Ok, I didn't play many games, but I'll give some of my first impressions. Firstly I apolagize for not having a very good english, it's hard for me to make a more elaborate and longer post. But before doing it it's important to say that there has been a long time since the last time I played a footy game. I gave my copy of PES 2013 as a gift to my brother and I don't play Fifa 12 (didn't bother to buy Fifa13).
I think the last footy game I played was Fifa, despite the fact that I'm a PES fan, and because of this I was shooting when I was trying to make a long ball pass to a teammate
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I just didn't get confused doing the opposite (I mean making a long ball pass when I meant to shoot) because I simply didn't have the chane to shoot at the goals opponent, it's really, really hard to get a chance to score in this game. I have been playing as Bayern against Santos, and when I have possession, the first big challenge I have is to pass through midfield. The CPU midfield AI has a very good sense of positioning, there's no much alternative rather than passing around or even backwards. As soon as I give the ball to Ribery, the opponent defence suddenly grow up on me,there are usually two players pressing Ribery wich is a good thing the AI has that idea that it's important to not give much space to a dangerous player like Ribery.
That challenge of trying to find some man unmarked that might allow you to reach the space around the big area is one of the most positive things on this demo. The game forces you to play a more build up game, it's slow (I'm playing on +1 speed wich is fine for me even though some moves feel a bit sluggish), and just like in real football, you can't sprint in the midfield (unless you have a huge free space on a counter, wich is a situation that it may be very rare), you are forced to just move the left stick, and the good side of it is that players can make more tight and small turns and protect the ball better than previous games. I also feel that a good first touch is always important, you can't really keep R1 held down specialy before your player recieves the ball, as it may result on a bad touch that would make easy for the defence to anticipate to your move and steal the ball.
Despite some bugs, overall the game is really good and it has an immense potential. Playing PES 2014 is really something that feels fresh. I mean when you play it you know it is PES, but it's completetly in another league in many aspects compared to previous versions.
The technical side of the game had a HUGE improvement. Graphics are more sharp and clean, colors are vibrant in a good way, it doesn't look cartoonish at all, and the lighting is awesome, realistic and very dynamic, you can see that in replays with the camera set on an up close action, from one side the sunlight is intense and from the other side is the opposite, even the color vibrance varies from hot to cold, it's very dynamic. The pitch textures are awsome too, it looks great and easily more detailed than the previous version even on a wider camera, and up close it is simply beatiful, true 3d grass I think. Stadium has also a great atmosphere as well.
Animations are also fantastic, very realistic movements despite the bad response at times. I would say it is more than a generation leap on this department. The only problem with animations are some passing animations, but overall they are fine.
As I said almost only positive things, I'll try to say some of the negative things of this demo:
- Even tho passing feels very organic (great ball physics), there's something very wrong with the through pass. The game simply can't read your intented target most of the time.
- Another problem with through pass is that even the CPU AI sometimes pass though the ball, I mean the AI simply forget the ball and let it passed behing after a through pass. The awareness of players on through passes is really bad, to a point that it seems to be a bug.
- When marking I don't feel much control over players just moving with the left stick and using jockey as an attempt to block a shot or even to tackle the man on the ball by pressing X 2x. When I only move with the left stick, I feel that players respond better with than without the ball
- I am missing the right stick to manually switch the cursor. The cursor as well has a minor lag when switching from one player to another, the lag is not only present on some players movements, but also on the cursor.
- There are a few ignored fouls
- Framerates on the intro scene are very low
This is all atm. I hope you enjoy it
) make a HUGE difference.
