thenotsogood
Registered User
A very small minority of you may remember my thread on whether I should buy the game or not... Long story short: I did. Am I regretting it? Kinda, but I'll explain why.
I'm going to sort my review into categories, defending, attacking, goalkeeping etc, as well as general gameplay features that I like/dislike or think need improving. I'll start with the goalkeeping, "+" indicates a pro, and "-" indicates a con when summarising.
Also, I'll try keep FIFA10 out of this as much as possible, but ultimately (and I think you're blind if you don't agree to an extent), FIFA has some features which Konami have to try out in future. There's a TL ; DR version at the bottom of the post.
Goalies:
The goalkeeping seems to be spot on from first glance, in fairness, based on the player's ratings they'll make saves that you expected or didn't expect them to make, taking into account that on form goalkeepers will perform better, it all makes sense.
The main issue I've noticed is sometimes a 'keeper will dive for shots that are going slowly, miss them and then let a cheap goal in. For typical shots where power doesn't come out right, this seems pretty okay, but deflections where there's nothing in it, I can't help but feel the 'keeper could have kept on his feet and just picked the ball up before it crossed the line.
+ Goalkeeping seems pretty realistic
- As above, plus 'keepers seem to catch powerful shots that are very difficult to keep a hold of even by world class standards
Defending:
Defending is the biggest problem I have with this game, I'll admit straight up that I'm not very good at it, but there seems to be some very serious flaws that detract from the overall game. Most notably is computer controlled players turning and passing past you too easily, and creating chances from nothing.
Another major issue I have is my players when controlled by the computer can not handle through balls against them. When selecting a player in a better position to try intercept, when he's initially selected he'll stop his run, gifting their forward enough time and space to undoubtedly perform an impossible turn and have a chance at goal.
The jostling seems very hit and miss to me, as well. More often than not it seems pretty sound from a defending perspective, but when you're being jostled off the ball, it's frustrating how long it takes for your player to recover, even more annoying when they stand there afterwards for half a second; a vital half a second.
It's too easy to give away a free-kick due to shoddy refereeing. I think everyone knows what I mean, and I'll explain this a bit more later as I think it ties in with one of the biggest gripes in the game: the computer deciding who's in posession.
This will be a small one... If a ball falls at the feet of a few defenders in the penalty box from say, a corner, rarely there's nothing you can do to get rid of the ball. I've gave away cheap goals because the defenders refuse to clear when I smash X about a million times.
And last but not least, interceptions: unless I'm doing something wrong, I simply can not make the first touch a pass, and a lot of the times the first touch can only be so good in certain conditions, and an interception can often turn into disposession. It's worse when it's a dangerous area, as well as suddenly finding yourself a defender short.
+ Jostling works well... Sometimes.
+ Defending corners can be very realistic
- Through balls can be difficult, especially when switching players to try get a better chance at winning the ball back
- Too easy to foul a player
- On rare occasions the defence will spread out when initiating a counter-attack, but if a pass goes wrong, and the opponents catch you on the break, some players continue running forward
Attacking:
Generally speaking, playing the ball forward can work out tremendously well for you. For me, this is where the game is at, you can see where real improvements have been made to the game, and how well the 360 dribbling can work out.
Shooting is hit and miss, and this is why I'd say the shooting is more realistic than ever. The ball physics help the game a lot, and I'd easily say the curling of the ball is the best I've seen in a football game in a while. Powerful shots will have a small amount of spin, whilst deflections can really alter the direction and swerve of the ball, a big change when you think PES's deflection system was pretty much hit or miss. No slight deflections of any sort.
That said, it does come with a negative, as there's always this common misconception in football games: if a player can't shoot accurately, they can't perform powerful shots. PES still haven't found this balance yet, in my opinion, and you have players who can ping the ball in the top corner at 100mph, and players whose shots are so bad, that you can't get any positives from them shooting. I'd like powerful but inaccurate shooters to at least get a shot on target, giving other forwards a chance to capitalise on spilled saves or deflections.
Another major gripe for me is the lack of players running forward with you on attacks. If my left winger is running up the field, I don't expect my prolific striker to fall into midfield when the winger gets further up the field. This ties in with another issue as you can't seem to outrun defenders, so having no forward to pass to really halts your plans, and gets you frustrated. This is the first time I'm going to mention FIFA, as they have a feature where you can send your players on runs. PES needs this dearly. That said, when your forwards eventually get in a good position, they can make excellent runs, and allow you with brilliant opportunities.
