Nobody at Konami is under any illusions: over the last two years, and after a decade at the top of the table, PES has lost its position of football sim dominance to FIFA. But the publisher, and its vast Pro Evolution development team (200 staff and counting) are determined that this 11th instalment will be the return to former glories. After a brief play with an early version, it certainly seems to be a sprightly step-over in the right direction.
First up, the game system hasn't just been tweaked, it's been completely torn out and re-thought. AI support for the gamer is effectively gone. "In the past, before you even switched control to a defender, they'd be moving toward the attacking player," says European product manager, Jon Murphy. "This actually made them quite easy to beat if you were a good player. But that's not in there to assist you anymore."
To bolster your defensive options, however, you now have the option to hold up the incoming play. If you run up to the attacking player, hit X, then turn away with the left stick, your defender blocks and tracks his opponent, edging backwards and refraining from going in for a tackle. "What you're doing is holding up the play and slowing down the game," says Murphy. "It's useful when dealing with really tricky players, when you don't want to commit yourself". It also sounds like a workable option for those many, many times I commit far too many players forward.
There's also a much more open and flexible passing system (perhaps reflecting FIFA's 360 degree boast). Hit a short or long pass and the ball won't just automatically find its way to a team mate anymore – you need to direct the ball to them, or put it into space in front of them. Power is much more important, too; in previous editions, the gauge was hidden at the bottom of the screen and was often unused, now bars appear beneath the player with every kick of the ball, so weighting passes is as important as directing them.
It's tricky at first: after years of experience with the didactic PES engine, I was sending balls all over the place, over-hitting them, or just bashing them well-wide of my intended target. "To a certain extent you have to relearn how to play the game," says Murphy. "You get into it pretty quickly, but occasionally you make errors where you're being a little bit lazy. You start to realise you've got to concentrate on everything you do. But it results in a realistic game of football."
Indeed, even after a few minutes play, I was beginning to spot spaces ahead of players and aiming my passes into empty nooks and crannies. Apparently, it's even possible to direct a pass onto the specific foot of another player, simply by slightly angling the analogue pad. I also noticed a lightness to the ball; it's much more likely to bounce off a moving player, or get trapped under his feet if a pass is too strong. Again, it's more demanding, but it's going to be fun to master it, to learn how to move with more subtly and grace.
But of course, football isn't all about subtly and grace (sorry Arsenal fans). Hence, the jostling system has been refined. In the past, there was physical interaction between players but it only minimally affected the man on the ball, who was often able to get in a cross despite being consistently elbowed. Now, there's much more physicality – players will stumble and trip, or lose balance and fall if they're nudged by a stronger opponent. There are also a greater number of tackling animations, bringing more graphical variety to the duels. Actually, animation is another area that's been decimated in the re-tuning process. 90% of all the animations have been changed, and the links between them have been edited to give higher response times.
For the more experienced PES fanatic, this version brings in a wider selection of feints, tricks and turns. We see players sliding the ball under foot and chipping it onto their inside leg for a deceptive diversion. Importantly, different moves can now be chained together into fluid combos, allowing players to build their own repertoires of tricky manoeuvres.
And this isn't just about showing off – according to Murphy, series creator Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka sees one-on-one situations as key moments in the sport, and wants them to become truly tactical experiences in his game. The ability to string together turns, flicks and step-overs is to become a vital weapon for experienced players. Konami has structured this element with two options: L1 provides access to 'feint sets', which are pre-set selections of moves edited by the player, while L2 gives regular feints, which can be further modified with analogue stick movement. Oh and double clicking L3 brings in tricky flicks like rainbows and flip-flaps, if you're into that kind of thing.
Finally, a couple of management options. With the revised manual team set-up option, you can simply drag player icons around a pitch diagram to place your players – you don't have to rely on the dozens of pre-set formations usually offered in PES titles. I also like the sound of the 'reactive management settings', which let you pre-choose tactical switches for a range of match scenarios. Before the game starts, for example, you might want to set it so that your players adopt a defensive formation if they're winning the game at 70 minutes. It's a little feature, but it means you can get the strategy stuff out of the way before the match even starts and instead concentrate on passing the ball properly…
So one match in, and PES 11 feels to me like a huge improvement over the previous two or three iterations. It has a nice loose feel, the player models are sharp, detailed and solid, and there's a real sense that you're very much in control. I was certainly deeply reluctant to hand the controller back when my allotted time with the demo was over. It seems that the many Gamesblog readers who've kept faith with the series – and the ever-competitive Chatterbox PES league is testament to that – might be about to reap the rewards of their loyalty.
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