Crappy AI, good gameplay, addictive but a pain.
Firstly, I want to say that the reason I started writing this review is because I almost smashed my controller and PS3. The reason is that the stupid AI drove me crazy. Playing AC Milan against Bayern München was my nightmare. I lost playing at professional level. You may think that level is easy, but it is not. You are not playing against a team; you are playing against the AI. That means against a referee, the team itself and your own team.
Almost on the penalty spot Nesta recovered the ball, and then I tried to pass it. Bad choice! Looking in a straight line the closer player was Ibrahimovic, so he was maybe in the half line of the pitch. It was a really long pass with lots of Bayern's players. I thought I was lucky because Gattusso ran in the middle of the players and the ball, and I did think "he's going to catch the ball, I'm safe". But he did not catch the ball. He just jumped over it, then a Bayern's player caught the ball, made a long pass to Rivery and finally goal. That is why I stopped playing.
The AI's stupidity is unbearable. If you are willing for your AI players to make a good choice in attack or defense you should be careful. You are close to disaster. You can never be sure that your pass is going on the direction you want. If you are a midfielder and you want to pass back you may fall onto AI claws, because the AI thinks that logically you will pass the ball to an attacker, so your pass will be way out of target.
Shooting is a nightmare. Just press a nanosecond more your square button and you will hit a homerun. Buttons are extremely sensitive for shooting as well as for passing. If you see a Barcelona's match on Saturday you will see that Messi will not fail a shot for more than half a meter, but if you shoot in PES 2011 he sure can. Try to shoot a penalty! Hell for me! Physics are not too real also. If you, by accident crash with the referee you will be unable to walk for a second or so. Players fall down so easy, like they did not have any muscles or something.
It is incredible how players of your own team are obstacles! If you want to shoot a 30 meter shot after a corner, your shot will be probably intercepted by one of yours. Your players in that case are a ball magnet. But try the opposite, try to make a precise passing shot, and then it will go way out of target. But in attack is not as painful as in defense. Try to shoot away a ball from your goal, but if you find a fellow player the chances that the ball hits him are so high that you will have to consider shooting that ball. I have had plenty own goals by this reason. Happily, AI teams also are an own goal mass producers.
Despite they have improved passes, graphics and maybe a bit gameplay, PES has still a lot of bugs and KONAMI has a long way for giving us a really good game. Playing against AI is perfect, but playing against an AI that has an IQ that you can count with your hands is just awful.