PES 2014

It”s A Game Of Two Halves – PES 2014

It sure is hard to talk about the latest PES iteration without talking about the elephant in the room that is FIFA 14 so, to be honest, we’re not even going to bother trying. As the competition has been whittled down over the years, only these two industry stalwarts remain, locking horns in a seemingly neverending penalty shoot-out.

PES has hit hard times over recent years, EA’s penchant for buying sports licenses willy-nilly has killed off the majority of gaming sports franchises ever created, all in the name of homogenous sporting experiences for all. Thankfully, PES still remains a staunch contender, and in PES 2014 delivers a footballing experience that stands right up there with FIFA 14…

First things first though, those licenses. Their very existence seems pretty much designed to wind up gamers and line FIFA and UEFA’s already pretty plush pockets. While the FIFA series has the rights to pretty much all of the top football leagues around the world, PES 2014 is stuck with a hodgepodge of licenses for the Champion’s League style tournaments globally. This gives the licenses to some of the best teams in the world, while leaving others high and dry.

Bizarrely, the rights to the Champion’s League often don’t stretch to the teams themselves. Arsenal, having spent well over a decade consecutively in the Champion’s League, are included as North London. The only Premier League team fully represented are Manchester United, so the purpose of the Champion’s League license seems fairly futile. Most players are going to be interested in the teams rather than a pixellated trophy.
         
As a game of football PES 2014 undoubtedly plays a less realistic game than FIFA 14. The sheer attention to detail in FIFA is unparalleled, the simulated TV imagery and commentary plays out exactly as you’d expect from a real game on the telly. With PES 2014, this is most definitely not the case. Some of the character models look they live under a bridge, staggering around with warped faces and a neanderthal swagger, while others like a reasonable approximation of their selves. The difference is quite jarring, and it’s immediately apparent that a lot more time has been spent on the bigger names in football, while the ‘minnows’ have been treated as an afterthought.

In terms of how the beautiful game plays, the ball zips around with a great amount of pace, and the improved ball physics add a distinct air of zaniness to proceedings that you really wouldn’t get from a game of FIFA. FIFA 14 has gone headlong down the realism route and plays a fine game of football that is unfortunately bogged down in the middle of the pitch, with a slow pace designed to create an ebb and flow to the game. PES 2014 as a football game plays significantly worse, but it’d be lying to say it’s a lesser title, far from it. It’s a title that is so much more fun to pick up and play than the latest FIFA iteration because of it. Everything about it seems slightly off from a mechanics and engine perspective, but it provides a hugely exciting game of football and end to end action.

The new ball physics separate the ball from the player models, a small touch that doesn’t seem like much until you see it action. As a defender runs straight at an attacker, rather than always tackling and gaining control of the ball or the attacker pushing you aside and continuing his run, the ball bobbles, bounces, and knocks around the colliding players, spilling out in who knows what direction. It’s a lot more varied than the two-note responses we’ve become used to in sports games.

This element of randomness might infuriate some, but for having a fun kickabout it’s an unbeatable distraction. The way the ball can escape your grip as you saunter around the edge of your box can be both exhilarating and heartbreaking in equal measures. It definitely delivers an experience that is an immediately more engaging experience than FIFA, with Konami seemingly happy to sacrifice the realism of a title for the fun of the gameplay.

When it comes the meat of the experience, the actual game modes, PES 2014 comes up severely short. FIFA has built up such a huge swathe of game modes over the years that PES 2014 comes across looking exceptionally threadbare. Little progress has been made with game modes over the progression of the entire last generation of games consoles, its attraction literally lies in pick up and play exhibition matches rather than cobbled together unofficial and unlicensed leagues. Sure, the Master League’s back, as well as Become a Legend, but neither offer the depth of complexity seen in FIFA Ultimate Team or Be A Pro, and don’t get us started on the UI.

It seems with PES 2014 that Konami is stuck in a perpetual loop with its football titles, where all of the effort seems to go into tweaking the gameplay while almost none goes into improving the interface and features. Much of what’s presented to you is cluttered or completely unintelligible, with some aspects of it getting you to really question what the team were thinking when they designed a menu system like this. On the Xbox 360 edition the movable cursor is unnecessary for the majority of the time and ugly to boot, while the reams of menus are nonsensical in their designs and layouts. When creating a custom league for a co-op game for example, you are forced to select a single player, before pausing and signing in the second player at the start of every game. It should also be noted the wealth of menus you have to go through when booting up the game, does anybody really want to whack in a game of football and have to choose their favourite player before they can get to the main menu?

Off the pitch PES 2014 is a nightmare, on it and in full flow it can be a thing of beauty. When the football flows and the action gets fast and furious, there can be some truly awesome goals scored that get your blood pumping in a way that FIFA 14 struggles to. Unfortunately though, football is a game of two halves, and Konami needs to address the catalogue of issues off the pitch as well.

It’s hugely difficult to categorize a game like PES 2014 in a score bracket, when it does so many things right and conversely does so many things wrong. It’s stuck in that bizarre situation where it plays a more enjoyable game than FIFA 14 but it just doesn’t seem as wholesome a package overall. It might seem merely cosmetic but it’s hard to argue the impact that the official license has on FIFA 14 as a whole in presenting it as a complete title, no one picks up their copy of a football game to play as West Midlands Village or Hampshire Red, and that’s the sad truth for now. Still, a large amount of territories are included, including many South American teams as well as Spanish, Italian and Asian, but it does seem a shame that the market is segregated in this way.

 


Source : http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=6223&game=Pro%20Evolution%20Soccer%202014