Since I own PES 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 and PES 5, I did a marathon-session this saturday morning till now to just find out what the different versions have to offer.
I played the same match with Barcelona against Madrid on top-player with 20 minutes.
PES 2009 was imho just awful, clunky animation, limited ways to play. PES 2010 was imho way better and looks just mint, but the star players are a bit overpowered.
PES 2011 gets rid of the limited passing and opens up new possibilities and has still some of the good looks of PES 2010.
PES 2013 offers better AI for the CPU, so it offers more challenge but it looks awful compared to PES 2010 and 2011, some serious graphical degradation there.
Then I played PES 5, no clunky animation, but limited passing possibilities.
Then I switched on PES 2014, again with the same match, and it was eerily exactly like PES 5, the same feel for the animation and player/ball control, only with the added freedom of passing that PES 2011 introduced.
After this it's obvious to me what Konami tried to do with PES 2014, they wanted to create a modern HD-version of PES 5!
Since I played with zero bar in PES 2014 I noticed that I couldn't play so well as in PES 5, so I set it on 2 bars to replicate the feel of control of PES 5, and bingo it worked like a charm. The best thing about it, the pass-assistance is more than for passing, it seems to make the whole team work better together and it affects even the CPU's attacking possibilities.
On zerobar the CPU would attack in similar ways often through the wings or using lobpasses over the defense, because it seems that with zerobar it doesn't want to try other ways, with 2 bars it tries different ways of attack.
The only thing Konami needs to change is to make the goalkeepers not so perfect on parrying longrange shots and make them a bit better at handling close range shots, especially the guarding of the close post areas.
I know that I didn't go into complete details regarding the different aspects of the different versions, but that would take hours which I don't have.
But to sum it up: PES 2010 is imho a good game for its awesome menu and its mint graphics, PES 2011 earns my respect for its introduction of the free passing and other new stuff. And PES 2014 gets my praise for having achieved what longtime fans have always wished for, a modern replication of PES 5 in combination with the free passing of PES 2011 (at least when played on 2 bar).
Konami must be really confused now, with having fulfilled what fans always wanted but still to be condemned by the fans for it. But here's my advice to solve this confusion for Konami: Make 2 bar (haven't tried 1 bar, maybe 1 bar is also good enough, but zero bar seems broken, the CPU-AI seems not to be made for zerobar) pass-assistance the only option, and work on shooting and goalkeeper.
The shooting needs more trajectories and a feeling of wonder, and the goalkeepers need to be more reliable in close range and not so perfect at handling longrange shooting: It should be possible to catch a goalkeeper off guard from long range from time to time.
Klik om te vergroten...
