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PSM3's PES 2010 Hands-On: Uncut
11-Jul-2009 Warning: for die-hard fans only. Hardcore details, data and impressions ahead + new screens
Slower. More painstaking. Less goals. That's how PES 2010 hopes to steal the critical high ground from EA's FIFA 10. Sounds unlikely? It'll make sense when you read our exclusive PES 2010 hands-on, plus exclusive development team interview, in PSM3#116 on-sale now for £4.99 at all good newsagents - but we've been holding some juicy information back. Until now...
There's ten pages of revealing Pro Evo 2010 hands-on insight in the mag, but we still had to cut out some interesting, if niche, new details; including player stats, menu options and data, that - as gently obsessive fans - make us oddly excited.
The following are offcuts from our notebook that didn't make the magazine, partly because they're a little too hardcore for less committed Pro Evo players, partly because we ran out of space. Here goes...
PES 2010 Menu Options
The code we played was a controlled, two-team, demo, with only Exhibition matches active, but the main menu currently contains the following blanked out options:
UEFA Champions League
Exhibition
Master League
Become A Legend
League/Cup
Community
Online
Training
Edit
Gallery
System Settings
Exit
The menu screens are - we must stress - placeholder, but the main menu options are currently arranged in a circle (a bit like the outline of a ball, as recall it). The overall visual style resembles a match ticket, or match day programme - relaying a real 'fan' feel.
Music
Currently, there's no licensed music, but lots of generic menu tunes in classic PES style, from genres such as House, Techno, New Rave and Indie. One track was literally labelled New-Rave, Tech Funk.
When we asked Konami Japan how the music would change, they simply replied 'There will be more variety'.
Edit Player Position - bias arrows
When you edit a player's position, we couldn't find the traditional eight way arrows (where you can highlight two of eight directions as the player's preferred areas of movement). Perhaps this has been removed so the tactical sliders (see the magazine) are more powerful. They were pretty obscure/confusing for the mass market, so that might be another reason for their removal. This is only our speculation, mind you, so don't be shocked if the arrows return - we just couldn't find them in the current code.
Player stats are position-specific
PES 2010 features an accurately rendered version of Liverpool's home stadium Anfield. Note the new 3D crowds.
All players have a 'top line' stat, just like FIFA, so, say, Gerrard has an overall score of 96, Torres 80, Agger 74 etc. Don't worry - the traditional stats for individual attributes like short pass acc, dribbling, balance etc are still visible, but the 'top line' stat makes it easier for newcomers to judge their best players.
When you move a player into an unfamiliar position, their stats will be adjusted accordingly. e.g. Benayoun is 78 AMF, 63 CMF and 47 DMF - which makes sense, since this smaller, skillful player would be better deployed 'in the hole' up front, and not as a holding player in deep midfield. Utility players like Gerrard suffer much less when moved out of their prefered position, making squad utility players even more important to cover for key injuries.
Man Marking
When you set a player to man mark the opposition, you can compare their top line stats and - handily - height, so you don't put a tiny defender up against a huge forward by mistake. You can also toggle between Loose/Tight marking.
Match menus
As it stands, and this may change, the in-game Pause menu has the same options as PES 2009. It's the same at half-time, too, with familiar Match Details and Highlights options.
Player celebrations
There are more player-specific goal celebrations, the most memorable we saw being Torres' thumb sucking motion.
Streamlined VS matches
When you go into a game and choose VS. Player (i.e. two-player), you no longer need to move the pads either side of the screen like in PES 2009 - the game assumes you want a two-player match and goes straight to the 'Kick Off' menu. Don't worry - you can still manually adjust the pads for two-player co-op matches in the Pause menu. It's simply a more intuitive way to enter a quick two-player VS match.
There's a VS.Com option for going straight into Human vs CPU games.
PES 2010's new pack star, Fernando Torres, demonstrates the incredible new in-game likenesses.
There's a Custom option for multi-player matches, with two or more human players.
The Exhibition menu
Has six options:
Team Select
Stadium
Kick Off!
Game Plan (i.e. where you adjust tactics, players etc)
Uniform
Options
Condition Arrows
Are the same as ever. Five arrows, from Excellent (Red), to Normal (Green) and Terrible (a dull purple/grey colour).
The Game Plan menu
It's the equivalent of the old formations/tactics menu, with the following options:
Match Start
Assist Setting
Change Player
Set Formation
Tactics
Setplay Settings
Data Management
We'll go through the new menus, and changes, one by one:
Assist Setting
Contains simple sliders where you can adjust broad brush issues, such as
Change Player (0, 1, 2, 3) - which allows you to automatically choose your formation based on Ability/Balanced/Condition, or None (0). It's like the old auto-select feature, but easier to understand. The option to 'Balance' your team is new, and the computer will pick the best team allowing for player ability *and* condition e.g. it might still pick Gerrard, even if he's on a slightly downward sloping condition arrow, since he is still a key player, but would not pick a less important player, like Kuyt, if his condition was poor - as it says, it's all about balance.
