Not too unlike the WWE 2K series I just wrote about in another review, I have similarly played Pro Evolution Soccer off and on over the years, but never very seriously. While I really enjoy watching (or at least having on in the background) the World Cup, some MLS, or really any live soccer match that I might catch on TV, I’m hardly a serious soccer fan. I absolutely respect and appreciate the game though, and it’s clear that Konami does too. With PES 2015, which makes its debut on the PS4/X1 this year, I could immediately tell that I was going to like this better than any previous version I had played, and probably even more than recent FIFA titles, too.
A few hours later, I felt that this hypothesis was proven true. While PES 2015 lacks a lot of the licensing and presentation style of FIFA, it packs a punch where it counts, and that’s in the gameplay department. Like any good sports sim, you should expect a moderate learning curve to get started, and patience is a must. This isn’t an arcade game; having played and watched a lot of soccer over the years, PES feels like a very realistic sim from the get go, without having to fiddle with any of the game’s settings. That said, for this casual soccer fan, I had (and still have) a learning curve to get through to become proficient. But, I like that as long as I was playing a reasonable matchup (i.e. the teams had similar overall ratings), and I wasn’t treating this like an arcade game or being too ‘loose’ and aggressive, I was rewarded with a satisfying experience. Indeed, this meant that with the default time of 10 minute halves I was seeing a lot of low-or-no scoring games, but I valued these more than the blow outs I would either create or (usually) suffer at the hands of the CPU in previous PES or FIFA games.
Low-scoring may translate to boring for some, but it would be unfortunate to discount the game because of that. As I alluded to, I value a tightly played, realistic match that encourages you to play-on over a looser, long strikes and slide tackles affair. I found myself inching the game length time up more; not quite to the full-length 45 minute halves that I used to play in FIFA ’99, but in the twenty to thirty minute range anyway. This provided ample time to feel out a defense, making changes on both sides of the ball, and manage stamina which is a factor, especially for longer games. It’s unwise to burn up stamina with sprints every time you are either dribbling or tracking a defender. Furthermore, I discovered that I could rely on the friendly AI to handle their rolls so I wasn’t constantly tapping L1 to switch to a defender who was closer to the ball. This helped me focus on the tactics as a whole instead of micro-managing too much, although old habits are hard to break; thus, you can expect some “punishment” if you derail your team’s established tactics too much by running about.
CPU AI is overall very commendable too, in my experience thus far, although I did have a scenario once in which the defense literally froze in place when I stopped moving and passing. This was a weird circumstance (on my part too really), but a rarity amongst an otherwise fair and balanced AI. It’s also a very challenging AI, or at least I thought so, the default difficulty was enough for me when playing against similarly ranked teams, and I even spent some time on Easy during early matches. The AI represents itself well regardless of mode or difficulty setting, as does the feel of the game, which is more important in a soccer sim than most other sims.
Speaking of modes, new this year is MyClub which is a lot like FIFA’s Ultimate Team in which enthusiasts can form a team to take to the pitch online. It’s a more involved mode than I care to really invest in, but for those feeling like they couldn’t leave FIFA for PES because of Ultimate Team, well, that decision just got a lot more murkier now that PES has what thus far seems to be a very competent competitor to Ultimate Team, and is also much improved from the last several years in all other respects.
Depending on what you’re looking for in a soccer videogame, PES 2015 may very well fit the bill this year. It’s fluid, realistic, and even though it doesn’t have quite the full licensing and production that FIFA has, soccer purists should find more than enough content and focused sim gameplay to enjoy.
To the summary…
