Three people cramming round a tiny TV screen. Two of them clutching pads in their hands, sweat breaking on their brow. The third, peering over their shoulders, waiting to see who will fall. Then…a goal on the 89th minute. 30 yards out. Top corner. An explosion of emotion: elation, excitement, wonder and sadness.
This is how I remember Pro Evolution Soccer, or ISS Pro as we used to call it. We scoffed at FIFA fans, with their licenses and their shiny graphics, because we had the gameplay, we had football. But somewhere tides changed, borders moved, and Konami’s glorious green lands were invaded by EA and their once arcade sim FIFA. Instead of fighting back and moving with the times PES drifted off to come back and fight another day. Is this the day?
Strangely enough PES 2010 does retain some of that former glory. The big advancement in this outing is the updated graphics that fans have been asking for. Players look like their real life counterparts, which is a very nice touch. Realistic shadows are cast in the midday sun and strips move and flow with the players movement. It all looks very polished. Even the menu systems has been given an extensive makeover, which in part is successful but in others clumsy to navigate. The formation screen retains its former glory but has ditched the classic pentagon skill system for the simple and effective number based approach, making it much easier to see the quality of your team.
Even the gameplay has that classic PES feel with shots zipping in from all angles. You can literally shoot from anywhere in the opponents half and be on target, although unrealistic, it is great fun. But sadly this is where the fun ended as horrible errors in the gameplay begin to emerge. Running with the ball lacks any real authentic control, even though Konami have been promising to rival FIFA 10 by adding 360° dribbling, only one has truly delivered. It feels as if your running on pre-determined rails, jutting through defences in diagonal bursts. The passing feels the same as the ball ping pongs about with heavy thuds.
There is no pacing of the ball whether your passing, chipping or giving it a good old-fashioned punt up the pitch. If your anything like me, you will give up on the passing game and just run through defences or try and score from the halfway line. Usually in a football game, running through defences would require a lot of skill – mastering the deft little twitch of the analogue stick to stroke the ball past the staggering defender – but in PES 10 it’s so easy, thanks to the wayward defending.
Player AI in general is severely lacking, whether it be goal keeping, midfield or defence; goalkeepers come running out for the ball and stop directly in front of the attacker; defenders chase the attacker in groups, leaving their defence open; attacking players run into groups of defenders rather than the afore-mentioned space. All these problems made it so hard for me to enjoy the game. Upon reaching the Champions League final I was expecting a close, exciting game, filled with wonder goals and nail-biting saves, but what did I get? I got a goal scored against me that glitched straight through my keepers body.
Hoping these glaring errors were due to me playing on Regular difficulty, I upped it to Professional. Instead of being able to run through the defence with ease I was now greeted with a computer opponent that fired the ball around the midfield with ease, leaving me to feast on the scraps. Once I had the ball I was once again forced to try and charge through as the defence shut me down far too easily. This inconsistency with the difficulty modes left me a little lost; do I grind through the hard matches or shoot through the easy ones?
PES 10 has got a very good game mode in the infamous Master League. Fans of the series will have no doubt lost hundreds of hours scouting for that perfect player to complete your team. The interface, although hard to get to grips with, quickly becomes intuitive and offers a refreshing take on the Master League, or manager mode format. The menu resembles a ball, with each of the three main options appearing on the outer edges, and their individual menus in the centre. Team Office is where all your managerial decisions take place. Stadium Walk is where you can save your game, view any previous topics and change the options. Finally, the most impressive option, is Club House where you set up your game plan, training and youth team. Even without some of the licensed teams you can still appreciate the depth in this mode. Konami have possibly got one-up on EA with this mode as the options do surpass that of FIFA’s manager mode.
If you are not a fan of Master League then head over to Become a Legend mode. Similar to FIFA’s Superstar mode, it puts you in charge of your created player, building him up from a nobody to a household name. But unlike FIFA it lacks the depth and polish to make it as absolving as it’s counterpart. With no in-game stats updating you with how well you are doing, it is a very lonely experience. In FIFA you still have some control over your team mates as you can call for a pass, tell them to shoot, and even control suppressing defenders. In Become a Legend mode, however, you do not have such luxuries at your disposal and are left to wait patiently for the computer to acknowledge you.
After abandoning computer team mates why not head online to get real ones. PES 10, unlike previous incarnations, actually works online. You can take on players head to head or take your superstar into a game to play with up to 3 other players. I was a little disappointed with this after playing with up to 20 on FIFA 10. Once I found a game it was mostly lag free, some lag spikes here and there, but all in all Konami seem to have made big improvements.
The game can be fun when playing multiplayer – online or with friends – but I dont think it has the legs to be a serious football sim. It is filled with far too many frustrating gameplay errors for you to lose yourself in. PES has not changed enough to keep up with todays standard of sports games, which is a shame as it really was the best. Significant improvements have been made, but I think Konami are going to have to rebuild their system from the ground up to be able to compete with FIFA’s realistic, smooth football.
VideogameUK verdict: 6/10
