PES 2013 will not sell as well as FIFA. It won’t have the same degree of expensive licensing. It won’t feature as many official kits. There won’t be as many different kinds of boot to wear or ball to play with. PES 2013 probably won’t have the latest ethereal, soulless NME darling on its soundtrack. But PES 2013 has something far more important. It’s got shape, teamwork and knowledge.
EA’s FIFA franchise is like Cristiano Ronaldo’s hair. Sure, it looks beautiful and slick and perfectly styled but, deep down, it can’t really tell its tiqui-taca from its total football. PES is the hard working midfielder that doesn’t score many spectacular goals or get his picture in the Sunday lifestyle supplements but knows more about formation, shape, tactics and pressure than Fabio Capello’s therapist.
PES has suffered for its ability. PES has trained in the dark. PES smells faintly of liniment and sweat and definitely not hair product.
PES 2013 is the best football game I’ve ever played.
I should stress that what I’ve played is only early preview code. What I’ve played doesn’t have much in the way of game modes. Plenty of teams are in unfinished kits. The career mode is missing, I haven’t taken it online and I’m still unsure if the trick moves aren’t quite implemented properly or if I’m just rubbish at performing them. But this is football unlike any I’ve seen in a video game so far.
PES has, for years, been the smarter, tactical game of football. It has required thought and precision as well as patience and knowledge. With PES, you’ve needed to apply pressure off the ball, pass sensibly and break down an opposition’s defence gradually. That tactical nous has usually come at the expense of fluidity and flair. Not this year. This year, PES 2013 has finally found a balance.
The lightning bolt moment came for me about two minutes into my first game. I was playing as Manchester United against a resilient Newcastle United. I’d noticed how the passes were being received more smoothly and play was flowing a little bit more naturally than in previous years and I was cautiously impressed.
I tried some nice, quick passes around my midfield. I’d managed to pull my opponents out of shape slightly and their defence had squeezed up in an attempt to fill in the gaps. Welbeck was making a turn, rolling off the shoulder of his marker. I played the through ball with the trigger-activated manual pass mode but I clumsily put it to the wrong side of him. I was hopelessly out of shape and entangled with the recovering defender but I saw an option and instinctively hit the pass button.
That’s when it happened. Danny Welbeck, unbalanced and caught off guard by my waylaid pass, stuck out a rangy leg at a peculiar angle and deflected the ball to the space that Wayne Rooney was surging forward into. Without a pause, Welbeck carried on, angling his run to stay onside. I had to pause the game. Those little clumps of pixels on my television screen were, in that moment, indistinguishable from the two footballers they represented.
It was all so natural, so realistic. So familiar.
I could tell you a dozen other stories in a similar vein. This isn’t a fluke, they haven’t just paid special attention to a few star players and left the rest as generic hoofers, there to make up the numbers while Cristiano’s hair looks immaculate during step-overs. From what I’ve played so far, Konami has cracked it. A lot of the players in PES don’t have the right shirts on but they’re more instantly recognisable than ever before.
The deep, tactical play is still there but it has been augmented by a degree of fluidity and individuality that it has deserved for, well, forever.
The lucky few games I’ve played in PES 2013 have been a revelation.
For some, there might be a period of adjustment. Avid PES fans will be used to the slightly staccato rhythm required to get the most out of their game in previous iterations. That’s gone, for the most part. For those arriving with PES from a FIFA background, it will still be tricky to hold back and play the smarter, more patient game
There’s been no compromise on the tactical side of the game. Everyone will have to get used to the balance but that transition should be a short one and it means we’re left with a game of football that so perfectly balances the opposing forces of the sport that at times it’s uncannily familiar.
Of course, there are some minor concerns. It looks a little bit rough around the edges, the presentation is still more Sunday league than Premiership and the goalkeepers are often unreasonably difficult to beat. I haven’t had a chance to play with all game types or to sample the usually excellent Master League yet either so take this as nothing more than my impression of how the game of football is played. Once you get past the selections and onto the pitch, PES 2013 is a perfect balance of style and substance.
