Konami will be releasing a standalone version of UEFA EURO 2016 on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 this April; meanwhile, the mode will also be extended as DLC to all owners of PES 2016 on all platforms, giving PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC soccer fans the chance to participate in this summer’s big tournament in their own way. Best of all, and especially surprising considering that it is coming from Konami, the DLC will be completely free for those who already own the game.

15 out of the 24 teams that will be playing in the tournament will be fully licensed, with updated uniforms and player likenesses, to add to the game’s authenticity and sense of immersion. These are England, Wales, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Iceland, Turkey, Albania, Northern Ireland, and France.

EURO 2016 will be available from the main menu for those of you who do download the game.

An entry level free to play version of Konami’s extremely popular PES 2016 is now available to download for PC owners. The free, entry level mode is actually surprisingly full featured- it has an Exhibition mode with a good selection of teams, including Bayern Munich, Juventus, AS Roma, Brazil and France.

Also included is a Training Mode, an online mode, and full access to the perennially popular myClub mode, where, similar to the Ultimate Team mode in EA Sports’ FIFA games, players can spend real world money to build an unbeatable team. Similar to Ultimate Team, myClub is updated in real time, and offers soccer enthusiasts the most authentic experience on hand.

PES 2016 was actually a really good game- though its release was, typically, marked with some of the faffs and gaffes that have become a mainstay with the release of each new entry in the franchise, it is a compelling, and in a whole lot of ways, better alternative to EA’s offering last year. In addition to this free to play version, the full version of PES 2016 is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

The free to play PlayStation exclusive PES 2016 myClub has launched today, on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. PES 2016 myClub is a pretty extensive game for something that is entirely free to play- it includes an offline exhibition mode with seven teams and a full training mode, it lets players create their own team and manager, and it also lets them set their team’s play style and tactics.

PES 2016 myClub also improves on last year’s offering substantially by offering a leveling system to dole out a sense of progression to players. It will also have myClub Legends, though those are not available just yet.

PES 2016 is already out, and in spite of all the massive mess ups surrounding it, it’s a pretty great game. But $60 is a big amount to spend on a video game, especially one with a reputation as shaky as PES’s is- so it’s understandable if you don’t want to spend that money on the new PES game, regardless of what you might be hearing.

Which is why this new development is intriguing- the Australian Classification Board appears to have rated something called Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 Free to Play, which has popped up on the board’s database.

The listing is very barebones, and apart from the game’s rating itself (a G, which is the equivalent of an ESRB E), doesn’t tell us anything about the game, not even its platforms, since nothing is listed there. However, we can at least speculate that this may be for PCs, with maybe a smartphone version on the way as well.

Honestly, a free to play version of PES shouldn’t even come as a surprise, given this is Konami- this does seem to be the direction they are moving in.

Konami has announced free UEFA 2016 European Championship content for all PES 2016 owners. In a surprisingly candid statement, Konami said that this free content was its way of showing appreciation to all the players and fans who have stuck by the franchise in spite of all the issues surrounding it- from the poor releases in previous years, to the controversies surrounding game updates and data packs this year.

“It has been a difficult few months for the fans in how we have been delivering content in our recent Data Packs, with some items missing that our consumers expected,” said Konami’s global director of the football division, Erik Bladinieres.

“The PES Production team appreciate their fans’ support and want to reward their support and bring back confidence in the Data Pack releases. With this announcement, we hope we can regain their trust.”

It’s a good gesture, and let me be the first person to laud Konami for doing something like this. I also sincerely hope that issues such as the ones that plagued PES 2016’s launch will be nonexistent starting next year onwards.

After a lot of delays, the transfer update for PES 2016, which would reflect all of the transfers that happened at the end of summer (which is when a lot of the high profile moves tend to happen, as most football fans will know) was launched at the end of October. Unfortunately, it was also incomplete. For PES fans, this meant that they had been made to wait longer than they had been promised for an update that still didn’t do what they had been promised it would.

“Currently the roster update for offline play which impacts Master League, competitions and edit mode is not complete, missing the final few days of transfers,” a Konami rep told PESFan. “The online modes, such as ranked matches, myClub and exhibition mode using Live Updates are up to date, as they were from October 2nd – and they remain unaffected.

“We’ve received many questions regarding why offline and online are unique, and right now I wanted to explain that the systems being used for online updates are separated from offline due to the process we need to go through, with patch data including lists that needs to be checked internally and externally and may take weeks before the distribution.”

He went on to explain that Konami is moving ahead with fixing this problem on high priority- but owing to its nature, it would take a few weeks before it was working as intended.

“The roster issue is a priority for us to correct ASAP, but will take some weeks unfortunately. We had planned a second Data Pack for end of November which was set to include a new stadium for PS4 and Xbox One, the Maracana. However, we will not release this Data Pack without including a fix for the offline roster issue,” he said.

Overall, this has been a mess. It’s a shame, because PES 2016 is amazing in its actual moment to moment gameplay- if only Konami didn’t keep bungling everything else.

The latest Media Create sales for gaming hardware and software in Japan are in and it seems the price cut for the PS4 has done a world of good. Compared to the prior week where the console sold 4,071 units, it managed to sell 46,177 units after the price cut. That’s more than a ten fold increase. This was followed by the New 3DS XL at 18,136 units sold and the PS Vita with 15,237 units sold.

On the software side of things, the PS Vita actually had some success with the debut of Tokyo Xanadu which sold 88,879 units. This was followed by Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 for the PS3 and PS4 which sold 48,473 units and 39,017 units respectively. Yoru no Nai Kuni on the PS4 and Vita also debuted with 35,907 and 32,904 units sold respectively.

