At a glance...

Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 review

Pro Evolution Soccer has been FIFA’s biggest rival since I can remember. For a football game fan you sit in one of two categories. Those that love FIFA. Those that love PES. I sat in the latter of the two categories for about five consecutive years until PES 2010 hit stores. I disliked the controls and something I couldn’t put my finger on had changed – and I jumped ship to FIFA.

PES 2012 arrives and it’s time to see if whatever had gone wrong had been fixed whilst I sat in the FIFA camp. With delight I can say – it's back! I start up the game and hit straight into an Exhibition Match to see if the game feels like it used to. The first thing to note is the interface has been seriously spruced up, it now feels closer to FIFA with its professional look and feel within the menus. I choose Inter Milan and decided to play against "London F.C."; no real surprise that Konami still have not forked out the cash to buy all the licences it seems (London F.C. is Chelsea...). For those who don’t know PES has long concentrated on gameplay over expensive licences, team names and flashy graphics.

The game begins and the passing and control over my players is tight, quick and without mistake. My players do what I want them to do, and the AI controlling player movement and runs is again how I would expect it to be. It is almost as if the players hear what I am thinking – move there, run this way! Tackling is also good, applying pressure with the normal holding of X and Square as my opposition has the ball. Tapping Circle results in a dangerous, badly-timed, sliding challenge and Torres hits the floor in an overly dramatic way resulting in Maicon getting a yellow card, and of course, a replay. The replay disappoints me and highlights some rather jagged graphics and a stuttery low framerate, despite playing on a PS3 and at 720p (the highest setting possible in this game), it appears Konami has not put a huge amount of concentration on the replay playback. I expect replays to show me the challenge at the same frames-per-second as when I made it, perhaps from a different angle. Unfortunately this is not the case, and this is the first time I dislike something with the game.

Before I know it, it's half-time and time to look at my team's energy. This is a part of PES which I really like; each player has a condition, which is randomly chosen at the start of each game. They can have a normal condition, above average, and excellent condition. Likewise below average and poor condition exists. With each possible condition you get either +15% or -15% on the normal stats of that player, resulting in an excellent condition Eto being a massive 35% better than a normal level Eto. This extra level of tactics sits alongside the typical bar showing the amount of energy the player has left. This can make for good tactical substitutions, and picking players depending on their condition. I swap a couple of players who are on normal condition, but looking tired, and replace them with younger - not as high stats, but higher condition - players. I can also easily alter my players' on-pitch positions to make my runs and passes more suited to the way I want to play.

The second half kicks off and I finally score my first PES 2012 goal on the 57th minute. Stankovic my AMF (Attacking Mid-Fielder) picks the ball up just beyond the half way line and starts to make a wide run. I notice Eto making a promising run towards the corner flag and I feed a through-ball to him, holding Triangle to give it some power. He picks it up before throwing a brilliant cross into the Chelsea box, an uncommitted Czech makes a mistake, leaving Milito (who is on +30%) to smash a fantastic volley into the bottom-right of the Chelsea goalmouth. The game ends 1-0, a sensible score line for a tightly-fought affair. The game was great – I found it to be great fun, challenging and extremely rewarding when scoring.

I am at my heart an online gamer, and looking at the online modes of PES brought again what I expected. You pick a team when choosing one from 1v1 or 2v2 ranked or unranked. There is also a competition mode where you can have a league with your friends and it will keep track on a league table your head-to-head results - a nice touch. Online Master mode also exists which helps you take a tactical approach to your online gaming. Each player in 1v1 matches has a Division and a rating. Win a match and your rating increases, and your chances of being promoted at the end of the week increase. It seems I was drawn up against a large portion of varying players; I was in Divison 2 and I played those in Division 1 all the way down to Division 5! Not great matchmaking perhaps, or perhaps just not that many players online when I played?

Ratings

Click here to buy Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 from Amazon.co.uk.

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