami

If photo realism is even the goal towards which game designers should be aspiring, then Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 is only average; mods quickly bring the horribly outdated PC version of the engine up to date with the console ports, but even then the game is not convincing. The animation is believable enough, though the couldn't-be-more-generic menus drag the whole package down a bit.

It's the year 2016, and the developers can still not produce a football title as realistic sounding as FIFA on the 3DO. The commentary is as bad as ever, contributing absolutely nothing to the action. Last year's licensed soundtrack was a like a "worst party songs of all time" collection. In this iteration, there are more songs in total, and more variety, although they still grow pretty irritating over time.

For this year's edition, Konami's developers decided to move to an almost totally real-time physics engine. This makes the game more realistic, but also less playable. Engineered that perfect through ball opportunity? Oops, your centerforward started stumbling for no discernable reason. The AI plays a tiring, non-stop counter attack game and relentlessly closes all passing lanes, no matter which tactics the player utilizes. It all adds up to lot of dour matches, and where results do not match the skill exhibited by the player himself.

This reviewer was a big fan of the sprite-based FIFA games in the early 90s, and vividly recalls when the series switched to polygons with FIFA '97, resulting in sluggish and uninteresting gameplay. This year's edition of Pro Evo feels like a similar transition. As for Master League, a wage cap has been added, and while on paper it causes salaries to actually be meaningful for once, it makes the mode feel less sand box-like, and more like filing your taxes. All-in-all, a very disappointing iteration, especially after the promise showed by last year's game.