Not able to deliver a masterpiece once again, Konami could improve from 2010 disaster and bring back the PES' spirit.
Well, when you start playing this game it will feel familiar and fear of another dubious quality game like last PES 2010 was will arise. No need to fear that for long! As long as you get on with it you'll soon notice that only the best feature from last game was left - the pitch and players' graphics (not the crowd, that segment is still bad but well, that doesn't really matter, does it?).
Indeed every other aspect of the game has been reviewed and that gives this game some extra points in comparison... To it's predecessor!
Game-play has been heavily reviewed actually. Smoother and more sensible controls of the players, adding 360ยบ movement - one year later than the rival - and a slightly improved shooting system that makes scoring goals equally spectacular but extremely more difficult. By doing this they have, unfortunately, made scoring goals by penalties almost impossible which is the in-game major flaw you can find. By far harder than FIFA again, as it always was apart from the 2010 game, game-play is again the major star on the field and the freedom of movement the players have is unmatchable together with the terrific visuals and goal scoring possibilities once you master the technique.
From there it's just like it always was. User interface is good but still has margin of improvement with 16bit like animations and hard interpretation menus. Game modes are good but repetitive and also require some getting used to in direct relation to the bad menus' layouts and displays - Career Mode is solid but some aspects like you not being able to negotiate directly with players you want on your team can be a setback. Team and player fictitious names are not admissible on such a heavily marketed game that has UEFA Champions League approval but lacks FIFA's - weird stuff as UEFA is a FIFA branch... But well, PES has always been like this and will continue for many years to come I'm quite sure.
And the fact is that it has followers, lovers like me, who despite knowing it's many flaws still prefer it over the competition's fancy European made quality.