Revamped team AI the cornerstone of this year's changes; improved animation, lighting and tactics also promised.
While Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer franchise has been playing second fiddle both critically and commercially to EA's FIFA series for several years, the most recent iterations were the closest on both fronts for some time. PES 2011 helped Konami to a significant profit boost earlier this year, and the publisher has just confirmed the first details of the follow-up, PES 2012.
The focus for development on PES 2012 is "the instinctive way the game can be played and on teamwork in particular," according to the publisher. The game's AI engine has received "a major overhaul," it is claimed, which has apparently resulted in improved zonal marking for all players, defenders holding tighter lines, and your own attacking players making more intelligent runs.
Konami has also promised "heavily tweaked animation, more detailed lighting techniques, a wider variety of player styles, improved dead-ball situations, expanded tactics, and a new customizable pass feature." Penciled in for release this autumn, PES 2012 has been confirmed for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PC, Wii and PSP.
Shingo "Seabass" Takatsuka, the series' creative producer also offered more details in a trailer released alongside today's announcement, which you can see below.
Alex Sassoon Coby has been involved in tech and video games journalism for the better part of a decade. He likes his games hard, his meat raw, and his women on wheels.
Still playing and enjoying this year's version, think it's a great fun game personally and will probably buy the next version. One thing's for sure I'll never buy another copy of FIFA after my experience of that awful game...awful gameplay full of horrible bugs.
Why does PES suck? Because of you Yes YOU the moron who buys this crap, becauase you buy this failed game they keep their one day a year job making a new edition of a game on a broken engine knowing that YOU the moron will buy it thinking wow it looks so better at half the speed....NO it just hides the broken game better, oh and lets not forget all of them top class teams such as east london and some team from up north....RIP pes and your stupid little fan boys
what's promised by konami is already available in fifa for 2 or 3 years,,,I don't know why people keep playing this non-pro "slow" evolution "almost" soccer game,,,I will keep playing fifa 2011 until fifa 2012
More License on clubs & country please... UEFA not enough...Need Home& away match in friendly match
It would be great to see Konami taking Pro Evo in directions akin to the great PS2 days of PES 6. That was one of the best football games ever made and probably is the best, but FIFA is the king of the next gen football sim at the moment. FIFA 12 may continue to confirm that. Let's hope Seabass and co can make something happen - PES 2011 was close to being good but there were a few things that felt missing.
Konami should stick to the shallow arcade-esque genres, and leave the simulation games to the companies that do it best.
im happy that the animations are getting "heavily tweaked" because they still need a lot of work and improved dead ball situations sounds promising cause rite now they suck
I used to remember during the PS2 era I would go blindly with Pro evo because of gameplay being miles better even if it hardly featured 1/3 of the teams licensed. But things changed and EA FIFA is better in gameplay sector as well :\
I thought PES 2011 showed some promise - it deserved the decent marks it got but equally its fair to say that it still retained a sense of being outdated. It took sometime to learn the game again but overall it lacked fluidity. I couldn't quite always get my defenders to move as i wanted them to move, I couldn't quite always highlight the right player for a cross and the shooting system sometimes has a mind of its own. The dissapointing thing is I could level that critcism 7 years back a the game so its hard to understand why Konami haven't developed the it more over the years - it should be better.
I have been out of the soccer game scene for a few years now so im unsure if these tweaks will bring PES into line with the FIFA series, its about time i bought one of them and i always did enjoy the master league.
i loved playing pes in ps2 but ever since I bought ps3 i changed to fifa. I really hope pes improves.
The new information sounds good but I think it'll take a lot for it to beat the latest FIFA game.
Try starting with building the game from scratch instead of building onto something that is broken
PES 2013 out this autumn on multiple platforms including PS2 and PSP; no Vita or Wii U versions coming.
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