Konami and soccer games go way back. The Japanese developer and publisher has been releasing games based on the world’s most popular sport since the mid 90s under many different names including ‘Winning Eleven’ and ‘International Superstar Soccer’ before settling on Pro Evolution Soccer or PES. This year Konami was looking to improve upon last year’s reboot and reach parity to its main competitor FIFA 11. While Konami’s PES has been regarded as superior in past years, FIFA has taken the top spot in the past two years. Will Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 reach its full potential or get caught off-sides?
PES and FIFA are both great soccer games with very different styles and feel. PES used to make up for its missing licenses with exceptional gameplay and action packed moments. With this year’s iteration, Konami has certainly reached their goal to achieve that and created a snappy and fun soccer experience. Even though it is lacking licenses such as the Bundesliga or Seria A the game feels authentic and most importantly, is fun to play. Pro Evolution received a reboot last year in order to compete with FIFA and fell short of being successful. It just didn’t quite reach its full potential. Pro Evo 2011 has managed to take what was good about its predecessor and built upon it.
As I have mentioned before, Pro Evo has a very different style and feel from its competition. PES has more direct and arcade feeling controls when it comes to passing, shooting and crossing. That is not a bad thing. Playing Pro Evolution is a ton of fun and filled with many action packed moments. Keeping the ball and working your way up to a scoring opportunity is very rewarding and usually has a surprising outcome. At times I felt like watching a real soccer game. Some of that can be attributed to the fact that PES 2011 looks great and has fantastic animations including player specific movements and stance for star players like Real Madrid’s Ronaldo or World Footballer of the Year Messi. The game runs extremely smooth and has you wanting to play the next game right after the final whistle. The fact that some teams, leagues and other licenses are missing or are incomplete is compensated, in part, how well presented the UEFA Champions League is. The Champions League is arguably one of the biggest and most prized competitions in world soccer. Pro Evo makes it feel that way.
Dribbling down the field with Ronaldo or distributing passes with Ozil are some of the moments that make Pro Evolution one of the best sports gaming experiences of the year. As noted before, player animations look and feel fantastic. Step-overs and drag moves work and look realistic, allowing for some great looking replays. As one can probably already tell from reading my review up to this point, I really like this game. In past years, I have been more of a simulation fan and preferred the FIFA series because of its licenses and massive player and teams lists but Pro Evolution 2011 has left a lasting effect on me.
PES’ menus and customization are simple, elegant and useful. There is not much clutter to navigation but Pro Evo offers lots of tactical customization and team setup which is then reflected on the pitch. In addition to Pro Evo’s signature competition and modes there are online Master Leagues and the Become a Legend mode which allows players to play as a single player very similar to the Be A Pro mode from the FIFA series. This mode has been adopted rather well and is accompanied by coaches’ commentary and half time speeches adding to the immersion in a good way. Another new feature allows for the setup of custom skill move strings which are mapped to the analog stick. While this is a cool looking animation when pulled off it can also look a bit awkward, I stuck with the regular skill moves and passing of the ball as it seemed like a better fit. In addition to the snappy passing system players can also use the freedom passing mode which allows for greater precision but is not required for a good time.
Konami has tried to close the gap to the FIFA series this year and succeeded. Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 has grown into a feature rich, visually pleasing and fun soccer game that is on par with FIFA 11. It is very hard to call a winner between the two but I can certainly recommend PES to anyone. Konami’s flagship title has returned to great form and I cannot wait to play more.
Score: 9 / 10
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 was developed and published by Konami for the Xbox 360 and PS3 on October 19th. A copy of the Xbox 360 version was provided to us by Konami for reviewing purposes.
