Pro Evolution Soccer 6 Review

Individual players' pace is much less of a defining factor now, with acceleration in short supply. Players like Ronaldinho struggle to break through on pace alone, and even when Robben and Cristiano Ronaldo receive the ball out wide in line with the centre circle, they're much better off making for the byline than trying to cut inside. There are fewer "godly" players here in general, and with the top sprint speed now reduced, it's also a more physical game. Stature is incredibly important. Pick a heavy-set back line and you can deal with a lot of threats before anything develops, because they will do a surprisingly effective job of closing down nippy forwards even if their legs are older than Maldini's. Cesare Maldini's. Meanwhile in attack, finding composure on the ball is simultaneously more necessary and much harder, with a lot of shots ballooning away unhelpfully unless you're perfectly set to strike, or your attacking stat point is breaking through the top of the skills pentagon.

The 360 game is noticeably different, graphically (as you'd expect), but still characteristically PES.

Fortunately off-the-ball movement has improved, and it's possible to do more with the ball in close confines using the shielding button, holding it up and pivoting away from defenders. You can do a clever little dragback turn to create space, too, and in each case it's just as well given that PES6 relies so heavily on patient build-up play. Where once you could get away with surging forward and playing a quick one-two to reach the edge of the penalty area, here you'll only be using that through-ball button during moments of supreme vision and excellence, and even then you'll probably find the defence has tracked you back by the time you approach the penalty area.

There are at least some things that improve on the balance and flow of the last major Western release, PES5, like the less twitchy referees, who can now thankfully stomach the odd bit of argy-bargy from the defensive 'pressing' buttons, and the ability to keep the ball when sliding in with a tackle, which does more than anything to keep the turnover rate within reasonable bounds, and certainly helps to discourage profligate use of the dash button in central midfield. Meanwhile, the addition of a quick free-kick function, activated when it's possible by pressing the two shoulder buttons closest to you at the same time, allows you to continue without having the entire opposition team standing ahead of the ball, as was the case in the past, and the advantage rule is better-handled, with players being punished even if play has subsequently taken quite a while to stop.

But equally it's hard to escape the feeling that this shift in balance has led to a more frustrating game overall. Konami wants us to be excellent before we can dance through teams, and it's a noble goal more ably realised than in previous versions, but is it actually fun?

The answer is that that probably depends on what you want out of it. If all you want to do is take Ronaldinho on a whistle-stop tour of every blade of grass, pirouetting with the right-analogue-twirl through a lead-footed defence on the way to smashing the ball past the goalkeeper, you can achieve that by notching the difficulty down to the first or second levels. (In the Xbox 360 version's case, that's certainly the best way to mine it for gamerpoints - with most of them available for winning leagues and cups, which can be done on any difficulty level. Grr.)

While the PS2 version looks a bit gritty and even cartoony at this point, the animations are still second to none.

But surely, for the more adventurous, simply bouncing around midfield until you can find a sufficient bludgeon is just forced attrition?

Well, maybe on your own, but in multiplayer, I'm happy to say, there's still a great game to be had. Multiplayer games see both players working hard to maintain possession, shielding the ball and fashioning openings through deception, dragging defenders out of position and using flair players like Zidane, whose characteristics inspire his team-mates to work more confidently around him, to switch the play. But although the lack of speed pushes you into certain tactical brackets, the things that are brilliant about PES remain intact: the individual players' real-life strengths and weaknesses convincingly portrayed through a set of statistics and particular aptitudes; the need to think like a footballer to create chances, and the need to act like one to seize on them; the precise fatigue and injury systems that demand tactical considerations often absent from the competition. Most importantly, there's the genuinely convincing illusion of football: PES looks like little footballers playing football. Sometimes they're a bit dim-witted, failing to pounce on a loose ball (and the goalkeepers make some fairly horrendous mistakes now and then), but the illusion itself remains intact, the players' shortfalls themselves quite convincing.

And, of course, so much is decided by that great footballing truism: that anything can happen. You may not be able to roar past the left-back, but you can always outwit him to create space and get the cross in, and nowhere is that more true than against a football-loving friend, the way PES is meant to be played. When it all pays off, and you split the defence in the last minute, calmly slotting the ball past the advancing keeper, the sense of elation is almost without compare.

