Today sees the release of PES6, the latest edition of my favorite video game every created. I was lucky enough to get my eager mitts on a copy last night, so though I would post up my first impressions, or a mini review if you like.
It's worth pointing out that due to my travels this time last year in south America and Canada I never got PES 5 so there may be some things in here that I have picked up on that aren't really that new at all!
Not having much time between getting home, cooking and doing various other things I only managed about 10 games...
Firstly I noticed a lot of improvement in loading times, both on initial boot and between games. The language option has been removed once you have an option file although you are still given the option over PAL or NTSC on initial boot meaning you can't turn it on and pop off for a quick wazz without coming back to the HT Z choice screen.
The look and feel has had an overall, its now all yellow and gold like the box art, and features Adriano and Terry in various places. Other than that most of the interface stuff is normal. One of the first new features you will see is that before you get to the option screen you are given a choice of how good you are, normal, professional etc. I have no idea if this is the same as the difficulty in stars, but it seems strange to have it before you choose the type of game to play, and made it hard for me to go down to normal after about 4 games and only 1 goal!
Something else I noticed was when you go to your initial formation set up, there is some auto menu before your formation settings... no idea what that is but you can easily turn it off!
The game play its self is so much like real football. I found it imposable to run through players and found myself passing back and around the back line to move my team further up the pitch. Long balls are now a lot more realistic, gone are the days of them going miles high only for you and your opposition to stand there waiting for them to land. Instead you can wizz a long ball over the defenders for your strikers to run onto.
I also found it really hard to get any space, every time I tried to line up a shot I got closed down, instead I found that player get much better shots off, or are less affected by having defenders hassling them. Also from a shooting point of view most of my shots were on target and to either side of the keeper, making a poor shot more interesting to watch. I also found shots to the goal when running across the face of the box didn't always go miles wide!
The replays are a lot better, although free kicks are still shown from the half way line rather than behind the player or the goal, so its still just as hard to see how close it goes. They are also sponsored by Canon?!?!
The game also has lots of new animations and lots more for off the ball situations making it look a lot better and generally giving it a nice smooth look and feel.
A few things I did notice however were as follows:
- Hitting the posts! I must have hit it about 10 times last night, my first 3 goals all went in off it and I hit the cross bar on about 50% of my missed shots.
- You can now take quick free kicks! Gone are the days of being hacked down on a counter attack only to start again with all of their team behind the ball!
- The scorer and assister are listed on the pause menu, and shown on the screen in the corner after the restart, just like TV. (No more zooming in on the back of the players shirt if you skip the celebration!
- Ronaldinho does his flick dummy! Will try and post a video later
- Snap shots kept down more, and the animations are a lot better.
- Game stats on result screen, instantly see how many shots and what the possession was like.
- Ability to play again with different teams from the in game menu. So if you start again by mistake you can restart without having to go back to the menu screen!
- On screen confirmation of a player getting a yellow card after the animation, much like the scorer.
- Players hold each other back when receiving the ball from a long kick or throw in!
- Players reset to normal formation for a goal kick, so you can now pass out without fearing someone will steal the ball!
- There is now an on line mode for the PS2! Not tried it yet but will soon.
- Teams have been updated to after the transfer window, Cole at Chelsea and Kuit at Liverpool etc !
I will post some more findings if I can be assed later, and also how the on line mode works!