A new football game instigates yet another opening paragraph proclaiming the state of sporting video game nation. With FIFA 10 being so damn brilliant, Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer series has a whole heap of catching up to do.

Most immediately striking are those almost unnervingly accurate player likenesses. Obviously a lot of time has been spent lavishing graphical goodness on some of the world's greatest players, as a chunky number of them look ridiculously close to their real life counterpart. Players like Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Lionel Messi appear almost identical to the players they’re trying to mimic.

Unfortunately things take a phenomenally rapid plummet downwards when these superstars of the footballing world decide they fancy a jog around. The straight backed sprinting remains intact, and continues to look comically terrible and startlingly unrealistic.

Similarly, while the 360 degrees of movement introduced in FIFA 10 was implemented with an incredibly high level of success, in PES 2010 things aren’t quite so impressive. Though more movement variations are possible, there’s no doubt whatsoever that the full 360 degrees simply can’t be explored to the maximum. Something certainly not helped by the computer's insistence to stick to the traditional 8 directions we’ve contended with for many years.

While in control of things out on the pitch, things continue to be hit and miss. Dribbling feels stilted and on rails, and passing still has the continued obsession with aiming towards a player nowhere near your chosen intention. Yet shooting, coming from someone who has extensively played the FIFA series over the last few years, feels fantastically weighty and packed with inertia.

The pace of each match up certainly feels a lot faster than its FIFA opponent, with local multiplayer games in particular absolutely jam packed with frantic penalty box action.

The AI however doesn’t exactly give a helping hand to proceedings, with some particularly dodgy goalkeeping spoiling the party. A number of long range efforts right at the keeper were simply "kneed in" by a flailing ‘keeper, seemingly oblivious that he has the opportunity to utilise his hands in stopping the ball.

Similarly, your fellow pros on the pitch aren’t too bright either. They’ll refuse to make the obvious runs, neglect to mark the opponent in their area of the pitch, and simply try and make it as difficult as possible for you to score.

It’s an odd situation for a series that always offered a decent single player experience, thanks to the (still included) Master League. All the options remain to really test your gaming metal long-term, but the AI you’ll come up against is so random, awkward, and seemingly lacking in any real quality and skill that Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 is essentially a multiplayer-only title.

Which makes the online problems all the more damning. Despite promises that this year we’d be back to the kind of smooth online experience the series enjoyed back on the original Xbox, lag still regularly ruins games and makes almost every online experience fraught with frustration.

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Verdict:

One day we’re sure that Konami will once again come up with the magic footballing formula, but once again we’re left lacking a next generation Pro Evolution Soccer experience that anyone could recommend.

AI is universally poor, animation is sometimes laughable, and every facet of the entire game is at least a step behind the FIFA series. A real shame as this year had looked to be a tight call.

Tags: Gaming Sports games PS3 Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 Konami

Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 - PS3 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:01:44 +0000

Damn you, Sports Interactive. We’d just about managed to wean ourselves off FM09 and re-emerge into civilised society, one that doesn’t care about how well our under-18s did in the Youth Cup or whether a 4-2-3-1 formation is the way forward, when along comes the latest update of the footy management classic to again make its needy demands on our personal lives.

As football has its fierce rivalries, so too does football gaming. With FIFA and PES just having had their annual cockfight for supremacy, this year saw the renewal of the management sim scrap, with Championship Manager moving back into the market after an absence of 3 years.

Without any competition during that time, the FM series coasted a bit, with the only upgrades feeling only cosmetic or tweaky; only with the introduction of the 3D game engine last year did there seem to be a truly weighty improvement that piqued any curiosity beyond wondering what the new stats for FM legends Carlos Vela were.

So with CM to contend with again, the onus is on Sports Interactive to stay on top of their game and keep the franchise fresh. Having already revamped the graphics on such a grand scale last year, any changes this time round could have inevitably seemed less impressive in comparison.

One thing we like about SI is that they tend to leave what works and tinker with anything that could improve the package. FM10 sees a major attempt to overhaul the interface, aiming for a more intuitive experience that improves the flow between the vast number of aspects, and the gameplay itself, adding new touches and expanding key ones.

The interface is now less reliant on breadcrumb icons, which could have been harder to navigate for newbies, and instead uses a more logical tab system that allows each page to branch of into a number of other sections. For example a player’s page now has clearly visible links to his training, transfer, contracts – though stylistically similar to previous years, visually it packs in more info and links.

Perhaps the sheer weight of customisable views is a tad overwhelming, but it doesn’t hamper the basics. One of the neater customisable aspects is the newsfeed – this can now filter out unwanted mail, after all, updates on the England squad are of little use when you’re toiling away in the Blue Square leagues.

The tactics have also had a going-over. There’s now a tactics wizard that’ll help you set-up how you play and players can now be assigned more specific roles – strikers can now be poachers, deep-lying forwards, among others, hell, keepers can even be sweeper keepers. This really does make it easier for those who have neither the time nor the inclination to get ball-deep into it and prefer a less demanding game. Possibly the suavest tactical addition is the touchline instructions, which allow you to pick a number of standard tactical instructions which can be done without stopping the match.