Even so, I would probably still rather choose PES5, or even Winning Eleven 10 (which, while almost comically fast, is far more accessible and visceral) to play with others, because as much as there's a demand on skill and planning here, there comes a point in time when you lose a game because Henry was caught by a defender despite starting off a couple of yards ahead of him, and that grates.

Meanwhile, online is much better on PS2, with more players supported.

And while we're on the subject of grating, let's address the differences between the PS2 and Xbox 360 versions, which hardly flatter the new boy. On PlayStation 2, you can play four versus four online. On Xbox 360, you can play one on one, or two versus two offline (Xbox 360 has no support at all for more than four players on one console, either). On PS2, you can choose from 33 stadiums. On Xbox 360, there are eight. On PS2, you have the PES Shop to work through, unlocking extra bits and pieces. On Xbox 360, there is no shop - you get what you're given. On PS2, the menus allow you to quickly flick between starting eleven and substitutes; to view the scorers during a game by hitting the pause button; to save off replays to your memory card; to edit virtually anything in the game; to play an International Challenge mode, based on World Cup qualifying, and Random Selection matches, where teams are randomly drawn players from a chosen continent (simply brilliant for multiplayer pick-up matches). On Xbox 360, of all of that, all you can do is edit the player names. You can't even save replays, which is just ludicrous - particularly given that the manual actually says you can.

Graphically, the Xbox 360 has widescreen support, and many more polygons pumped into every area. Movement in both versions is slick and believable, to a degree it hasn't been in any other version. Players now tumble over challenges that they can't hurdle and goalkeepers tip the ball around posts single-handed. On that level, Konami continues to impress. Body shapes are convincing, those little flicks look just like they do on TV, with players prancing to avoid follow-through, and although the 360 players are a little bit Madame Tussauds in places, that version's conservative enough in other areas to avoid the impressive fuzzy-felt effect of other sports games. Then again, and this is true of both PS2 and Xbox 360 to some of extent (the latter of which has Dolby Digital support), the crowd remains quite dead at times, chanting away but rarely all that excited when the ball flies into the net, and although the 360 graphics are slick and in places believable, we're not talking about Fight Night levels of realism here; this just looks like a PS2 game put through a few filters.

Konami has also resisted whatever urges it may have felt about some of the game's other core mechanics. Throw-ins, corners, penalties - all a bit rubbish, all the same. Free-kicks are still acceptably skill-based and interesting, and success has a lot to do with the player you've chosen to stand over the ball (hint: deselect, wherever necessary, Roberto one-in-a-hundred Carlos). But this is still old-PES. You get the feeling the series needs to put PS2 behind it and focus exclusively on the next-generation formats before it will find a new level.

Xbox 360's stadiums are much nicer, graphically, but there are far fewer of them.

Somebody also needs to get a bit more proactive in the licensing department. With FIFA seemingly on the march in a gameplay sense, the disparity between EA's gotta-catch-'em-all approach to licensing and Konami's positioning-a-bedsheet-under-the-window is all the more apparent. Chelsea are back to being London FC, even though Manchester United are in. The Germans appear to have gone completely, but for Bayern Munich's lurking in Other Leagues A. The Master League (thankfully they remembered to include that on Xbox 360) feels a bit lifeless as a result, and of course if you buy the Xbox 360 version, you can't rely on somebody painstakingly altering everything and then offering the save-file to download, and nor can you do everything yourself. There's also a bit of hangover from World Cup squads - with players like Zidane and Beckham still there, despite their real-life circumstances.

Normally I just leave Tom to review Pro Evolution Soccer on the basis that he's put so many man years into it that his knowledge of the game boots mine into row Z. That doesn't mean I don't have an opinion on PES, and it certainly doesn't mean I don't play it from time to time. I just try and avoid having my spirit crushed too often by playing him.

