Pro Evolution Soccer or PES to the legion of fans who follow this popular footy franchise, has kept gamers glued to their screens in football heaven for the past 16 years and with the release of PES 2013 that trend looks set to continue.
What is it about Pro Evo that has maintained this popularity with the fans despite several different incarnations across the consoles and with FIFA in constant competition?
Even though FIFA has outstripped PES in the rankings over the last 4-5 years, the Konami favourite refuses to be beaten and instead of being the market leader, is now playing catch-up to FIFA. What makes the fans come back for more every year and part with the best part of 40 pounds every September/October?
Playability - the big trump card PES has always maintained over FIFA. Konami have varied the learning curves over the past few years, sometimes you could pick up and play PES immediately, other times you might find yourself drawing the first 5 or 6 games and not even scoring until you learned the new nuances.
PES has never pandered to your whims like FIFA, it has never made it easy to score or create chances. The ethos behind the PES games is to make you work hard, learn and practice each new version, so that you can truly appreciate the beauty of the game. None more so than when you win a game on the hardest difficulty for the first time with an injury time rocket into the top corner.
PES seems to generate a kind of finger memory in your playing, that means you instinctively know how to play each new version, but that this behaviour is subconscious and the developers are going to tease this out of you over the first few weeks of you playing the new version.
Realism - from player likenesses to ball movement, PES has always held sway over the FIFA monstrosities. I don't mind FIFA nowadays, but I like my ball to move, not float and Pro Evo certainly comes out on top for ball mechanics.
Real life football is recreated more accurately in Pro Evo and the players move as though they have an actual body weight, which when coupled with accurate football flight, makes the game look like a real game of football. Even the goalkeepers are fallible and make mistakes that give away goals.
Player likenesses have been a forte for Konami and usually magazine or newspaper reviews will run comparisons between the same players in PES and FIFA. PES has always won this battle, even when it's lost the overall war. Some FIFA Rooney faces have definitely borrowed heavily from Shrek!
Speed - Konami seem to tweak this mechanic every year, usually slowing it down in recent times in a bid to recapture some perceived loss of realism in the gameplay. At the moment PES 2013 is the slowest recent iteration, with Konami focusing on player movement and touch, which is obviously helped by slower movements.
In the latest game Konami have included a speed setting which allows you to control the game speed. You have five settings to choose from, so if you still fancy bombing down the wings like PES games of yesteryear you can.
Licenses - or in the case of Pro Evo, a distinct lack of them, explains why PES has always struggled and in fact failed to match the licensing rights of FIFA, but in a strange way, this has helped PES become stronger.
It has bred a whole online culture of editing with talented PES fans creating options files which when downloaded from the internet and uploaded into the game resolves the license anomalies.
Unfortunately, as I'm not a FIFA fan, I can't compare their edit functions, but if they can rival the PES edit modes, which allow realistic faces and bodies, football strips and stadia, I'd be surprised. You can now edit almost every part of the Pro Evo setup.
Innovation - PES has always pushed the boundaries and creates new innovations for every new game. In recent years the artificial intelligence (AI) has been vastly improved and PES 2013 now features Player ID and Full Control, which basically tries to marry players in the game with their real dopple-gangers. Movements are synched so that Ronaldo runs and shoots like Ronaldo and Messi likewise.
Two Player - this for me has always been the strength of Pro Evo, sure the game is fun to play against the computer, but the real joy, screaming, swearing and tantrums begin when you play against another human.
Everybody who has ever played against a mate will know the joy of a strike into his top corner and the despair of him chipping the ball over your onrushing goalkeeper and into your empty goal. Friendships have been put on hold for the duration of these games before.
For me it's the two player skirmishes and online activities that increase and maintain the lifespan of all Pro Evo games and I don't see the latest version being any different in this respect.
What is it about Pro Evo that has maintained this popularity with the fans despite several different incarnations across the consoles and with FIFA in constant competition?
Even though FIFA has outstripped PES in the rankings over the last 4-5 years, the Konami favourite refuses to be beaten and instead of being the market leader, is now playing catch-up to FIFA. What makes the fans come back for more every year and part with the best part of 40 pounds every September/October?
Playability - the big trump card PES has always maintained over FIFA. Konami have varied the learning curves over the past few years, sometimes you could pick up and play PES immediately, other times you might find yourself drawing the first 5 or 6 games and not even scoring until you learned the new nuances.
PES has never pandered to your whims like FIFA, it has never made it easy to score or create chances. The ethos behind the PES games is to make you work hard, learn and practice each new version, so that you can truly appreciate the beauty of the game. None more so than when you win a game on the hardest difficulty for the first time with an injury time rocket into the top corner.
PES seems to generate a kind of finger memory in your playing, that means you instinctively know how to play each new version, but that this behaviour is subconscious and the developers are going to tease this out of you over the first few weeks of you playing the new version.
Realism - from player likenesses to ball movement, PES has always held sway over the FIFA monstrosities. I don't mind FIFA nowadays, but I like my ball to move, not float and Pro Evo certainly comes out on top for ball mechanics.
Real life football is recreated more accurately in Pro Evo and the players move as though they have an actual body weight, which when coupled with accurate football flight, makes the game look like a real game of football. Even the goalkeepers are fallible and make mistakes that give away goals.
Player likenesses have been a forte for Konami and usually magazine or newspaper reviews will run comparisons between the same players in PES and FIFA. PES has always won this battle, even when it's lost the overall war. Some FIFA Rooney faces have definitely borrowed heavily from Shrek!
Speed - Konami seem to tweak this mechanic every year, usually slowing it down in recent times in a bid to recapture some perceived loss of realism in the gameplay. At the moment PES 2013 is the slowest recent iteration, with Konami focusing on player movement and touch, which is obviously helped by slower movements.
In the latest game Konami have included a speed setting which allows you to control the game speed. You have five settings to choose from, so if you still fancy bombing down the wings like PES games of yesteryear you can.
Licenses - or in the case of Pro Evo, a distinct lack of them, explains why PES has always struggled and in fact failed to match the licensing rights of FIFA, but in a strange way, this has helped PES become stronger.
It has bred a whole online culture of editing with talented PES fans creating options files which when downloaded from the internet and uploaded into the game resolves the license anomalies.
Unfortunately, as I'm not a FIFA fan, I can't compare their edit functions, but if they can rival the PES edit modes, which allow realistic faces and bodies, football strips and stadia, I'd be surprised. You can now edit almost every part of the Pro Evo setup.
Innovation - PES has always pushed the boundaries and creates new innovations for every new game. In recent years the artificial intelligence (AI) has been vastly improved and PES 2013 now features Player ID and Full Control, which basically tries to marry players in the game with their real dopple-gangers. Movements are synched so that Ronaldo runs and shoots like Ronaldo and Messi likewise.
Two Player - this for me has always been the strength of Pro Evo, sure the game is fun to play against the computer, but the real joy, screaming, swearing and tantrums begin when you play against another human.
Everybody who has ever played against a mate will know the joy of a strike into his top corner and the despair of him chipping the ball over your onrushing goalkeeper and into your empty goal. Friendships have been put on hold for the duration of these games before.
For me it's the two player skirmishes and online activities that increase and maintain the lifespan of all Pro Evo games and I don't see the latest version being any different in this respect.
About the Author:
Steve Hinds founded www.pes2013.org.uk with the goal of showcasing the history and strengths of Pro Evo. Take a look at the latest Pro Evo videos.. Free reprint available from: PES 2013 Will Again Take Its Place At The Top.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire