PES 2010 : Pro Evolution Soccer

Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 (PES 10)

• Gameplay: PES 2010 focuses on enhancing the excitement of matches

  between players, making for a truly challenging experience that will constantly test the player. Intuitive zonal defending will cover spaces and players need to look constantly for new ways to attack. PES 2010 focuses on being a real football simulation, as it requires both strategic play and quick reactions, as in real life. In addition to key out-field elements, goalkeepers are more versatile and with abilities matching those of modern shot-stoppers. The game’s referees have also been reworked, with smarter AI elements allowing them to make more balanced calls during matches.

• Improved Visuals: PES 2010 has undergone a major visual revamp, with its celebrated player likenesses and animations now even closer to those of real-life players – including live player expressions to be depicted with an improved lighting system which differentiates between various conditions! Stadium detail is also massively improved, with the grass and other in-stadium elements finely depicted.
• All-new animation and moves:Animations now dovetail into each other seamlessly, with dribbling and shots on goals worked into dribbling animations. More individual skills are also on show, including new flicks and tricks that have a definite showing on the way a game flows. Several elements have been completely reworked, with the dribbling, turning and kicking animations greatly enhanced, while there is a noticeable change in pace when a player passes a ball from a standing position than from within a run.
• Match-Day Atmosphere: Crowd reactions to the on-field action are now more varied, with all new chants and cheers. The subtle difference between Home and Away matches will be reproduced, and the crowd will react spontaneously to specific situations in a game, showing their disdain or pleasure as fouls are committed and goals scored. Likewise, the commentary has been altered to offer a fresher, more concise overview of the game.
• Enhanced Master League: Master League has been thoroughly renewed with the enhancement of managerial aspects, which enables users to enjoy managing a team for a longer career lifespan. Seen by many as a key contributor to the series’ success, the Master League elements in PES 2010 have been bolstered by far-ranging and vital new additions, dedicated to enriching the mode. Further details will be announced shortly.
• AI: The Tokyo team has worked to improve the AI of the game, with Teamvision 2.0 implemented. Midfielders and defenders now work together to cover open space and close down attacks, meaning that cover can be provided for lower-ranked defenders. This also has the additional effect of removing soft goals, thus returning PES 2010 to its simulation roots. In terms of attacking, players can also now move several players once, sending them into different areas, opening up more goal-scoring possibilities than ever before. As such, PES 2010 necessitates a new level of control from the player. Strategic thinking is as important as quick passing, but the new system greatly opens the way the player oversees control of the team. In free kick scenarios, for instance, players can now instigate the runs of the players awaiting the ball in the penalty area.
• Individual Play Characteristics: In previous PES games, the team formation has determined the movements of the players. PES 2010 introduces a new system wherein the individual attacking and defending nature of the players is integral to the way they play. Each player enjoys unique AI tied into their best abilities, and is reflected in the actions of their team mates – i.e. if a player who is known to be a good crosser of the ball is in possession, more players will flood the penalty area to receive it. Similarly, if a player is known to be good with close control, defenders will work to cover their stronger side, while lone strikers will be automatically supported by midfielders on receipt of the ball.
• Strategy Use: A new power gauge system allows users to balance their strategy in a quick, but wide-ranging way before a match. Every element – pass frequency, movement, the line of defence, width of play, or the position of the front line – can be altered to match those of a favoured club: Juventus Turin are a dangerous side on the counter-attack, for instance, while FC Barcelona use width in their attack. These formulations can be altered at any point, too, with Home and Away matches forcing different circumstances on the user, as does the rigour sof a Master League season.
• Penalties: An all-new system has been implemented, offering greater control, placing and accuracy.
• Enhanced Online: A new dedicated section of the Tokyo team is committed to improving the online side of PES 2010. More downloadable content is also planned. Konami has supported PES 2009 with the release of new licensed teams, transfer updates, etc, and this support will grow for PES 2010. Team and content updates are planned throughout the game’s lifespan. These will make the game even more bespoke to the player’s match day needs.

For a football game that once lived or died on the pitch, it's surprising to discover that PES 2010's most dramatic changes are to be found in the menus. Or at least it would be surprising, except nowadays we live in a world where dogs and cats play together, the FIFA games are recognised for their football simulation, and Robinho may be surplus to requirements because of Craig Bellamy.