MrAffinitys
As a fifa fan since 08 after the worst PES ever came out i am still pretty skeptical but i cant wait to play the demo
jcor
I did buy PES 10 & 11 but as everyone knows they weren’t great & were nowhere near as good as the glory days of PES 5 & 6. I also ended up getting FIFA 10 (2nd hand with an unused online pass!), FIFA 11 & also 12 after reading nothing but glowing reviews but never really liked them either.
So I’m hoping this genuinely is a return to form for Pro Evo.
iAvernus
I hope PES will come back to its glory days.
Kivi95
Hehe is that supposed to look like Zlatan?(Looks like a zombie) + he is not playing in AC Milan anymore.
mugsybalone
I know, right? PES13 is like… a whole week out of date. Jeez Konami, get your act together!
Peter Chapman
THE HORROR!
fs
Stupid Konami not being able to see the future again. These screens were produced before Ibra left.
blast71
I’ll be getting it anyway as PES2012 was quality, still hammering hours of Master League
sambadude
This sounds great. I’m pleased that Konami have gone all out for PES this year, I truly think it will beat FIFA in the gameplay department, it only lacks that official licensing that EA have cheated Konami out of for years. It just shows the monopoly game that EA have, and if they didn’t have their sport titles, then I truly think EA would have gone out of business years ago.
But going back to PES, it’s got the advantage over FIFA because PES have changed dramatically from last years game, EA don’t want to change FIFA that much, instead they’re revamping the stuff that should have been revamped years ago. I’m getting this years, might even get it over FIFA
Sympozium
Last PES’s where decent but just fell a bit short. Good sign that all the effort will likely return it to the quality it deserves.
fs
You sound like you know your stuff Peter. I’m glad of this because I think the people that understand football give much fairer reviews of Pro Evo. Its a game that doesn’t look brilliant on the surface, as you mentioned, the licenses are lacking, the graphics aren’t a carbon copy of a ford super sunday and the interface isn’t as appealing but it is a better FOOTBALL game. FIFA is a materialistic simulation, theres no intelligence behind it, no style or ethos. Pro Evo (IMO) has always been better for representing a game of football. I think i’ve said it a 100 times on here and all over the web. If you enjoy the way football works, so we are talking tactics, formations, player movement and understanding then Pro Evo is your game. If you want a simulation of the football as a brand (and there isn’t anything wrong with that) then buy fifa, because thats what it represents the best, not the game itself.
TheMidniteKid
Jesus, are you my twin!? Ha.100% mate
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMidnitekid?feature=mhee
http://www.pesgaming.com
fs
After playing last night, I can definetely relate to what the writer is saying in this article. It was brilliant to see fluid passing and great ai responsiveness in full flow. Not too much is different from PES 2012, but enough to suggest Konami have listened carefully to the fans and have responded with a really competitive title. The biggest compliment I think I can pay it is that casual gamers can pick it up again where as before, you’d need about 5 or 6 hours of gameplay to even begin to understand how to play. This will ofcourse boost sales, because casual gamers want to stay casual, they don’t want to have to pick up a game and play it alot to be able to play it, they want games like CoD and FIFA where you start it up, play a match and do fairly well. (Feel like your doign fairly well)
FRUIT0FDOOM
This.
The AI do a fantastic job and the gameplay is super smooth. As mentioned – casual gamers can just pick up and play, whilst the hardcore can turn off the “let the manger handle it” option and get stuck into tactics.
If this demo is representative of the gameplay we can come to expect from the full game – then it is already looking to be in my game collection.
TheMidniteKid
What a brilliant review. As a budding columnist, reading articles like this are so helpful. I think you really hit the nail on the head with the preview. PES 2013 is amazing. The Player AI is breathtaking and the Player ID is unlike anything I have ever seen in a football game. I really think PES could make a massive impression this year.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMidnitekid?feature=mhee
http://www.pesgaming.com