Taking players on seems too difficult when you see how easy to computer does it. Firstly it's to do with the speed of the defenders, they always seem to be able to outrun you, and secondly, the angle of each turn never seems to be where you want it. I can understand Konami wanted to get rid of people abusing the sprint button, but they could have made it much better. There doesn't seem to be enough attention to players getting tired when sprinting, they get slower throughout the game, but not through a run, if they implemented this properly, it could stop the abuse. Mention number 2: FIFA's stamina gauge and setup, that seems to work a treat. Secondly, it still seems all too easily to maintain control when sprinting, both with the ball and defending and making runs.
One last one: penalties. I'll say straight away I don't understand how they work, but the view behind the player and press left or right to shoot worked. They had no reason to change it to this new confusing mess. If they really needed to change it, at least change it to FIFA's new system, so much better. If anyone has any advice for me on this one it would be greatly appreciated.
+ Shooting is good, ball physics seem to work well
+ Passing movements and runs can be used to good effect
+ Corners are good, slight deflections can make or break goal opportunities
- Taking players on is a weak aspect of the game
- Not enough decisive runs and support in the opponent's half
- One-two's don't work to great effect as a result of defenders being able to easily catch up
General gameplay:
I'll touch on the posession problems as mentioned previously. To sum up, the computer simply can not decide who should be in posession. This takes a few forms, the first being when crosses are made, the auto switching chooses the wrong person, and a number of times I've had a ball about to fall perfectly on someone's head, but he doesn't make an effort because the computer decides the guy behind who is marked by 3 players wants to volley it.
The other form is when performing a sliding tackle. You'll win the ball clearly and see the referee give a free-kick. I know exactly why this happens and it's pretty disgraceful to say the least. You'll win the ball but in a split second the posession goes back to the attacker and then he's taken down. We're into the 10th PES game and this is still an issue.
Speaking of "into the 10th PES game and this is still an issue"... Players stopping in their tracks for no reason. I'm not going to go into detail about this. It's frustrating and shouldn't be present in the game still.
On graphics and presentation, everything seems good to me. I've read a few comments about how the graphics are only good in replays etc but they do actually look good normally, if anything there's frame rate issues in the replays. I'd rather something run smoothly than be visually fantastic, but if we can have both, fair play.
Animations are still robotic in some aspects, but it's still not something to complain about. I'd prioritise core gameplay over animations, something which I think Konami are doing, but not very good judging by their progress since PES6. One thing I love though is that how the players kick or reach the ball isn't restricted by the animations, something that I've felt FIFA fails at: if the animation isn't there, the player can't do it. But yes, it looks bad in PES how their feet will move abnormally to reach the ball, but you know the player would shift their body to reach it, and as such the core gameplay is a bit more realistic, looks sloppy but that isn't an issue.
Lastly, edit mode. Disappointing to see there aren't any (or many) additions from last season, but it still makes the game a bit more personal. The fact that you can create faces that look like they've been purposefully put there, and not default faces.
+ Graphics are good, menus are clean
+ ML is brilliant
+ Player likenesses are good
+ Fatigue system from game-to-game (and inclusion of international games) in ML is really good
- Issues that have been present throughout the series are still here
- Camera angles are pretty horrible
Overall (TL ; DR):
It is a good game, and in the FIFA vs PES debate it does hold its own. My only regret is buying it at full retail price, other than that, I really like this, and I'm really interested in what the next addition will play like. One thing they need to do is to take ideas from FIFA and implement them into their game, I don't know if it's stubborness of their opinions on the FIFA franchise, but there's definitely some learning points for them within that game.
Definitely the best PES since PES5 (PES6 on last gen was better than PES5 if I remember correctly?). But they really need to redo a lot of stuff, possibly a new engine because I feel they can't really progress on this one.
Konami really need to fix little niggles such as players stopping in their tracks, and players not responding to commands.
Stuff they should definitely borrow from FIFA:
Pressing Lb to send players on runs
Using the right stick to properly knock the ball ahead so faster players can get through
The stamina system.
