Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 review

There have always been rivalries in the world and the gaming world is no exception. The biggest challenge, after the recent duels over the best FPS and those over the best driving simulator, is the eternal conflict between FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer. Every year at the start of the football season, this exciting duel takes place with innovations and philosophies of thought with only the game in question in common: football. Years ago it was Pes that was unanimously recognized as the most realistic football game, the best simulation, while those who wanted a lighter, more immediate and spectacular experience played in FIFA. With the arrival of the new generation, such as PS3 and Xbox360, the situation has reversed, as has the benevolence of critics, who once praised PES tirelessly and today praise FIFA. Millions of fans of the Konami title are screaming for the return of the king to dominate the football video game scenes. Is this the right year?

PAD2HANDS

PES Full Control is the official name of what represents the most important change in terms of gameplay, the game on the pitch, proposed in PES 2013. Finally it will be possible to precisely calibrate ball control and shots on goal making it more realistic and varied the game. To be precise, you can still notice the presence of tracks in some of the players’ movements on the pitch, as well as some problems with the artificial intelligence of the goalkeepers, but the overall improvement is clear. The other great improvement is that of the intelligence of the players not controlled by the user, who are decidedly more reactive and present on the playing field. It will be difficult to use the phenomenon of the moment to discard the whole team and go on to score thanks to better thought-out team movements than in the past. Pad in hand you really have the feeling of being on a pitch, thinking through your passes, waiting for the right moment to launch the attacker into the corridor opened up after a careful turn of the ball. Good attention has also been paid to ball control, it will often happen that you don’t latch onto the ball due to a poorly calibrated pass and have to chase the ball, or have to “jump” with the defender to maintain possession. As always, the two player and manager career modes are present, with the latter well done but decidedly slow. The work done is certainly appreciable but the interludes significantly slow down a game that is already a bit slow (football-wise speaking).

IA-ENGINE and LICENSES

The graphics of PES remain the best in terms of choreography and identification with the match. The atmosphere, the introductory scenes, the physique of the players has been practically perfect for years now and some small additions from edition to edition only consolidate the excellent work by Konami for the perfect videogame transposition of champions like Ronaldo and Messi. The animation sector is less good despite the great steps forward and the almost complete removal of the annoying tracks that have characterized the latest titles. The contrasts still seem unrealistic with some interpenetrations and unnatural body movements. It will occasionally happen that a foul is awarded without seeing the player’s actual touch as if the player’s mass was greater than that actually displayed. The biggest problem however, being a football title, is the licensing. It is true that like previous years we will have the charm of the Champions League, of which Konami has held the rights for a few years, but it is unacceptable that almost all the German teams are missing and that the English ones have names and coats of arms among which is really difficult to identify the real counterparts. Furthermore, when purchasing the game we find ourselves faced with a market still to be completed, with many players in the wrong teams. Fortunately, an update will arrive by October that will complete the squad, but if we look at what the competition is doing it will certainly turn up more than a few noses. The physics are good and the ball is definitely credible but it doesn’t reach excellent levels.

AUDIO AND NEWS

The Italian commentary is almost perfect with Pierluigi Pardo and Luca Marchegiani interpreting the unfolding of a match in the best way (despite the fact that they are a commentary couple who do not work together in reality). We can say that the PES 2013 commentary really takes a long time to get boring and is credible especially when important players and teams take to the pitch. The game’s music, repetitive and decidedly commercial and therefore already heard millions of times, will tire you first. The choirs are also excellently crafted, in this edition a little more realistic and able to mark the various moments of the match with more credibility, with the public fired up in a less mechanical way compared to last year’s game. A good sampling of the ball closes the circle, leaving behind the bad memory of the sound of the ball from the 2011 edition (it sounded more like a bongo than a football).

MULTIPLAYER

The multiplayer directly suffers from all the licensing defects (the premier league!), from the complete updating of the squads and from an online sector that is certainly not on par with the competition. Although the gameplay offers the same emotions both offline and online, the latter fails to make the required leap. One of the innovations regarding online is linked to the organization of communities around 240 different cities scattered around the globe, which will fight among themselves through the analysis of the performance of their members, to impose themselves on the others. All the social sharing functions that are so popular lately are also back: with myPES you can connect your Facebook account to the game, in order to share statistics, results and images with all your friends. Netcode is proving to be quite solid even if not granite, matchmaking is a little better, fast and immediate. Some problems for any games with microphones but that may depend on both the microphone used and the console.

CONCLUSION

PES 2013 marks a profound transition for Konami. The title is really well done and we can say that it is certainly the best of the series on current consoles. But it’s not the usual “better than the previous one but”, the leap is truly remarkable comparing the differences between PES 2011 and 2012, this 2013 really surprised. The decisive shot is still missing, that flash into the area with a mixture of speed, power and eye for goal. Video and Audio are remarkable, as usual, but the missing licenses are now a very serious problem. The almost total absence of tracks and a profound realism make this title the first real Fifa opponent that has been missing since 2008. A game that cannot be missed by football fans and also recommended for strong Fifa supporters. A final note on the menu: personally I find it old and cumbersome, I understand the attachment to the past, to the roots of the game, but every now and then real revolutions are also appreciable.