Hello Evo-Webbers, PES lovers, sceptics, haters and even the odd FIFA player too. Yes, I know you're watching. But it's okay, I'm not going to tell anyone.
Welcome to the official Evo-Web PES 2018 review, and this year, it's in video form! Fancy, eh? But there's a reason for it, and that reason is... Fake news!
You can't just say things any more! You have to prove yourself - even if we're talking about an opinion - and even when you DO, there's somebody, somewhere, who has a theory about your opinion.
You're being paid by Konami! You're being paid by EA! You're a womble! You're not even real! Nothing is real! Where are my pills? I know you're taking my money! Etc. Etc.
So I thought that this year, the best thing I could do is to SHOW you the game and try to back everything up as much as I can.
Before we kick off (get it?), I need to thank Adam and Asim for the support they've given to the community over the last few years. They both get a lot of stick over the game, and even get accused of dishonesty, but firstly, and this is an important point - WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A GAME, HERE...
But also, I've known Adam since he was a member of Evo-Web many moons ago, and he's never ceased to be a genuinely decent guy. He is Mr. Pro Evo as far as I'm concerned, he works his heart out for the game, and so does Asim. But they aren't developers and they don't make any development decisions - and I just want to thank them both for supporting the site with each release of the game we all love.
Or in the case of the FIFA fans, secretly love. (But it's okay.)
Right, let's get stuck into it, and let's start with what most of us play Pro Evo for... The gameplay.
Question. How do you play Pro Evo? You might love playing it against friends. You might love playing it online. You might love playing against the AI - and that's the category I fall into.
I am part of a generation of gamers that's dying out - I'm less interested in proving my skillz online (that's skills with a Z if you couldn't tell), and more interested in playing against an AI that recreates the style of play of my opponents.
If you're an offline kinda guy, it's pretty much unanimously agreed that the AI in Pro Evo does a much better job of recreating a team's real-life play style - and provides a LOT more variety - than FIFA does. (I'll try not to make too many comparisons, I promise.)
So, Pro Evo arrived on my doorstep, and the first thing I did was fire up the Master League. I couldn't wait to see how the AI had advanced this year.
But here's what I saw - see if you can spot a pattern.
[Clip here]
Okay, I'm just going to tell you now - the AI in 2018 absolutely loves a through-ball. Especially lofted through-balls. So much so, that I can continue talking while these clips run in the background. Just look at them all!
These clips were taken from just FIVE FIRST HALVES and one full match, across Top Player, Superstar and the new Legend difficulty. More about that later on.
You could argue that the back four could be deeper, or that the wing-backs are poor positionally, or that you're only seeing me play as one team here - but honestly, whichever team I played as (and more worryingly, no matter who I played against), and however I set up my defence, the AI looked to hit through-balls down the wing as a priority.
This is the first time I can recall playing against the AI in a PES game in recent memory, where I've thought to myself, "oh, these matches all feel a bit familiar".
The variety just wasn't there, and I felt no difference in the AI's approach between English league matches and Europa League football. (Speaking of which, why are Liverpool assigned to the Europa League? This is with the day one patch applied, too!)
Those of us who love playing the Master League has never exactly been full of things to do off-the-pitch, so it's a mode that lives and dies by the gameplay and the AI recreating each team's real play style.
But this gameplay issue is compounded by another - and that's just how easy it is to run around the pitch without being pressured.
As the human player, and again, seemingly against any AI team, you can run from your own half to the edge of the opposition's box without being challenged - or run down the wings and jog back and forth as much as you like.
[Clip here]
To reiterate, this is on Top Player, Superstar and maybe Legend too.
If you reduce the speed to -1, you can improve the balance a little, and suddenly you're a little more likely to be caught on the wings - but it doesn't fix everything.
There are so many bizarre little circumstances that didn't happen before - AI defenders will now pass the ball around in their own box rather than clear the danger, because they know they'll get away with it, and goalkeepers occasionally do strange things - like this (though I should stress that they're brilliant in general).
[Clip here]
As for Legend difficulty - which I know a lot of people have been getting excited about - it's a difficulty for people who want an impossible challenge as opposed to anything that represents real football. I've seen the AI string 40 perfect passes together while I had to sit and watch - it's not a setting that I can imagine many people playing on once they've tried it a few times.
This is all on top of the stuff from the demo that critics of the demo have been talking about on Evo-Web for a while now - passing on the lowest assist level being far too assisted, shooting not having much variety to it, a total lack of fouls, and the default game speed being too fast (after the open beta was lauded for daring to be slow).
With all this in mind, and being a bit disappointed to see how perfect the AI's passing was - in the demo and in the final game - I ran an experiment.
What would happen if I lowered every player on a single team's passing attributes to the lowest possible level, then play against that team on Professional, Top Player and Superstar?
Surely the amount of completed passes would drop considerably?
Well, here's the thing. It didn't. I'll upload the full video capture, from editing to playing the game, so that anybody who thinks this is "trolling" can take a look for themselves - but take a look at these clips.
[Clip here]
When this happens, it begs the question - just what do attributes like these actually matter? How are they used in the engine?
Shooting attributes feel similarly devoid of importance, with every player seemingly capable of hitting cannonballs. But I have to say, I do think that basic shooting - which is the default level of assistance for shooting in the game - DOES have more variety now than before.
Another positive that has to be mentioned is how good dribbling feels, now. My enjoyment of being on-the-ball now in PES has increased significantly, with dribbling feeling natural and easy to control. This pairs beautifully with the new "auto-shielding" system, that some voiced concern with when it was announced - but I feel like the balance here has been beautifully met. The new dribbling and auto-shielding work together in glorious harmony.
But what has to be the community's biggest and most common complaint is the lack of fouls in the game. Across my last ten games, I've experienced three fouls from the AI - and two of them were in the same game.
With the AI seemingly always keen to back off and avoid making a tackle unless it's an almost guaranteed steal, it's no wonder fouls don't exist - play is back and forth, end to end, counter attack after counter attack, with space all over the park.
When there is so much space in midfield, no battles need to take place, and no fouls will happen - but PES isn't really about creating gritty midfield battles any more. Nowadays, it's much more about creating a beautifully flowing game of football that makes your heart beat faster, every match you play.
In this sense, it delivers - the game flows seamlessly from defence to attack and back again - and if that's what you love about PES, you won't be disappointed.
It's worth saying that, firstly, Adam has stated on Twitter that the game's next scheduled patch may include some tweaks to encourage a few more fouls - though nothing is set in stone at this time.
Secondly, although I tried plenty of tactical fiddling to fix my complaints, there may well be option files released that change each team's tactics and "advanced instructions" settings that change the gameplay to create more midfield scraps and reduce the amount of through-balls the AI hits. But relying on the community for this makes me feel a little uncomfortable. It's easy to forget that the majority of people buy the game with no knowledge of option files, control methods or even difficulty levels - and it does take a little know-how (as well as a computer and a USB stick) to install an option file.
But there's no doubt that they will increase my enjoyment of the Master League tenfold when they're released over the coming months. Speaking of which...
