Every year, soccer-sim fans scour the reviews looking for just one thing: is this instalment of PES/FIFA better than FIFA/PES?
In fact, you’ve probably already made a decision based on all the information you’ve already meticulously gathered thus far. You’ve no doubt learned of PES’s new passing system which lets you adjust precisely how much oomph you put behind the ball for every shot and pass, or the vastly improved player movements thanks to scores of new and more realistic animations.
You’ve probably also heard of the extensive Stadium Editor which lets you build up to 25 custom stadiums and fiddle with their appearance right down to the advertisement banners, or the tweaked defender and goalkeeper AI, or even the cool Feint customization where a wide variety of skills and moves can be mapped to the right thumbstick.
And, with its addictive online gameplay against other managers all over the world, there’s no doubt that you’ve done your homework on the brand new Master League Online mode.
So, since you already know so much about the game and will either nod your head with me in agreement or flame this review because I’m playing for the other side, I’ll offer you something other than the usual soccer-sim feature run-down: my personal opinion on which game I enjoy more.
And the answer in short?
It’s Pro Evolution Soccer 2011.
Despite the more arcade-y nature of FIFA 11 and the obvious appeal of its extensive licences and more accessible gameplay, it lacks the kind of focus and sincerity that PES 2011 so easily exudes. I battled to adjust to the shot and pass power system for a while, but I felt far more immersed in the actual match when I eventually got to grips with it.
The same realism comes through in the basic feel of the matches too, with a more considered and pensive pace contributing to the atmosphere of what ends up feeling like a more believable game. Scoring seems a tad more difficult than FIFA (though this is likely more dependent on a player’s style than anything else), and it’s a bit of a learning curve to get PES’s ball to behave as you’d like, but there’s a great satisfaction to be found in slamming one into the back of the net when you know you’ve worked hard to get it there rather than you just mashed the shoot button and prayed.
Not being a devout follower of any team in particular, I wasn’t too phased about the lack of official licences in PES, but I did miss that thrill of playing with friends and recreating one of last weekend’s Premier League clashes with correctly named teams (Arsenal, for example, is called North London) in the hopes of changing the outcome. The Champions League is still present though, so there’s still enough of a sense of authenticity to the whole experience to make it feel like the genuine article.
The whole presentation itself is clean and easy to navigate, and, fortunately, the opposite is true of the actual players on the pitch who now feel a lot more down ‘n dirty as they commit more visibly to tackles and gain possession with increased physicality and determination. Jim Beglin follows suite as he provides slightly more involved commentary that last year’s Mark Lawrenson, but sadly the co-commentary of Jon Champion still feels a tad stale especially compared to FIFA’s much improved voiceovers from last year’s outing.
The Master League Online is an absolute blast, and really edges PES ahead of FIFA in terms of involvement. Obsessing over your squad and taking big risks with players to get big rewards is satisfying and addictive (especially considering it’s against real people rather than AI), and it’s a similar feeling you get when you finally master PES’s slightly trickier but ultimately more rewarding gameplay.
Simply put, PES for me is a more mature game than its flashier, commercially-soundtracked, licence-filled counterpart. Sure it sucks not having more official teams to play with, or stats that are more accurate, and sure it’s not the better of the two games to fire up when you’re after a quick match with mates that have never played it before, but for all its (supposed) flaws Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 is a great improvement on last year’s game and really deserves its promotion to, at the very least, the top of the league in my books.
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