On It's 10th Birthday, Here Are 11 Reasons Why We Loved Pro Evolution Soccer 4

On October 15th, 2004, our lives were changed by a video game.

Pro Evolution Soccer 4 was released in Europe, and it was the best football game we had ever played.

10 years on, and the memories of that damn near perfect footy sim still vividly play over and over in our minds. Pro Evolution Soccer 2 and 3 were great games in their own right, but PES 4 was the daddy. This was the game that officially announced Konami as the King of the football video game world. At the time, playing FIFA was social suicide. If the lads came around and the PS2 was out, there was only one game that was being played... Well, apart from GTA Vice City, obviously.

To honour this milestone for a game that gave us so much, here we have 12 reasons that Pro Evolution Soccer 4 was so universally well loved.

The Intro

Rarely does a game's intro get you so pumped up that you feel like you are actually about to step onto the pitch in one of the World's most famous stadiums for a cup final. That's what the PES 4 intro did. The animation captured all the emotion of the beautiful game, and it didn't matter that the actual in-game graphics were no where near as good as what we saw in the intro, because we knew we were about to experience something special.

The All-Powerful Form Indicators

One little arrow beside a player's name was enough to rule him out of a game, or give him a surprise start. If Ronaldinho was on a down grey arrow, you couldn't play him. If Mark Viduka was on an up red arrow, the hat-trick was already scored. Do I gamble on a down blue Thierry Henry, or do I give an up green Jeremey Aliadiere the start? These were the dilemmas that kept Pro Evo enthusiasts up at night.

The Nuggets Of Footballing Wisdom From The Commentary Team

Free Kicks

They were very difficult to master, in fact some would spend countless hours with Andrea Pirlo in the training mode trying to determine the correct power to get it over the wall and back under the bar, but the satisfaction when you curled a free kick into the top corner was unmatched. Their difficulty meant that free kick goals were celebrated in a similar fashion to David Beckham against Greece in 2001.

The Hilarious Unofficial Team Names

Before PES 4, all Pro Evolution Soccer games featured unlicensed teams, and it was what PES became known for. But the introduction of La Liga and Serie A teams in official gear was a big boost for Konami in PES 4. The Premier League licencing was more elusive, and as a result, we fondly remember laughing as Man Red, Merseyside Red, and North London challenged for the title, while West Midlands Village, Lancashire, and best of all, Crisisbless (Crystal Palace) battled it out at the bottom.

The Fake Shots

Charge up the shoot bar then press X, and watch as your player dummied his man and flew off into space. The fake shot was a devastating move in PES 4, so much so that the likes of Ronaldinho could cover the entire pitch with the ball just by fake shooting.

The Mythical Creature That Was Adriano

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A gaming icon. Inter Milan's Adriano was right up there with Jonah Lomu from Jonah Lomu Rugby for the crown of most powerful video game character ever. In all honesty the game could have been Adriano Soccer 4. Adriano was yet to reach his peak PES power, but he was still a devastating player and an absolute nightmare to play against. Any shot within the opponent's half was a goal. Rumour had it that PES direction Shingo "Seabass" Takatsuka was a huge Inter Milan fan, and Adriano his favourite player, so he insisted that he was the best player in the game. It got to a point where Adriano had to be banned from causal play as it just wasn't fair.