The other new release was Picross 3D 2 on the Nintendo 3DS which sold 30,468 units. Many of Nintendo’s other big players, namely Yo-kai Watch Busters: Red Cat Team/White Dog Squad, Super Mario Maker, Splatoon and Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon continue to see good sales.

What are your thoughts on PS4 sales following the price cut? Let us know in the comments.

PES opens to a menu that isn’t glitz and glamor as has often been in many games from past years; showering on a better menu than the game often produces. No. PES’ menu is clean, simple, to the point. Right from the get-go all options are right there at the fingertips. This doesn’t mean the menu is flat. It is in fact very colorful. Players line many menu options, colorful art and team logos throughout showcase a very unique, simple menu style.

"The funny thing is that nothing really seems changed that much. Yet it’s all hidden in, perfectly mingling and intertwining; making sure the player doesn’t quite notice what changes have occurred. That is what makes a game better than great."

As the audience in the stadium roars, It’s time for the real fun to begin. PES isn’t a copy/paste game of last year’s endeavor. It shows Konami’s strengths of learning from its past and evolving from iteration to the next. Controls are not complex and understand a simple style of getting the job done. Understanding the move sets and matching those sets up with NPCs becomes a breeze and feels very efficient. From controlling the ball to a solidified fluidity of functionality of dribbles and passes and often between AI, everything is immediately understandable and feels set to play for veterans and new comers alike. Improved upon are the AI when in control of the ball. Passing and understanding the surroundings of what options are quickly approaching becomes more understandable to these players.

Now what exactly makes this game so much more impressive than last few entries? Like I said before, there are small difference. Fluidity is so much more impressive. AI trying to tackle, steal, and barge are real showcases that one truly wouldn’t notice as improved because it feels so natural one would probably forget that in past games they weren’t there or weren’t addressed correctly. Similar to a new coat of paint. Something is different. But we just can’t put our finger on it clearly enough. But we know it’s better. It’s an odd feeling to know we are finally getting a game that addresses so many smaller things that it’s hard to remember that they weren’t there in past games of its kind.

" Improved upon are the AI when in control of the ball. Passing and understanding the surroundings of what options are quickly approaching becomes more understandable to these players."

The Master League mode is in better showing this time around with additional options making it feel even more amazing than ever before. Scouts are there for guidance. They can recommend players based on how weak we essential are in certain areas. Of course there are always contract renewals and negotiations throughout the season. Team Roles allows players to level up as the game is played. This in turn also levels us up as well. These levels create bonuses for the team but add money to the team pot as well.

Upon starting PES up, it’s immediately apparent that graphics were not first on the list of making this a well received game. Stadium audience is copy/pasted with standard motions. But who looks at the audience to play soccer anyway? Player design and appeal are somewhat last gen looking. This shouldn’t hold back anyone who is interested in this sort of sports game, however. These are minor quibbles to what this entry truly offers.

What really makes this game feel fresh and actually amazing is beyond even the gameplay. PES 2016 offers a very motivational and energy fueling soundtrack. From the intro video showcasing “We Will Rock You” by Queen to many other well known artists such as Joywave, Clean Bandit, CTS and a handful more. Listening to these ‘real’ tracks while in the menus and other areas made it feel how being present at a real game would be: music blasting over loud speakers, getting the audience pumped and ready for a great game.

"Player design and appeal are somewhat last gen looking. This shouldn’t hold back anyone who is interested in this sort of sports game, however. These are minor quibbles to what this entry truly offers."

Is PES the best soccer game ever? That’s a tough question to answer. With so many minor, but needed improvements, PES has evolved into an almost realistic feeling game. Now, I know we say something like this every generation (remember how ‘realistic’ is felt destroying bricks in Super Mario Bros. in the 80s!?), but with little implementations such as players tackling in a more aggressive fashion, or nipping at the feet, trying to steal that ball, these little attributes majorly add up to something supreme. Is this the best soccer game ever? Who knows. But I know it’s one of the best and every soccer game forward should take lessons from PES 2016.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

PES 2016 was supposed to have updated rosters for its offline modes, reflecting current season team makeups and statistics, shortly after launch, but the roster update has been delayed- it won’t be coming now until the end of October, more than a month after the game launched. Until then, players are stuck with 2015 rosters for offline play in PES- and understandably enough, they are pissed about it.

The problem is exacerbated because Konami has announced that ‘Live Updates,’ which update the stats of “key players” depending on their weekly performance, and let you use the fully updated rosters of the team of your choice during online play, will be available starting October 1- the delay seems to be exclusively for stat updates during offline play, which to many players, seems to make no sense.

PES’s community manager took to Twitter to apologize for the delay, but nothing can make up for the lingering sense that maybe, just maybe, Konami should have waited until everything in the game was in order to launch it, instead of presumably rushing to beat FIFA to the market.

Which may just be right.

Bungie’s Destiny: The Taken King has had a phenomenal week thus far. Along with being the most downloaded game/expansion in history, it also sold the most copies among all new releases in the UK this past week according to Gfk Chart-Track. In fact, it seems that sales for the expansion are roughly 16 percent of the base game’s sales. Considering the monster success that the original release had, that’s not bad at all.

Forza Motorsport 6 also had a strong debut at second place followed by Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 at third, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain at fourth and Mad Max in fifth place. Super Mario Maker has also managed to hang in there at sixth place for the week.

Grand Theft Auto 5 is still in the top ten charts despite launching two years ago, followed by Disney Infinity 3.0, Rugby League Live 3 and LEGO Jurassic World. What are your thoughts on the success of The Taken King? Let us know in the comments.