The german games magazine Play3 had the opportunity to play an early version of PES 2009. Here is the summary, as posted by Yak over at pesforum.de.

- Early version ran very smoothly and seemed very polished
- Improved player response with quicker passing
- AI improvements resulting in more aggressive play and better positioning
- AI in particularly good in defence
- New manual pass control… “if your team is in control of the ball the AI is in position of the player with the ball… but as soon as you press L1 you can control the player with the ball”.
- “The new pass system only sound complicated in the first way it is really easy to adapt”
- The manual control setting is replaced by the new system, with automatic and semi-automatic still selectable
- Player models look better
- A few new animations (”players wave with there hands to ask for the ball, you can see players stumble aside, players slide longer on wet grass”)
- Players reactions to weather is changed… balls are hard to control, shots become harder to catch for the goalkeepers and it is harder to pass correctly
- New mode which allows you to use your saved file online