Between them, Team Style, Player Cards, and a change in the way player skills are represented on the line-up screen, sound about as exciting as Wayne Rooney's haircut. But they rip the lid off a lot of PES voodoo. Back in the old days, squeezing the most out of 11 players meant studying endless statistics and being able to decipher skills pentagons at a glance. Withdrawing the pentagons in favour of numbers may seem regressive (and it would be nice to see the former brought back as an optional extra), but it does mean you can spot tactical errors and players out of position in a split second while surveying the whole team.

Player Cards, meanwhile, let you burrow down and uncover a particular player's unique attributes, like pinpoint passing, or poaching, and you can even toggle certain behaviours, expanding your range of tactical options considerably. Team Style, for its part, lets you adjust the team as a whole, most helpfully in how much it keeps its shape and its response to common situations. For people who have played PES forever, it's a useful trio of changes, which makes it easier to perform complex surgery on your team quickly and at very little cost to the game as a whole. For inquisitive newcomers, it's a warm embrace.

It's not the only welcome sign in a game that looked like it might be on its last legs this time last year. The UEFA Champions League is back, but the presentation is much more impressive (slicker than the main game's, actually), and it and the Europa League are now integrated in the Master League, which remains the superior option to FIFA's rival Manager Mode (unless they fix it, anyway). There's also a new "Community" area, where you can keep track of local games between you and your friends, rather than just bouncing off Exhibition mode all the time, although the latter is tempting anyway since it's quicker to start a match, with a much simpler interface.

On the pitch, PES 2010 still feels like it's running on rails rather than flowing freely in any direction, but there are more rails and the degrees of separation are smaller, allowing you to run around and turn with the ball in ways that provide greater versatility, and make it less likely your opponent will simply be able to guess what you're doing. The graphics engine has received a big boost too, with much-improved player likenesses (some, like People's Hero Steven Gerrard, are now more uncanny than Uncanny Valley). Nobody would struggle to spot the common genes by staring at PES 2009 and 2010 side by side, but in many respects the transition is as night to day (although they didn't have to take that quite so literally by saturating the right-hand penalty area in glare during daytime matches).

All the same, PES 2010's improvements are bittersweet in light of the massive distance Konami still has to cover. PES is famous for the scarcity of goal-scoring opportunities, but in 2010 this is frequently becau se of a quirk of the creaking game engine rather than a design flourish: it's relatively awkward to pass the ball around and dribble over short distances (the slow and sideways dribble buttons are no excuse for proper analogue control), changing direction more than a few degrees robs you of too much momentum, and unless you're perfectly set it also takes so long to dig out the average shot that the tracking defender, who may have been behind you for the length of the pitch, will have ample time to get a block in or put you off-balance.

Even so, it's easier to score in other ways. You may not be able to do much on the deck in the penalty area, but long-range efforts and headers from crosses are surprisingly potent, and if you're playing against the AI, you may find that it passes the ball around in its own half with no sense of urgency once you take the lead. That sense of inconsistency is something of a theme: despite improvements in animation, it's a rough and clunky experience in many places, where something as simple as playing a quick pass when receiving the kick-off almost knocks Carlos Tevez on his back, and goalkeepers are achingly slow to distribute the ball. Players also regularly take the long way around to run onto passes, or defenders allow them to do so, stretching your suspension of disbelief to breaking point.

Next to PES 2009, it's still a big improvement all told, but next to FIFA, as it inevitably must be, it's still a poor second choice, losing out in terms of manoeuvrability, player movement and acceleration, simplicity and versatility in control, and - crucially - believability. Yes, you can do some weird things in FIFA 10 if you look them up, but that's nothing next to the baseline obscurantism of PES 2010, which still feels creaky and old-fashioned, despite its myriad improvements, which include more durable online netcode. That's before you get onto the traditional issues PES faces: that it has nowhere near as many licences, and that it's nowhere near as slickly composed or ambitious off the pitch. In the year EA expanded the Be A Pro concept to work across its entire range of modes, PES' Become A Legend feels more isolated than ever.

Long-time Eurogamer readers will know that I've no particular loyalty to either series. I spent years advocating Pro Evolution Soccer because I thought it was better, during which time I kept an eye on FIFA but rarely went near it (with one memorable, 2/10 exception). Last year though, EA Canada made it an easy switch, outgunning Konami in almost every area for the first time. That's not entirely true this year: PES 2010's team management options are a warning sign that the Japanese developer still has some tricks up its sleeve, and people for whom the transition to another football game is simply too much to countenance will buy and enjoy this, and discover it still plays a good, grass-roots game. For everyone else though, up is still down, because FIFA wins again.