Change Formation (0, 1, 2, 3) - Set your team to play broadly Centre Attack, Side Attack or None.
Auto-form change (On/Off)
Change Game Plan (0, 1, 2, 3) - None (0), Normal type (1), Balanced (2) or (3) Special type. This affects the way you change tactics 'on the fly' in-game, but we didn't experiment with it. You can still assign mid-match strategy changes to L2 and combinations of square, circle etc etc
Auto Tactics (0, 1, 2, 3)
Change Player
Players are colour coded...
Brown - GK
Blue - Defence
Green - Midfield
Red - Attack
You can see a player's preferred foot via an on-screen outline of their feet, plus there's a little visual representation of their height - a generic body outline next to a 'ruler' e.g. 188cm
Players have an overall 'top line' rating to reflect their ability, just like FIFA - which makes it easier when comparing players head-to-head. Don't worry - the normal individual stats still exist, but the 'top line' score is just a quick visual indicator.
Here are some example scores from the Liverpool team in early PES 2010 code:
Reina 73
Hypia 81
Agger 74
Skrtel 71
Carragher 71
Gerrard 96
Alonso 78
Kuyt 77
Riera 81
Benayoun 78
Torres 80
Mascherano 88
N'Gog 59
It's worth noting that this 'top line' score changes if you play someone out of position, for example Hypia's score of 81 plummets if you play him as CF.
How is the 'top line' score worked out?
There's no official word from Japan, but we'll perform an experiment by taking Gerrard's individual stats, and taking an average.
Steven Gerrard
Attack 87
Defence 70
Body Balance 88
Stamina 87
Top Speed 84
Acceleration 78
Response 82
Agility 77
Dribble Accuracy 80
Dribble Speed 83
Header 75
Short Pass Accuracy 88
Jump 72
Short Pass Speed 98
Technique 82
Long Pass Accuracy 95
Long Pass Speed 97
Shot Accuracy 81
Shot Power 96
Shot Technique 83
FK Accuracy 82
Swerve 75
If you add these up, and divide by the number of attributes 1840/22 = 83.6
So since Gerrard's actual score is 96, this number can't be a pure average, but must take into account other stats that aren't measured as 1-100. e.g. Aggression, Mentality, Team Work, Condition, Weak Foot Accuracy, Weak Foot Frequency etc
More importantly, the 'top line' score must take into account a player's unique abilities, previously know as ability stars, but now known as the 'Ability Card' system.
Gerrard's 'cards' are:
Balance
Quick Turn
Long Ranger
Free Roaming
Reaction
1-touch play
Outside Curve
Which must push his 'top line' score from 84 to 96 - we're not sure how this is worked out (this is just an experiment), but it demonstrates that player ability cards play a key role.
Benayoun's Ability Cards:
Balance
Passer
Outside Curve
Long Throw
Footed
Scoop Kick
Torres:
Balance
Goal Poacher
Reaction
1-on-1 finisher
Outside Curve
Footed
Messi:
Mazing Run
Incisive Run
1-on-1
Scoop Kick
Scissors
Footed
Outside Curve
Henry (not a full list, but he has the interesting new cards below):
Cut Back Pass
Edge Turn
Eto'o: (ditto: not a complete list, but some of the interesting ones include)
Dummy Run
Chasing Back
Iniesta: (ditto)
Super Sub
All Out Attack
(For more details on ability cards, see PSM3#116)
Set Formation
This menu contains the options:
Edit Position
Change Formation
Mark Settings
CARD
There's a host of default formations, as usual, including 4312, 4213, 442, 4411, 451, 4123 etc
CARD - this option allows you to toggle card abilities on/off. Once again, see PSM3#116 for a detailed explanation.
The effect of each card is demonstrated by the player's movement (represented by moving dots) on the overhead tactics pitch view above the lower menu. For example, you can see the Torres' dot move to break the defensive line when you activate the Goal Poacher dot.
Tactics
There's a lot more on this in PSM3#116, with detailed analysis of the tactics sliders, so we'll focus on what we had to leave out.
Strategy
You can still manually assign 'on the fly' tactics changes to the shoulder/face buttons e.g. press L2 and circle to perform a counter attack/pressure/CB Overlap/Offside Trap etc, depending on what buttons you assign.
Setplay Settings
The options are the same as usual, but they're listed in a long vertical list to make it easier to see who's assigned to what duty.
Camera Types
From what we've seen, they're the same as ever, and we played in classic 'Wide' view.
Exhaustive. You bet. We're at least gently obsessed with Pro Evo 2010. To read our early hands-on verdict, don't miss PSM3#116, on-sale now.
To buy PSM3#116 online for the same price as the shops - but with delivery included to your front door, visit the Gamesradar online shop here
Have a great weekend
PSM3
p.s We'll try to do a live Twitter Q&A about PES 2010 next week, so leave your questions below as a head start.