I am kind of getting annoyed at these gaming websites who seem to have labeled FIFA with the badge of simulation and PES as arcadey gameplay.
Konami only have themselves to blame, for making the game speed so fast and silly and setting heavy pass assistance as default. If they'd wanted to sell the game as a sim, they should have handled this a lot better.
As it is, you play the game out of the box and it
does look arcadey, certainly until you get the measure of it (from what I've heard, you go online and it's even more of a button-mashing thrash). Add that to poor graphics and unnatural animations and it's no surprise that reviewers - and casual players of the demo - come away with that impression.
I guess the logic was to create a game that was deep and rewarding for the hardcore, but frantic and "easy" enough on the surface that it would appeal to FIFA-playing kids. But the balance is wrong. Casual players are alienated already because they turn their noses up at bad animations and lack of licenses, and they certainly won't like the fact that if you defend casually you get arse-hammered 4-0 by the computer; hardcore sim players are irritated that you have to wrestle with the game (and change loads of settings) to get under the arcadey surface and make it play like a simulation.
Sure, most of us here can see the depth in this game, but that's because we want it to be there, and so we're actually looking for it. We take off passing assistance, tweak the preset tactics, play a far more patient game that the computer "wants" us to play... and hey presto, it comes alive. But even then, most of the complaints here and elsewhere can be traced back to those unrealistic elements which make this PES seem "arcadey" (sped-up player movements, direct attacking AI, oversimplified dribbling, the end-to-end nature of every game, the availability of super-easy passing assistance settings which can be used online). They're still there, getting in the way, whatever you do.
Either this game was meant to be a 100% simulation but Konami screwed up the fine-tuning, or else they deliberately dumbed down certain aspects to try and bring in very casual players. The result seems to have fallen between two stools.
They should just accept that FIFA will always, always, always be the first choice of kids and casuals - even if EA created a grindingly-slow flight-simulator of a game, that would still be the case because a.) it's got the licenses, b.) it's got the shiny tech, and c.) it's got the big brand name. The
only reason to buy this quaint little Japanese competitor is to get something Konami can do well and EA can't: simulation play which takes football fundamentals into account. Pandering to this supposed glut of casual players who want "fun" over realism is a disastrous move for Konami, both because these people are not going to move to PES in significant numbers (even if they actually exist, which I'm not so sure of), and because PES is not and never has been the game for these people. What's more, they run the risk of alienating the core PES player, without whom Konami would be totally fucked.
I'm still enjoying the demo and I'm looking forward to the full game tomorrow, but I can absolutely see why some people are labelling PES2012 "arcadey". It's not some sort of conspiracy by reviewers to make people play FIFA. It's down to basic faults in how this game is balanced, and I hope Konami never make that mistake again - for their sake as well as mine.
) and I wouldnt have had time to play it tonight anyway. Also, there was no-way I could have booked Thursday off work as I'm very busy with appointments all-day. That said, it would have been nice to have it within my grubby mitts.
Second fundamental question is what misses have to do with wrong shooting direction?
Hope it does get rectified for the 360 soon though.
