Hands on with Pro Evolution 2014
Developer PES Productions
Publisher Konami
Platform PS3, Xbox360
Release Date September 20th 2013
This time last year we started hearing rumors of something special coming from PES Productions and that in late 2013 we would have a game that was certainly “one to watch”. When the full PES 2014 announcement came earlier this year it included a big shock, that the game was torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up on the impressive new FOX engine.
It is a brave move to take an established brand like PES and start all over again. It is perhaps risky to use a game engine traditionally associated with shooters but one that seems to have paid off. The decision to go back to the drawing board so to speak was perhaps driven by the impending next generation of consoles. It is fair to say Pro Evo has struggled to find its feet on this current generation and never made full use of the hardware upgrade and lost ground to Fifa. The engine used for the last number of years was very much a PS2 engine with continual additional extra features layered on top of the core game to improve things like the graphics and presentation, but under the hood it was starting to struggle. This was something Konami did not want to repeat.
They chose the FOX engine as it is incredibly powerful. The engine looks after things like the lighting, shading, shadowing and rendering. They were previously cumbersome layers bolted on top of the game but are all now handled quite easily by the new core game engine which frees up much more memory for the on pitch activities such as player ID, player movement and ball control. But most importantly it is fully scalable so when it needs to be rolled out for the more powerful platforms it is ready for the challenge.
What better time than now to talk about how the ball works in game. This year’s best new feature is that the ball is an entity of its own. So rather than in previosu years where we saw it sticking to players who then get caught in an animation when trying to control, pass or shoot it is now a much more fluid natural process. Strikers now will take one touch with their left and then smash it home with their right in a fraction of a second. There are no preset animations that the player gets trapped in that ruin that experience. you can hit, flicks, take touches and most importantly hit those pesky knee high volleys with devastating effect.
While it will take a number of games to see how this all actually pans out and to find the flaws, in the three matches we did get to play it’s honestly the most natural experience from any football game I have ever played. There are many other new features coming including like player balancing (barry system) that allows you to shift your weight one way and tap the ball the other way, and crowd/team emotions. Now big players can “rise to the occasions” and lift the team to win the big games (ala Gerrard in the Champions League final). On the other hand player’s that are likely to sulk if things do not go their way will shy away and become less effective. The crowd also influences the players, if one particular player is having a bad run of games the fans will start to boo him. They will even get up and leave if you are getting trashed. They are no longer cardboard cutouts but actually a dynamic part of the game delivering a far more immersive experience.
Konami have done an amazing job rebuilding the game, it is a risky move but one the fans are sure to love. The game has badly needed a revamp and this is one that is sure to please even the most critical of players.
All this was done to get ready for the next gen so perhaps it is a surprise that this year we are not getting a next gen version. Why? It is simple, the team had enough on their plates rebuilding the whole game from the ground up that they wanted to get it right on PS3/360 where the vast majority of their fans will be playing and to then focus on next gen.
Sure they could give it a lick of paint and rush out a Next Gen version but that would be very disingenuous of them and something they were not prepared to do. They felt they owed the fans that much.
It is a bold move but one that is to be admired, so many games are getting the “next gen” treatment without actually being “next gen”. So when a team is honest and says we are going to wait and do it right, you have to admire that.
So we have this year arguably the best football game ever made, it is a brand new build so there will be things that need to be tweaked but so far it looks and plays incredibly well.
It is coming out a little early this year too with the demo hitting the consoles on September the 11th and the game coming out on September 20th.