The geekier gamer will heart the new post-match analysis, which offers a thorough Opta-stlye breakdown of each player’s performance, allowing you to pinpoint weaknesses. The backroom staff advice, introduced in FM09, has been made more humanistic too – your coaching team offer up handy suggestions, from tactics to scouting, meaning that you don’t have to be mindful of the myriad of tactical aspects the game has to offer.

That’s the key success to this version of FM – they’ve added a bewildering degree of new depth to a number of parts of game, but have also matched that with an attempt to make it as user-friendly as possible. Even last year’s improvements have themselves been improved. Neat touches have been added to the 3D match graphics – the crowd responses are more lifelike, while the state of the pitch is rendered in greater detail. Nothing, it seems, has been to chance in the fight to remain market leader.

Verdict:

Despite seemingly being less of a trumpets-blaring upgrade than last year’s 3D engine, this is actually the better version – the changes are more fundamental and positive, making the game more logical and realistic. The gamer is at the heart of the changes – as SI both expands the game while making it more enjoyable at the same time.

It may feel like the default setting to praise the series and others may have been playing it longer than this reviewer's 5 years, but due to the significant changes they’ve made and the ease with which they’ve been integrated, this very well may be the best Football Manager yet.

Tags: Gaming Sports games Sports Interactive Football Manager 2010 PC games Mac games Sega

Football Manager 2010 - Mac originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:22:29 +0000

After FIFA 09 did such an incredible job at astounding football gamers worldwide with its brilliance, the arrival of this year's iteration appeared with more than just a hint of caution. Change too little and we'll be back in the bad old days when everyone loved to hate EA and their seemingly obscene addiction to ripping us off. Fiddle too much with the core gameplay however and we might be right back to the times of the FIFA series being stuck in mid table obscurity.

The biggest shouting point for this years update is surely the inclusion of full 360 degree dribbling. In comparison, football games previously have been stuck to rigid 16 directions (at best) of movement, making the kind of free flowing and multi-directional dribbles witnessed with the likes of Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi almost impossible to replicate.

When running merely with a prod of the left analogue stick, your players now pack incredible freedom. For the first time in almost a decade, a football game arrives with the opportunity to go on wickedly tricky runs in the exact manner you desire. Upon sprinting, things do drift back in to the old directional methods due to obviously hampered control and body flexibility, but that's something you'd hope to be included rather than a flaw. Now you can finally curve your runs properly without having to force your player to make slow changes to their body shape and ball control.

Another major inclusion is the Virtual Pro. Fans of last year's version will remember the Be A Pro mode, which allowed you to embark on a career as a created footballer. This has been expanded in a number of ways, making for much more organic development of a footballer.

Firstly, you can, using an uploaded picture, give the player your own face. Not a game changing option, but one that stops you fiddling with the options in order to give your Pro a somewhat vague resemblance of yourself.

Second, this player is available in the squad of your favourite team in all options. Which means that simply playing an exhibition match allows you to increase your player's stats and abilities. There's a huge number of Achievements to unlock using your Virtual Pro, some of which will take a ridiculously lengthy amount of time to unlock, with each affecting your players abilities.

Getting 100% of them seems to be impossible at first glance, particularly as a number are striker/defender centric. But only a number of months with the game will show if this adversely affects this particular option. You can even use your player online, and sign-up to online teams to play as a part of huge leagues and competitions. A real treat, especially as your stats are constantly updated so you can easily see just how impressive you truly are.

The last, and probably not quite fully realised addition, is the chance to design your own set pieces. In the Arena, you can set-up and test out your own designed free kicks and corner routines. You can set runs for specific players in order to create holes in the defence, or simply send your big lumbering centre halves to attack the far post for a lofted free kick. It initially feels unwieldy and complex, but after a few minutes it dawns on you just how little there is you can play around with other than simply creating curved runs for your attacking players. It's a shame a little more time hasn't been spent making sure this options is an essential piece of the FIFA jigsaw, but its still worthy of your time.

Other than those major additions, things aren't that much different to last year. The usual exhibition and tournament modes remain, as do the usual wealth of multiplayer options both on and offline. There does seem to be much more in the way of setting options for online play in order to avoid constant fixtures against gamers obsessed with playing as the top teams, and points are alleged to be rewarded for performances and not just results, but at the time of writing the servers are yet to be populated.

On the pitch, the ball physics have undergone huge improvement. Cross-field passes now are much harder and flatter, and not the lofty interception-waiting-to-happen offerings included last year. Crosses into the box too are much more curved and appearing much closer to the whipped-in versions we see in real life. Similarly, player physics have also been ramped up, with much more weight and jostling between players fighting for the ball.

Verdict:
The best football simulation game ever? We'd say so. The additions have hugely improved what was already a stunning title, and the new Virtual Pro options will surely keep many a gamer addicted as they attempt to be the best in the world.

If Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 is to better this, Konami have really got a lot of time on the training pitch ahead of them.

Tags: Gaming PS3 Sports games FIFA 10 EA Sports Fitness

FIFA 10 - PS3 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:43:01 +0100