Looking at
@Chris Davies's PES 2014 thread, I'm compelled to ask: what's the best jumping off point for PES on PS3? No doubt the completist in me means I'll buy them all at some point, but for now, to play, where's the best place to start? It seems that 2012, 2013 and 2014 are held the most dear.
2013 is great. It's fun, PES-style. I wouldn't say it's the most realistic, and it's a little fast (and a little end-to-end with the ball glued to your feet too often for my liking). But, individuality really shines in terms of how attributes are applied to passes and shots - and tactically you can see the changes they make. Tactics do have genuine importance, and planning out your strategy helps. The ML is fun too, although the AI can be a little cheaty.
For me, 2014 (v1.13 and v1.16) takes all of that, slows it down, applies real physics to it (which introduces some funny bugs, but not often) and removes most of the scripting, whilst keeping tactics important (if I don't man-mark real dangers, I tend to lose badly).
*** Major caveat - on PS3, you can't connect to the servers to download the DPs any more (including the "Road to World Cup" mode I mention). I'm not even sure if you can download the latest gameplay patches, but I'm assuming they're hosted on Sony's end rather than Konami's. Could be wrong. ***
The best bits are simply
the things I'm not used to having in football games any more. Which is fucked up, when you see how basic this list is:
I
love getting such a variety in results. I
love that I can (and need to) rotate my squad for a match against some bottom-of-the-league team, and still win. Normally with PES, you get punished incredibly harshly for that. I
love that with the physics it has, sometimes I have to stretch to win a ball, and with the wrong player (and if the attacking player turns at the last second), you could end up getting a red card. I
never get red cards any more, unless it's on purpose.
I
love that, as Fulham, I get humped by Man United, and I hump Norwich, but when I play Stoke, they hit me with long balls, score, and then keep the ball out of danger. In modern games, it would be reversed - and it would all be accomplished with the same patterns (long ball from defender to striker, chests it, 180-turn-shot, goal). In the modern games, players have more individuality when you control them, than when the AI controls them.
On top of all that... I
love love love the Road to World Cup mode, or as they've called it for legal reasons, the World Challenge. That really takes me back, but also, it's great to play as (and against) a variety of different teams (with a variety of different qualification styles for each continent).
What I don't love...
It's buggy. You'll see the odd, crazy own goal, and the odd player running out of touch for no reason. Response times are genuinely (IMO) the same as 2020's - but not always. The catch-up bug is mad (but can be modded on PC). Individuality could be much better (again, can be modded on PC).
The ML is so barebones it's sad. There's one bit I really like, actually - there are no scouts or anything like that, but there's one giant list of "players it would be realistic for you to sign". If you limit yourself to that list alone, your transfers are pretty realistic. But the values are absolutely tiny (even though you don't get tons of money, so it's not a broken financial system).
There are barely any stadiums. Atmosphere is better than 2020 in some cases (the national teams seem to have their own, real chants), but largely it's pretty poor. The real, recreated faces are honestly dreadful, but the "generic" faces are 100x worse. Like a playschool kid made a clay model of their teacher, then sat on it by accident, then tried to remake it, then took it home, the dog ran off with it in its mouth, the kid wrestled it off the dog, rebuilt it again, and the dad went "I'm going to import that into my 3D modelling software and spruce it up maybe 10%". Then he ran out of time.
And if I'm going off on a tangent here... Their representation of black players, is "a white man painted black".
Seriously though that was very unlucky to miss out on the final, especially with that last chance. Wolves look far and away the best team in this league, how they got relegated I don't know, makes you wonder how tough D1 is going to be when you get there!
-it away.
