I played PES on PS2 and xbox1 for years and loved it to death, especially PES 5. And at that time when it came out it truly was an attempt at simulation compared to what EA was doing with Fifa.
But when you play PES 5 today you will see it's hardly a simulation at all, the current games of PES 2012 and Fifa 12 are much more of a simulation of football.
Nonetheless PES 5 has a certain magic, that neither of the current games could recapture and last night I threw in PES 5 for xbox1 into my xbox360 to find out what exactly made PES 5 so magical. I played it straight for three hours on top-player and it was a hell of a fun. Imho these are the things that worked together to create the magic:
1. The game is fast, passing is fast, the players are fast. To be exact the players have very good acceleration that makes me always feel in control of the player and reactive. It also makes you feel the power and skill of the player under control.
2. The pressure is intense. The opponents are always nearby and because of the acceleration/reactiveness it's a tight game, you have to pass the ball around to a player who is free to get that extra-time to plan the next move or you have to dribble very good to gain that space.
3. The ball is free and needs to be controlled. Hitting a hard pass to another player who runs to the ball from the opposite direction leads to a bouncing of the ball away from the receiving player and the opponent gets the time to jump between the ball and the player.
4. The wide-camera shows only part of the pitch, less than half of the pitch, and pans up and down and right to left when necessary. As unimportant as this may seem, this adds to the feeling.
5. The game is on rails and helps along to get the ball to the right player at the right time. For example I was on the right side of the pitch at the beginning of the last third of the pitch and another player of mine stood with one defender observing him near the goal-area. I thought wouldn't a nice cross to him be a good opportunity. The game thought obviously the same, cause the moment I pressed the cross-button, the game did everything to help create that nice goal:
I just pressed the button and never expected the ball to arrive well enough cause I was under pressure, but the assisting came into full effect creating the perfect trajectory. And what the other player in my team did to help along is even more incredible, all that while the ball was in the air! He went out of his way to the one defender who observed him and pushed him so that he would get into a stumble-animation, granting him the space and time to concentrate on the ball in the air, he jumped perfectly and headed it perfectly into the net. All I did was to press the shoot-button when the ball was near his head. The referee saw of course nothing of the pushing away.
6. There is a nice balance between attack and defense, nothing is overpowered and I guess that is the result of the players being reactive.
7. Individuality of the players shines.
Verdict: PES 5 is a brilliant game but by today's standards not a simulation, it's an arcade-simulation-hybrid that sums up the drama and action of 90-minutes football in a condensed time of 20 minutes. In that it succeeds more than PES 2012 and Fifa 12. Because of the speed and acceleration there is a lot more going on in a single match, and combined with the free ball, there is more unpredictability and the reactiveness of the players lets you feel their power and individuality.
And yet the current games offer new aspects, like manual passing, shooting... and less scripting/assisting, and thanks to 360-degree-movement more freedom on the pitch.
Wouldn't it be great to somehow mix these two worlds to create the ultimate experience?
Thanks to Fifa 12's sliders this is possible and I spent two additional hours last night to get Fifa 12 to feel and look and play like PES 5 but with the modern improvements of 16:9-HD-picture and 360-movement and manual passing/shooting.
It was a success, Fifa 12 with my settings plays and looks now for 90% like PES 5 and it's a thrilling hell of a fun. I'll post the settings in the Fifa-sliders-thread for everyone to try them out.