Thanks for reading! I'll be playing this for the next few months at least
I'm going to sort my review into categories, defending, attacking, goalkeeping etc, as well as general gameplay features that I like/dislike or think need improving. I'll start with the goalkeeping, "+" indicates a pro, and "-" indicates a con when summarising.
Also, I'll try keep FIFA10 out of this as much as possible, but ultimately (and I think you're blind if you don't agree to an extent), FIFA has some features which Konami have to try out in future. There's a TL ; DR version at the bottom of the post.
Goalies:
The goalkeeping seems to be spot on from first glance, in fairness, based on the player's ratings they'll make saves that you expected or didn't expect them to make, taking into account that on form goalkeepers will perform better, it all makes sense.
The main issue I've noticed is sometimes a 'keeper will dive for shots that are going slowly, miss them and then let a cheap goal in. For typical shots where power doesn't come out right, this seems pretty okay, but deflections where there's nothing in it, I can't help but feel the 'keeper could have kept on his feet and just picked the ball up before it crossed the line.
+ Goalkeeping seems pretty realistic
- As above, plus 'keepers seem to catch powerful shots that are very difficult to keep a hold of even by world class standards
Defending:
Defending is the biggest problem I have with this game, I'll admit straight up that I'm not very good at it, but there seems to be some very serious flaws that detract from the overall game. Most notably is computer controlled players turning and passing past you too easily, and creating chances from nothing.
Another major issue I have is my players when controlled by the computer can not handle through balls against them. When selecting a player in a better position to try intercept, when he's initially selected he'll stop his run, gifting their forward enough time and space to undoubtedly perform an impossible turn and have a chance at goal.
The jostling seems very hit and miss to me, as well. More often than not it seems pretty sound from a defending perspective, but when you're being jostled off the ball, it's frustrating how long it takes for your player to recover, even more annoying when they stand there afterwards for half a second; a vital half a second.
It's too easy to give away a free-kick due to shoddy refereeing. I think everyone knows what I mean, and I'll explain this a bit more later as I think it ties in with one of the biggest gripes in the game: the computer deciding who's in posession.
This will be a small one... If a ball falls at the feet of a few defenders in the penalty box from say, a corner, rarely there's nothing you can do to get rid of the ball. I've gave away cheap goals because the defenders refuse to clear when I smash X about a million times.
And last but not least, interceptions: unless I'm doing something wrong, I simply can not make the first touch a pass, and a lot of the times the first touch can only be so good in certain conditions, and an interception can often turn into disposession. It's worse when it's a dangerous area, as well as suddenly finding yourself a defender short.
+ Jostling works well... Sometimes.
+ Defending corners can be very realistic
- Through balls can be difficult, especially when switching players to try get a better chance at winning the ball back
- Too easy to foul a player
- On rare occasions the defence will spread out when initiating a counter-attack, but if a pass goes wrong, and the opponents catch you on the break, some players continue running forward
Attacking:
Generally speaking, playing the ball forward can work out tremendously well for you. For me, this is where the game is at, you can see where real improvements have been made to the game, and how well the 360 dribbling can work out.
Shooting is hit and miss, and this is why I'd say the shooting is more realistic than ever. The ball physics help the game a lot, and I'd easily say the curling of the ball is the best I've seen in a football game in a while. Powerful shots will have a small amount of spin, whilst deflections can really alter the direction and swerve of the ball, a big change when you think PES's deflection system was pretty much hit or miss. No slight deflections of any sort.
That said, it does come with a negative, as there's always this common misconception in football games: if a player can't shoot accurately, they can't perform powerful shots. PES still haven't found this balance yet, in my opinion, and you have players who can ping the ball in the top corner at 100mph, and players whose shots are so bad, that you can't get any positives from them shooting. I'd like powerful but inaccurate shooters to at least get a shot on target, giving other forwards a chance to capitalise on spilled saves or deflections.
Another major gripe for me is the lack of players running forward with you on attacks. If my left winger is running up the field, I don't expect my prolific striker to fall into midfield when the winger gets further up the field. This ties in with another issue as you can't seem to outrun defenders, so having no forward to pass to really halts your plans, and gets you frustrated. This is the first time I'm going to mention FIFA, as they have a feature where you can send your players on runs. PES needs this dearly. That said, when your forwards eventually get in a good position, they can make excellent runs, and allow you with brilliant opportunities.
