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PES 2011 Community Day 22nd July
"At last" was my reaction having played my first few minutes of PES 2011. "At last" because even though technically we're beyond calling the Xbox 360 and PS3 "next-gen" it's the first time PES has felt at home on this round of consoles. Its PS2 and even PlayStation roots all too apparent despite the graphical advancements and last year's 360° control.
The 360° control of last year, however, was very hard to spot. Not least because the ball could only be passed in 16 directions and even the players didn't appear to have the range of movement due to the distinctly last-gen animations. This year it all feels right. The gameplay even from the modified E3 code we had access to has already improved considerably over last year.
To illustrate the point, having a quick game of PES 2010 before writing this made me feel like I'd just booted one of the old PS2 favourites. That's not to say that enhancements haven't been made over the old games it's just that a lot of the time they were hidden behind a creaking game engine. EA were quick to realise the need for a new core engine for the current generation of gaming hardware and have reaped the rewards since.
I'm not claiming it's an all new game engine as it clearly isn't but the core mechanics have definitely received the overhaul they needed.
As a demo version we had access to only Exhibition mode with 13 teams (France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Argentina, Netherlands, Cote d'Ivoire, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Roma, Inter, Porto and Benfica) and a Copa Libertadores mode, which just amounted to another exhibition mode but this time between 4 teams from South America (Internacional, Corinthians, Estudiantes and Cruzeiro). Restrictive maybe but that let us concentrate on the most important part of any football game, the engine.
Players and the ball now obviously have full freedom of the pitch from any angle. The animations, while not perfect at the moment, now fit in with the movement as you'd expect so the old fashioned "on the rails" movement is just that, old fashioned. Even without using manual passing the direction you hold for your passes is adhered to where possible and you probably will knock the ball out of play or to the opposition a few times as you rely on old habits.
Players' technical attributes do still come into effect for passes so there'll either be curl on the ball or they will have the ability to hit a tricky pass with the amount of power you requested where a less gifted passer, typically a centre back, might get the direction but not the power, for example.
On the subject of manual passing I'm happy to report that it no longer seems to surprise the players on the pitch when a pass heads off in a certain angle - the response to the ball remains consistent for the most part.
A power bar, which in screenshots may look a bit tacky, accompanies your player on every ball hitting request you make be that passing (short or long), shooting or heading. Again the player's attributes and your timing will come into effect in terms of applying that power to the ball but you quickly get used to seeing the power gauge in play. It's also handy to see when an action might be buffered that you weren't expecting giving you the option of cancelling before your player amusingly hoofs the ball out of play after you'd planned a slide tackle with someone else.
In terms of player response times to your input aside from specific situations (mentioned below) they were very good and certainly didn't crop up as a negative at any point during the day.
The new trick system is a cause for concern/celebration depending on how you view it. In the code we played there were 3 preset packages of tricks. Each package is made up of 4 chains of dribbling moves be they step-overs or flicks and the like. They start with you holding down L1/LB and pushing up, down, left or right on the right stick as the first move of each chain and then if you keep up the right stick moves that have previously been defined your player will attempt the chain of tricks. We didn't have the ability to define our own packages of tricks but the potential is there and the option to choose between the defined packages was in the pause menu.
In terms of affecting gameplay it's clear that a skilled dribbler could pull them off without too much trouble but actually getting passed a savvy defender still isn't guaranteed. I was able to perform skill moves with lesser technically gifted players as well but only ever away from play when I was specifically trying them out. At this point I wouldn't like to say definitively that they will be sufficiently balanced and not over-powered but I'm pretty confident that will be the case.
Part of the reason I couldn't confirm the trick system's potential was because another new gameplay element, the defensive hold-up play feature had not been fully implemented in the version of code we played. I tried it a few times without success and ended up with flat-footed defenders a lot of the time. The old faithful jockey technique proved far more effective. As a player that appreciates the defending side of the game as much as the attacking I hope to be able to try out that feature soon.
The game speed option was present in the in-game pause menu giving you -2, -1, 0 (default), +1 and +2. I was quite happy with 0 but -1 was also a good pace for a football game. As the respective speeds could still change prior to release I didn't spend too much time away from the default.
The other new feature immediately obvious to us was the layout and functionality of the pre-match screens. When you first enter the screen you have a choice from a menu of offensive/defensive/balanced/simple/manual. The first three take you into the line-ups screen having modified the team formation and strategy in line with your preference. Choosing 'simple' first brings up a formations list with a couple of variations such as out wide or down middle from which you can choose before getting to the line-ups. Selecting 'manual' takes you into the screen without amending any default values.
After this initial choice you're presented with a large pitch diagram showing your first 11 in their positions. Selecting the players directly in the diagram allows you to view their profiles, attributes etc. or swap them with one of your substitutes who are shown as arrows down the side of the pitch. When you click on a player the most appropriate substitutes are highlighted allowing you to quickly see who to swing the cursor at.
