PES 2018 Demo: 7 Things We Learned

6. Speedy Players Actually Make A Difference

In PES 2017, it was often frustrating to spam the sprint button as Cristiano Ronaldo only for a defender like Chris Smalling to catch you in seconds despite the head start. Last year, even the quickest players didn't have much of an advantage in a foot race, which surely defeats the whole purpose of them having higher acceleration and sprint stats to begin with.

Konami have improved on that in 2018. Even in the demo, it's easy to see that acceleration plays a big part, as it should. Just like in real football, speedsters are lethal and cover a lot of ground in a short space of time. That's very useful when playing with wide men, because now you don't need to rely on outfoxing the CPU with intricate one-twos just to get a cross in.

More impressively, this only highlights the differences between playing as Barcelona and another team like Inter Milan. As Inter, you'll have to try a different approach. That's the kind of thing footy gaming fans have been harping on about for years. Teams should feel different to one another.