Taking players on seems too difficult when you see how easy to computer does it. Firstly it's to do with the speed of the defenders, they always seem to be able to outrun you, and secondly, the angle of each turn never seems to be where you want it. I can understand Konami wanted to get rid of people abusing the sprint button, but they could have made it much better. There doesn't seem to be enough attention to players getting tired when sprinting, they get slower throughout the game, but not through a run, if they implemented this properly, it could stop the abuse. Mention number 2: FIFA's stamina gauge and setup, that seems to work a treat. Secondly, it still seems all too easily to maintain control when sprinting, both with the ball and defending and making runs.
One last one: penalties. I'll say straight away I don't understand how they work, but the view behind the player and press left or right to shoot worked. They had no reason to change it to this new confusing mess. If they really needed to change it, at least change it to FIFA's new system, so much better. If anyone has any advice for me on this one it would be greatly appreciated.
+ Shooting is good, ball physics seem to work well
+ Passing movements and runs can be used to good effect
+ Corners are good, slight deflections can make or break goal opportunities
- Taking players on is a weak aspect of the game
- Not enough decisive runs and support in the opponent's half
- One-two's don't work to great effect as a result of defenders being able to easily catch up
General gameplay:
I'll touch on the posession problems as mentioned previously. To sum up, the computer simply can not decide who should be in posession. This takes a few forms, the first being when crosses are made, the auto switching chooses the wrong person, and a number of times I've had a ball about to fall perfectly on someone's head, but he doesn't make an effort because the computer decides the guy behind who is marked by 3 players wants to volley it.
The other form is when performing a sliding tackle. You'll win the ball clearly and see the referee give a free-kick. I know exactly why this happens and it's pretty disgraceful to say the least. You'll win the ball but in a split second the posession goes back to the attacker and then he's taken down. We're into the 10th PES game and this is still an issue.
Speaking of "into the 10th PES game and this is still an issue"... Players stopping in their tracks for no reason. I'm not going to go into detail about this. It's frustrating and shouldn't be present in the game still.
On graphics and presentation, everything seems good to me. I've read a few comments about how the graphics are only good in replays etc but they do actually look good normally, if anything there's frame rate issues in the replays. I'd rather something run smoothly than be visually fantastic, but if we can have both, fair play.
Animations are still robotic in some aspects, but it's still not something to complain about. I'd prioritise core gameplay over animations, something which I think Konami are doing, but not very good judging by their progress since PES6. One thing I love though is that how the players kick or reach the ball isn't restricted by the animations, something that I've felt FIFA fails at: if the animation isn't there, the player can't do it. But yes, it looks bad in PES how their feet will move abnormally to reach the ball, but you know the player would shift their body to reach it, and as such the core gameplay is a bit more realistic, looks sloppy but that isn't an issue.
Lastly, edit mode. Disappointing to see there aren't any (or many) additions from last season, but it still makes the game a bit more personal. The fact that you can create faces that look like they've been purposefully put there, and not default faces.
+ Graphics are good, menus are clean
+ ML is brilliant
+ Player likenesses are good
+ Fatigue system from game-to-game (and inclusion of international games) in ML is really good
- Issues that have been present throughout the series are still here
- Camera angles are pretty horrible
Overall (TL ; DR):
It is a good game, and in the FIFA vs PES debate it does hold its own. My only regret is buying it at full retail price, other than that, I really like this, and I'm really interested in what the next addition will play like. One thing they need to do is to take ideas from FIFA and implement them into their game, I don't know if it's stubborness of their opinions on the FIFA franchise, but there's definitely some learning points for them within that game.
Definitely the best PES since PES5 (PES6 on last gen was better than PES5 if I remember correctly?). But they really need to redo a lot of stuff, possibly a new engine because I feel they can't really progress on this one.
Konami really need to fix little niggles such as players stopping in their tracks, and players not responding to commands.
Stuff they should definitely borrow from FIFA:
Pressing Lb to send players on runs
Using the right stick to properly knock the ball ahead so faster players can get through
The stamina system.
Thanks for reading! I'll be playing this for the next few months at least