In terms of gameplay, I am loving PES this year. I played Pro Evo on PS2 and PC yesterday just to compare and contrast the titles and whilst games like PES has that solidity PES 2012 is by far the better in what you can achieve and create.
So in terms of gameplay, the new PES IS THE BEST YET!
However, I am also getting inclined to agree with people of your mindset about KONAMI in general. It's PES 6 time; whether you liked it or preferred PES 5 more that is not the argument right now, we had a generation of football gamers thinking it was football heaven and for it's time they were right. Even playing it yesterday I can say that the ball physics for example are still much, much better than they are now. Passing is more believable and shooting is just a joy.
The CPU pass the ball about in defence neatly on the higher levels to draw you out and don't get me started on the keepers - simply out of this world. Even compared to FIFA animation standards the goalies in PES6 are totally believable, the way they fall, the way they handle the shots they stop or palm round the post.
PES6 or even 5 if you prefer, were just stunningly solid gripping footy games.
AND NOW WE'VE HAD OF WHAT SEEMS LIKE A THOUSAND YEARS OF KONAMI FKING EVERYTHING UP
I wrote on another forum that last night I had a wonderful PES2012 time, the games were varied and excellent, and NO KEEPER blunders.
BUT, the problem with this years PES is that you're just waiting for THAT blunder. You feel like it's more luck than judgement that the goalies don't just go all skitz on you.
Listen I love PES, and when it clicks this year it is the best no doubt. I'm not a FIFA boy, too many sweet spots too easy a game. But enough is surely enough with KONAMI and I'm starting to join the growing minority who are just absolutely fed up with their shoddy production.
This year we have a game that comes out, and the releases are all over the shop. UK customers have to wait two weeks til after everybody else thus handing any sales momentum directly over to FIFA straight away in the UK. Then we have the different BLES codes making editing a nightmare. Then we find that the released game is so far out of date that Bruce Grobbelaar is still in goals for Liverpool and that Anders Limpar is strutting his stuff for Arsenal.
Then we all find out after some extensive play that the goalies are diabolical. We then also find out that the game behaves differently on the PS3 to the PC to the Xbox, where people also find out that there is a stutter bug. During this time we have had normal people in the community like Alan editing this stat and that, Jenkey releasing constant patches for gameplay and instant replay slot saves increase, kits and rosters updates and people designing patches to edit camera angles etc. HONESTLY, the fking people on these forums are doing more work in a week than KONAMI in a year!
Then I went online just to test, and it was a nightmare. Lag all over the place and the game run by Barce/Messi/Madrid/CR7 sprint whores. That's if you're not disconnected.
Then we find (or at least I have) that the game also behaves differently with different tv settings, drastically in some cases. We then have to switch the gamespeed down a notch or two to make CPU pass the ball and for it not to be 100mph. We also cannot customise (still) the camera angles. Most people in the UK by now would have bought the product and immediately downloaded all content thus not knowing what pre-patch was and how it played. I had the US version and so played pre-patch for a while, I then started hating the game, shortly after installing the data pack, at least now I know that it was the patch that destroyed everything. It only emerged much later that the post patch is nothing like pre-patch in terms of gameplay and that all the "fixes" were designed to hide the fact that the keepers were shit - so what did KONAMI do, made every team play with 8 defenders and made all shots go centrally. Nice one KONAMI; some genius in production must have had a promotion for that idea (right up until the point where someone noticed that post patch tried to pull the wool over our eyes).
So, now we have -
1) Play the game in pre-patch which is much better with shit keepers and no-online
or
2) Play post patch, have every game the same repetitive mess, have shots go in the centre but alas the keepers are good, and you can go online.
I have been silent about the way KONAMI have conducted themselves through all the dark hours on next gen, and have put it down to 'it must be something cultural, oh but bless them for trying'....not any more.
Those days are long game. What I want now, in fact what I demand in this day and age for my hard earned and staking KONAMI's future wuth my cash is a game that resembles something complete.
YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING to suggest that this game was pre-tested for any reasonable length of time. Either I've already put more PES hours in than the entire KONAMI team to see the problems or they playtested and thought fk this we'll just leave the keepers as they are.
Either way it is shoddy, like all the other stuff I've mentioned and is just NOT acceptable anymore. If they want to fight in the ring with the big boys they have to get their shit together and judging by sales figures in Japan, they have to get their shit together quickly.
It's the modern age, they need to patch these keepers, get their servers sorted and generally become much, much more professional. People like me are now not willing to give them more chances, we have been burned too often.
When PES2012 plays its best I firmly believe it is a great game, but that man between the stick at the moment is the difference between a 6/10 game and a 9/10 game (offline anyway and for me personally). The rest I can live with re physics and everything. Although like I touched upon, I too fail to see how KONAMI have gone totally around the mullberry bush more or less back were we started at PES6 development.
