Bomba updates the game with current rosters, Brazilian translations, a custom theme song, and even meme teams (like a team of real players that all went to prison at some point, and the whole team is in matching prison gear. They’re still updating to this day! The Patch was originally sold on discs, but has since moved to online distribution.
I wonder why PES specifically is so popular for this? I think it has something to do with PS2’s being able to play burned discs without needing a hardware mod, but i’m not 100% sure.
Many people including me consider PES 2007 as the best football game ever released. Even current new football games doesn’t give the same vibes as playing that game.
That era was peak Pro Evo.
As a Brazilian who grew up in a not too remote area, modchipped PS2s were everywhere growing up, as it was the only realistic option to game for the vast majority. Things have shifted a bit these days, but it did use to be like that.
As a result, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a legit PS2 game or an og Xbox/GameCube for that matter lol.
Playstation gained a lot of popularity on latinamerica for being able to be pirated, and PES and Winning Eleven before it, were way better football games than Fifa. I remember the first time playing them after years of Fifa and feeling the field huge, but then you would back to Fifa to feel like your playing mini football. And that huge field made it more about passing the ball to advance, while in Fifa you could rush from the center of the field and easily took a shoot and mark, more alike a basketball game.
They were much more tactical and had better controls too, visually and audio better and just more polished. The PES series (before they renamed it from ISS) were just the better games back then. I started with International Superstar Soccer Deluxe on the SNES and wasn’t even a big sports fan. But got obsessed (well not that extreme maybe) with this game. And then the Nintendo 64 followup International Superstar Soccer 64 was phenomenal! Everyone compared it to FIFA 64 and it was clear and cut which game was better for the majority. I’ve played PES98 on original PSX too.
Today, people can’t understand how good these games were back then compared to any other football/soccer game at that time.