The skills pentagon makes a welcome return when comparing a couple of players, which is required as there is very little room under the pitch for lists of stats.
The other tactical options are shown across the bottom - selecting them brings up other menus to choose your formations/strategy/team style/set piece takers and the like. When you're defining your team styles you use sliders with values from 0-20 show for things like player support/pressing/defensive line with the resulting change to the formation or player runs displayed on the pitch diagram.
While, I think, in terms of swapping players in/out of your line-up it's slower than quick menus you certainly couldn't argue that the layout and design of the screen is vastly improved.
So far so good then. There are of course negative points that in fairness could be classed as work in progress at this stage but to give a more balanced view they are:
- Goalkeepers: They were shocking 50% of the time. Already improved in later code apparently. (Confirmed as work in progress)
- Player selection: Still off the mark in terms of the players it selects and the subset of players it allows you to choose from (i.e. it will cycle between two players closer but behind the ball rather than a defender further away but who you'd really like to control at that point). The player cursor selection options are still also limited to Unassisted, Semi-Assisted and Assisted - bring back the graduated scale, Konami! Let us choose.
- Player reaction: There is still a problem where players don't react to a loose ball properly - generally after the ball has knocked between a few players or when an attacker shoots - he seems perfectly happy that's his job done even if the ball was blocked and he could've had another chance.
- Player tickling: It's probably not tickling but it's the only explanation I came up with. It's very frustrating to have a player with the ball impeded by a defender just being right up against his back rendering him unable to move or pass the ball until the contact has finished or the ball has been lost.
- Player slowing down when running onto a through ball. It's still there despite the lack of rails. A few times I'd played a chipped through ball through to a striker who plodded on at jogging pace despite my best intentions until he was tackled. I know the through ball behind a defence move has to be balanced but surely not like this. I also saw other attackers do this every now and then without a particular reason. (No I didn't spend the entire game holding sprint)
- Refereeing: Blatant trips not given, a harsh red card here and there. (Confirmed as work in progress)
- Nets: This is just for Evo-Web, they're still not very good and look fake. There I said it.
While it's too hard to contrive conclusions from such a limited preview of the finished article I can say that I'm optimistic about PES for the first time in years and that's coming from a hardened old cynic. Here's hoping Konami keep up the new approach in terms of development and involving the community at large to deliver something grand.
"At last" was my reaction having played my first few minutes of PES 2011. "At last" because even though technically we're beyond calling the Xbox 360 and PS3 "next-gen" it's the first time PES has felt at home on this round of consoles. Its PS2 and even PlayStation roots all too apparent despite the graphical advancements and last year's 360° control.
The 360° control of last year, however, was very hard to spot. Not least because the ball could only be passed in 16 directions and even the players didn't appear to have the range of movement due to the distinctly last-gen animations. This year it all feels right. The gameplay even from the modified E3 code we had access to has already improved considerably over last year.
To illustrate the point, having a quick game of PES 2010 before writing this made me feel like I'd just booted one of the old PS2 favourites. That's not to say that enhancements haven't been made over the old games it's just that a lot of the time they were hidden behind a creaking game engine. EA were quick to realise the need for a new core engine for the current generation of gaming hardware and have reaped the rewards since.
I'm not claiming it's an all new game engine as it clearly isn't but the core mechanics have definitely received the overhaul they needed.
As a demo version we had access to only Exhibition mode with 13 teams (France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Argentina, Netherlands, Cote d'Ivoire, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Roma, Inter, Porto and Benfica) and a Copa Libertadores mode, which just amounted to another exhibition mode but this time between 4 teams from South America (Internacional, Corinthians, Estudiantes and Cruzeiro). Restrictive maybe but that let us concentrate on the most important part of any football game, the engine.
Players and the ball now obviously have full freedom of the pitch from any angle. The animations, while not perfect at the moment, now fit in with the movement as you'd expect so the old fashioned "on the rails" movement is just that, old fashioned. Even without using manual passing the direction you hold for your passes is adhered to where possible and you probably will knock the ball out of play or to the opposition a few times as you rely on old habits.
Players' technical attributes do still come into effect for passes so there'll either be curl on the ball or they will have the ability to hit a tricky pass with the amount of power you requested where a less gifted passer, typically a centre back, might get the direction but not the power, for example.
On the subject of manual passing I'm happy to report that it no longer seems to surprise the players on the pitch when a pass heads off in a certain angle - the response to the ball remains consistent for the most part.
A power bar, which in screenshots may look a bit tacky, accompanies your player on every ball hitting request you make be that passing (short or long), shooting or heading. Again the player's attributes and your timing will come into effect in terms of applying that power to the ball but you quickly get used to seeing the power gauge in play. It's also handy to see when an action might be buffered that you weren't expecting giving you the option of cancelling before your player amusingly hoofs the ball out of play after you'd planned a slide tackle with someone else.
