Re: PES 2013 Discussion Thread (Warez talk of any kind will be punished with a ban!)
It's all opinions guys, beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess. For me, this iteration of PES is mind blowing. If you watched the Real-City game last night you'd understand that Pro Evo is replicating the game of football, almost to a tee. I'm not talking about fun here guys, I'm purely interesting in the replication of real life football. It is not end to end, it is fast sometimes, and it's also walking pace at others. A sim also needs to have an element of frustration in it, otherwise it wouldn't be a sim.
FIFA may be 'fun' this year and yes it gets the pulse racing with it's end to end action fest. BUT - PES has it beat in so many areas on the pitch especially replicating patterns of attack, positional play defensive units pressuring/not pressuring that it is truly not only on another level, but on another world.
FIFA is like this - A to B to C to D and with each pass of the ball you create another field position of individual battles. Because of its grid like one on one structure, it completely overlooks issues of utmost importance in football, the tactics and player positioning both in attack and especially in defence.
Watch the game last night. It's not one on one battles strewn all over the pitch, it's players passing to players and the entire defensive structure of the defending team moving with the pass, one guy may pressure, he may not. The group may pressure, they may not. It's purely contextual in PES this year with an appreciation of a multitude of variables - the pass, the pass accuracy, where the receiving player is on the pitch, whether they have been stretched or not etc etc. You pass the ball quickly up to the front this year (both for the human and the CPU) and you'd better be prepared to come back infield and look for support or you'll get hounded out.
PES' defensive AI really is streets ahead, so is the attacking AI for that matter. Merge these two things together and you have a game that is moving all the time both structurally (again both for the CPU and the human) creating a different field picture with every pass, with every body shift, with every sprint into space.
FIFA is just static. So, so static. I could close my eyes and know exactly where the players will be on the pitch. It's this static/fixed nature of FIFA, that lets it down badly thus creating the ease of which players and CPU can just get through the midfield. All the sugar coating, all the graphics/animations, all the little add ons still don't fix the problem that KONAMI has just nailed the positional play in PES with regards to pressuring and non-pressuring and positional play. It's what makes PES so non-linear.
An example would be, if I pass the ball to Robben in the wrong context say on the wing, the initial CPU defender (his marker) will try to get on him like a flash if the context is all wrong for me to take him on, pressure would be ramped. If I haven't worked the move correctly Robben would have his marker coming towards him, then behind him two or three of his team-mates waiting giving the defender support. I either try and foolishly take him on and two others behind him or play the ball backwards and try and create another opening. So I play the ball back.
But, if I engineer a nice midfield move that allows Robben some space on the wing, it's a totally different ball game. Robben may now be one on one, and there is no way the CPU defender will pressure and come towards him, he has to drop back, and back, and back maybe risking a challenge but almost certainly trying to steer the player into a non-threatening position.
Positional context guys.
You may only get this chance one a game (much like Ronaldo had space finally last night to hit the winner), but it is so satisfying because it is purely contextual.
In FIFA, this never happens. Ever. The spacings all always the same. The pressure levels are always the same. There is no variation in pressure levels or defending intelligence in terms of where the player is on the pitch and the context which got them there. It's just grid 1-2-3-4-5 until you, or the CPU, works its way to the edge of the box.
Until FIFA replicate the structure of a football match, which is in essence the biggest part of the game, I can only see myself playing PES. I cannot put this demo down. You can play slow or fast, you can play patient small passing or long ball. You can press high or drop deep. Tactically, the sliders I believe this year will come into their own with the game forcing you to play a certain way against the top sides.
I can't wait til release. I really can't. A current change of house has also seen my living room structure change and I'm now closer to my 50" plasma than ever....the game looks, feels and plays so good.
If KONAMI fk the retail version up this year I'm personally going to KONAMI HQ to blow the lot of them up. I don't even mind going to jail for it.
