Is Pro Evolution Soccer 13 A Title Contender?

Konami's football franchise looks set to make a play for FIFA's crown.

It feels unfair to begin a preview of PES 13 by comparing it to its nearest and dearest rival, but not doing so would ignore the proverbial elephant in the room. It would be an understatement to say that over the last few years, Konami’s football game franchise has had a considerable amount of its thunder stolen by EA’s FIFA series. To put it bluntly, it’s been booted firmly into second place.

It’s tempting to chalk this up to funding and cast FIFA as the footie sim corollary to Man City, a former mid-table club turned league dominating beast due to an injection of largesse and talent. An element of this is self-evident in PES 13’s presentation. The player models and animations look the part and the in-game commentary’s decent, but the crowd noises sound generic – presumably because Konami doesn’t have the funds to send a sound team around the globe capturing club chants and region-specific crowd reactions.

The overriding factor in FIFA’s success and PES’s downfall, however, is as crucial in the gaming industry as it is in professional sports: direction. FIFA had it and PES didn’t – that is, up until PES 11, a game that, while far from perfect, indicated that Konami had woken up to the fact that it could no longer rely on the affections of its rapidly deteriorating fanbase. PES 12 continued the push, providing a style of play that wasn’t arcade-like, but wasn’t exactly a straight sim, either. The emphasis here was on fast-paced attacking football and placing more control in the hands of the players in aspects like like shot-taking, dribbling and ball-trapping.

PES 13 feels like the next step forward in the journey started by PES 11. Its improvements can be broken down into the three key areas: gameplay, an improved AI, and Player ID (which has a bearing on both). First up is the PES Full Control (PES FC) feature, an advanced version of PES 11’s Total Control system. What this means, according to Konami, is that players can now put the ball pretty much anywhere they want on the pitch, in any direction, at any speed and at any height.

This being PES, the level of each individual player’s skill is brought to bear – you can’t just hammer the buttons and expect a result. Put the work in and you’ll become a defender’s nightmare, issuing quick cuts through the back four and lofting balls into space for headers. Players can also mess about with their Dynamic One-Twos; clicking LB and the A button sends a nearby attacker running in the direction dictated by the left thumbstick, allowing the player to either feed them the ball in space, or use this as a diversionary tactic to flummox the defence – although, admittedly, this works a lot better against a human adversary than the game’s improved AI.

Players also have more control over shots and dribbling. Players can place shots, which is an absolute boon during dynamic play inside the box or when faced with a one-on-one situation with the keeper. Players can curl shots around defenders, nutmeg other players and chip-shot over keepers who have come too far off their line. Deft Touch Dribbling offers a precise, tight control of the ball, allowing those who put in the practice to skin opponents, create space for shot chances, or just hang back and wait for the opposition to come to them while they consider their attacking options.

Dynamic First Touch dovetails nicely with PES 13’s emphasis on control, while also allowing a fluid style of play. Players can bring a bouncing or long ball to heel by hitting the right trigger, or they can opt to flick or backheel the ball onto players running into space on attack.

Player ID, one of the game’s three main pillars, governs a lot of the deftness in these moves. The focus here by Konami has been to make players on the pitch look and play like their real-life counterparts. The first half of this is cosmetic, and impressively so; Christiano Ronaldo and Kaka, for example, not only look scarily like their real-world versions, but their running and stance animations mirror them as well. Not only that, but both are better able to pluck the ball out of the air with ease or skin an opponent than, say, a defender like Eric Abidal (who, despite retiring in May this year, was still in Barcelona’s first team in the PES 13 build I played this week).

Speaking of defenders, the juiced-up ProActive AI positions the backs a little more tactically, so they’re not caught as often on the break by speedy attackers. They’ll adjust to compensate for where the attackers are putting the ball and move to close them down, while cutting out paths for through-balls. It should be noted that defending in PES 13 isn’t as easy as in FIFA titles, where you can actually allow the AI to do the heavy lifting for you. Then again, if you didn’t want a challenge, why are you playing PES 13 in the first place?

The improved AI also organises the player’s attackers a bit better, with AI players better able to anticipate where the player will put through-balls and lob passes. This happens when the player is defending too; depending on the Player ID, certain off-the-ball attackers will hover at the top end of their half, waiting for the opportunity to launch an attack on the break if the player picks them out with a lobbed clearance.

It may sound, at this stage, that while there’s much to admire about this year’s upcoming PES game, it still lacks that special something – that killer feature – to unseat FIFA from its position of dominance. It certainly has direction in its gameplay, sitting squarely in the sweet spot where fantasy meets reality and success is dependent on practice and experience. But looking at the list of features, tweaks and tucks, it’s easy to gain the impression that they don’t add up to much outside clinical evaluation. So, consider this riposte from a dyed-in-the-wool FIFA player who buys FIFA religiously year-in year-out.

I didn’t care much for PES 12 and cared even less for PES 11, but after less than an hour at its controls, I genuinely found myself warming towards PES 13. Once I battled through the initial teething problems (pressing Y for a header, for example) I found myself becoming fascinated by learning new moves, finesse dribbles and clever flick passes in attacking play.

Outfoxing defenders gave me a substantial charge, shutting down attackers was immensely satisfying and threading a series of passes into a goal-scoring chance made me positively glow. By the end of my time with the game I wanted to delve deeper into its interface and master its style of play. In short, I wanted to spend a lot more time playing PES 13, and if that isn’t an indication that FIFA 13 has some serious competition this year for its crown, I don’t know what is.