Played against similarly skilled opponents, PES still ranks among the most entertaining games around. With even a modicum of knowledge of its inner workings you really do start to feel like you're crafting a football match with your own hands. Once you develop your own approach and strategy to the game, you really start to notice how good the AI is, how you can pull players out of position and take full advantage of space and the individual strengths of your team. The whole build-up play still feels thrilling.

But it's not a game without its crippling flaws that so many people seem willing to overlook year upon year. My main problem with PES has always been that it's absolutely no fun whatsoever against someone who plays it all the time, and PES6 merely seems to exacerbate that even more. In a game where keeping possession has always been quite difficult to master, PES6 attempts to get around that with the ability to shield the ball. But still, as Tom rightly points out, you forever find yourself with a pacey player in a good position - yards ahead of the opposition - only to get mugged at the death.

That doesn't mean it's always hard to carve out attacking manoeuvres, though - it's just that the dynamic now favours the defence even more than it has in the past, meaning newbies won't be murdered quite as badly as they perhaps once would have, but may find it even more of a tall order to break out of defence and score. It's an odd dynamic, because although the scorelines might be lower than before (and therefore the humiliation lessened) the barrier to entry for newcomers seems higher than ever unless you're content to play the beginner or amateur AI.

The amazing new fly-o-vision cam.

But whether you're a veteran or a newcomer, you'll share a common complaint - that PES6 appears to be the most difficult in the series to score. Having ploughed through two of the game's leagues and all seven cups against the AI, it's true that the first two difficulty levels are almost insultingly easy. But beyond that, and against human opposition online, it's an absolute lottery whether the game will let you score or not.

Okay, admittedly I'm pretty rubbish at PES, but not that rubbish. Half the time online I've matched opponents shot for shot, and occasionally murdered them - yet on every single occasion it was a real effort to get the ball on target. Occasionally I've been on the end of some real beatings myself, and found myself a few men short and rarely conceded more than one or two goals. Whether you're an old hand or bright newcomer, those headers and volleys just keep on ballooning high and wide when just tucking them away seems like the simpler option. Don't believe me? See for yourself.

Now, clearly there's a knack to all this. People repeatedly advise me to time shots properly, to try and press RT/R2 to cushion the ball and to make sure the players are not off balance, but it only seems to get you so far. I wouldn't mind if this was just something the less skilled players have to overcome with practice, but the fact that the very people dishing out the advice are shouting expletives at the game in sheer frustration hardly bodes well.

Missed!

Something else that conspires to reduce any fun you might get out of PES6 is how desperately laggy the online play appears to be at the moment. During corner kicks, the game repeatedly turns into a slideshow, and if you get an opponent across the other side of the world the game's practically unplayable. You have to more or less relearn how to play the game to take into account of the lag, with the power bar registering your input often seconds after you've pressed the button. With every other game badly affected by the problem, it seriously compromises attempts to build up flowing attacks - not to mention timing your challenges. It might be a great leveller, but it's hellishly annoying.

And what of the game's technical impoverishment? After playing FIFA on 360, you'll really notice how old school the animation is, with players' side-to-side motion resembling a team full of crabs. The adoption of widescreen, though, is a major bonus for a series so mystifyingly resistant to such a fundamental idea, and genuinely helps with building up the play effectively. And while the lack of all the stadiums might sound like a daft omission on 360, you'll hardly notice it once you're in the thick of play.

What you will definitely notice, though, is how little effort Konami has put into delivering the 360 version. With barely any major technical improvements over the PS2 version other than cleaner, sharper graphics, it appears that Konami is content to tread water for this year's release and eke out another edition before the inevitable arrival of a definitive next-gen version in 2007.

Another header over the bar?

Elsewhere, you'll still cringe at the appalling presentation, exasperating commentary and literally the worst soundtrack in any major game - not to mention the continuing lack of real teams after all these years. Having raked in the profits from selling literally tens of millions of copies of the various PES games over the years, it's absolutely mystifying why Konami still brings its most important game to market with such a degree of unapologetic poverty. PES6 stinks of a cynical, half-arsed attempt to mug the 360's hungry user-base into buying a next-gen version of their favourite football game. Not only is it far from 'next-gen' it's not even properly finished.