possibly nostalgia kicking in a little??? I think the best PES is 2011, followed by PES2010, followed by PES2009, I think you get the picture...it is different of course to say that a game is good for its time or platform i.e. PES5 or PES6, which I would possibly agree purely because of the capabilities of the PS2 compared with the capabilities of the PS3, I think that PES5 and PES6 punched above their weight considering the platform on which they were played, more so than PES2011 is punching above its weight absolutely, however on a purely gaming basis it is in my opinion fairly absurd to suggest that PES5 or PES6 are better games outright than PES2011. We remember the good points of previous games more keenly as time passes I suspect, grass is always greener from a distance.
Well said, fully agree,
I'm not sure about PES09, but certainly, after playing PES10 and PES11, I cannot bother with PES5 nor with PES6.
A lot of people overlook the fact that the AI felt smarter in PES5, because the passing was 8-axis... therefore, you make the AI smarter to minimize the 8-axis passing restrictions... and Konami successfully did that with PES5 and PES6.
The thing that has gone wrong since making the jump to current consoles, is that Konami and EA Sports have replaced the 8-axis passing with 360-axis passing and yet, they have not changed or replaced the gameplay concept... Adding more directions to the same concept will never actually change or replace the concept, it will update the concept, but it will never actually fix the core flaws................ because it is impossible to fix the core flaws without actually replacing the gameplay concept.
Because these are YEARLY UPDATES.... that's exactly what it is, an update, not a replacement; and, as already mentioned, it is impossible to fix the core flaws without actually replacing the gameplay concept.
The passing system has more directions, yet the gameplay concept remains as dumb as ever: it is a dumb concept, has always been a dumb concept, and it remains unchanged....
Passing the ball from a wide view perspective: an obvious concept, really, do you need skills to pass the ball from a wide view perspective? With the new 360-axis passing, if the players were any smarter... the game would become a goal scoring goal fest.
And the wide view perspective concept is dumb and obvious, not because of the wide view perspective, but because the defensive system is dumb and in fact broken.
Defence: you can manually, literally, manually control the direction in which all the players run when defending... Holding the R1 sprint button when the opponent passes the ball, does not creates any negative nor any positive repercussions, it simply does not affects how the R1 sprint button works in any way... It is a stupid system, a dumb system, with absolutely no substance at its core. Yet it minimizes the lack of proper physics when dribbling and man-marking, it minimizes the weakest area of the game, and this is why defending is the same old stupid procedure.
Balance: balancing the game will expose the d-pad roots which are currently holding the genre down, we don't have proper dribbling and man-marking physics, a balanced game would expose the weakest area of the game.
You don't expose the weakest area of your game, you maximize your strength, and the strength of PES11 is the new passing system: dumb AI will maximize their strength, and will minimize their weakest link.
The potential is amazing, the potential is there for all to see, but sadly, the fact that business revolves around money; makes PES a yearly update, and yearly updates are likely to never replace what should have been replaced.
I understand why some people prefer the old PS2 games to the new PS3 games, because the old games were full arcade... and a full arcade will be more balanced; on the other hand, PES on the next gen consoles is a mix of arcade with simulation... which makes the game better in terms of passing, but worst in many other areas of the game.
So between PES5 and PES11, I prefer PES11 and PES10 because I get more variety with the things I can do; at the same time, I respect the people who prefer playing PES5, because PES5 was a full arcade, a full arcade will always be more competent (despite the many restrictions) than a mix between arcade and simulation.