In terms of player response times to your input aside from specific situations (mentioned below) they were very good and certainly didn't crop up as a negative at any point during the day.
The new trick system is a cause for concern/celebration depending on how you view it. In the code we played there were 3 preset packages of tricks. Each package is made up of 4 chains of dribbling moves be they step-overs or flicks and the like. They start with you holding down L1/LB and pushing up, down, left or right on the right stick as the first move of each chain and then if you keep up the right stick moves that have previously been defined your player will attempt the chain of tricks. We didn't have the ability to define our own packages of tricks but the potential is there and the option to choose between the defined packages was in the pause menu.
In terms of affecting gameplay it's clear that a skilled dribbler could pull them off without too much trouble but actually getting passed a savvy defender still isn't guaranteed. I was able to perform skill moves with lesser technically gifted players as well but only ever away from play when I was specifically trying them out. At this point I wouldn't like to say definitively that they will be sufficiently balanced and not over-powered but I'm pretty confident that will be the case.
Part of the reason I couldn't confirm the trick system's potential was because another new gameplay element, the defensive hold-up play feature had not been fully implemented in the version of code we played. I tried it a few times without success and ended up with flat-footed defenders a lot of the time. The old faithful jockey technique proved far more effective. As a player that appreciates the defending side of the game as much as the attacking I hope to be able to try out that feature soon.
The game speed option was present in the in-game pause menu giving you -2, -1, 0 (default), +1 and +2. I was quite happy with 0 but -1 was also a good pace for a football game. As the respective speeds could still change prior to release I didn't spend too much time away from the default.
The other new feature immediately obvious to us was the layout and functionality of the pre-match screens. When you first enter the screen you have a choice from a menu of offensive/defensive/balanced/simple/manual. The first three take you into the line-ups screen having modified the team formation and strategy in line with your preference. Choosing 'simple' first brings up a formations list with a couple of variations such as out wide or down middle from which you can choose before getting to the line-ups. Selecting 'manual' takes you into the screen without amending any default values.
After this initial choice you're presented with a large pitch diagram showing your first 11 in their positions. Selecting the players directly in the diagram allows you to view their profiles, attributes etc. or swap them with one of your substitutes who are shown as arrows down the side of the pitch. When you click on a player the most appropriate substitutes are highlighted allowing you to quickly see who to swing the cursor at.
The skills pentagon makes a welcome return when comparing a couple of players, which is required as there is very little room under the pitch for lists of stats.
The other tactical options are shown across the bottom - selecting them brings up other menus to choose your formations/strategy/team style/set piece takers and the like. When you're defining your team styles you use sliders with values from 0-20 show for things like player support/pressing/defensive line with the resulting change to the formation or player runs displayed on the pitch diagram.
While, I think, in terms of swapping players in/out of your line-up it's slower than quick menus you certainly couldn't argue that the layout and design of the screen is vastly improved.
So far so good then. There are of course negative points that in fairness could be classed as work in progress at this stage but to give a more balanced view they are:
- Goalkeepers: They were shocking 50% of the time. Already improved in later code apparently. (Confirmed as work in progress)
- Player selection: Still off the mark in terms of the players it selects and the subset of players it allows you to choose from (i.e. it will cycle between two players closer but behind the ball rather than a defender further away but who you'd really like to control at that point). The player cursor selection options are still also limited to Unassisted, Semi-Assisted and Assisted - bring back the graduated scale, Konami! Let us choose.
- Player reaction: There is still a problem where players don't react to a loose ball properly - generally after the ball has knocked between a few players or when an attacker shoots - he seems perfectly happy that's his job done even if the ball was blocked and he could've had another chance.
- Player tickling: It's probably not tickling but it's the only explanation I came up with. It's very frustrating to have a player with the ball impeded by a defender just being right up against his back rendering him unable to move or pass the ball until the contact has finished or the ball has been lost.
- Player slowing down when running onto a through ball. It's still there despite the lack of rails. A few times I'd played a chipped through ball through to a striker who plodded on at jogging pace despite my best intentions until he was tackled. I know the through ball behind a defence move has to be balanced but surely not like this. I also saw other attackers do this every now and then without a particular reason. (No I didn't spend the entire game holding sprint)
- Refereeing: Blatant trips not given, a harsh red card here and there. (Confirmed as work in progress)
- Nets: This is just for Evo-Web, they're still not very good and look fake. There I said it.
While it's too hard to contrive conclusions from such a limited preview of the finished article I can say that I'm optimistic about PES for the first time in years and that's coming from a hardened old cynic. Here's hoping Konami keep up the new approach in terms of development and involving the community at large to deliver something grand.
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Also long as they don't made constant, predictable errors which can be exploited it's OK. That's the main thing.
