With the UK in the grip of World Cup fever, sales of PSP football games is no doubt on the rise. With this in mind, I thought it was about time I tried out Pro Evolution Soccer, purely in the interests of seeing how it performs compared to the one football game I own on the PSP, World Tour Soccer.

So off I popped, down to the local library where a copy of Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (PES5) has been lurking for the last few weeks. Game rented, time to see whether it lives up to the hype that has been generated about this PS2 classic game.

Now, I’ll be honest, I’m not the worlds best gaming footballer (by any stretch of the imagination), but even I could see straight away that PES is not your run of the mill football game. With more options than I’ve ever seen before, and a control list that would takes weeks to digest and understand, I could see that a mere week of renting this game would not do it any justice.

So how does it compare to World Cup Soccer? Well it makes World Cup Soccer looks like the poor mans alternative. PES has fluid animation, intuitive controls and an ability to make you play like its a real game of football, and not some school boy game of ‘chase the ball’.

Not that World Tour Soccer is bad, its just that PES seems to do everything so well that its difficult to understand why football games haven’t always been made this way. If you’ve only ever played EA Fifa football games (and there must be a hell’uva lot of you), PES will be real shock to the system.

Perhaps one of the best things about playing PES is that the ball feels like it has some air in it. It actually bounces around, and doesn’t just stick to your players feet as you dribble around the opposition. You can string together some lovely passes, and I actually found that I could use the little player rader at the bottom of the screen to pick out players on the pitch, rather than firing blind and hoping for the best.

Having only spent a weekend with the game, I am by no means anywhere near scratching the surface of what this game has to offer. Long term, it will be a real challenge to perfect the game play and become even part way competent at playing PES.

If you are looking for an easy football game that allows you to score loads of goals with little challenge, PES is probably not the game for you. However, if you are looking for something that will allow you to improve your game skills while offering a realistic and enjoyable experience, Pro Evolution Soccer is probably a very good candidate.

I’ve now got to hunt out my very own copy of this game, or indeed get the new PES6 that is due out on the 20th August, if I can wait that long.