I think the PES demo suffers from lacking the pageantry of FIFA too. Just imagine: Real Madrid (the real ones) could call in a cavalry charge of the Guardia Real (that's Spanish for Royal Guard), while imposters AT Madrid might unleash their cider-drunk bear mascot to rampage across the battlefield. It even has special moves with names like 'flip flap' and 'boomerang trap' but they're mostly other ways to kick the bomb. No subversion or even playfulness, it follows the exact same rules. But that's the problem: PES follows the same rules as FIFA. Most points at the end of 90 decimal minutes wins. You're trying to kick, headbutt, and shoulderbarge a defused bouncing bomb into the opponent's goalzone to score points. You have a squad of eleven warriors but only control one at a time, with an AI babysitting the rest.
Just like FIFA, it's a melee-only take on Bombing Run. Yet these jokes don't carry over into the ceremonial combat.Ĭombat is very po-faced in PES, beyond the men sometimes cantering like they're pretending to be horses. The republican AT Madrid's crest is all stars and stripes and, inexplicably, a bear scrumping apples, while the royalist Real Madrid (not like those frauds AT) top their crest with a crown. One is named Athletic Club - because they run around, geddit? And I dig the idea of Spanish city Madrid split in two, resolving a civil war in ritual combat. The team selection suggests you'll be chortling away, with some great names. This lack of commitment, this unwillingness to really follow through on the idea, is in the humour too. I found this problem across the PES demo. Look at the graphics: they're less fancy than FIFA, but not retro enough to really pump nostalgia glands they just look scruffy. I'm just not sure this nostalgia reaches back far enough to pull this off. The menu music's a flashback too, calling in '00s rap-rockers Linkin Park. The name itself, PES 2015, is a wink to ye olde games set in the then-far-flung future of the 21st century, but here the future's within arm's reach. While the FIFA demo was heavy on lore, pomp, and flash, PES's demo skips the fluff to create a more slimline, irreverent, and slightly retro take on the ritualised combat of goalzones and bombwarders. Yes, it's shooting for the same sort of real-time tactical action which I found in FIFA, but playing the demo that arrived a few days after launch shows it's quite different. I know what you're thinking: "Hey, that looks like FIFA!" I thought the same about PES 2015 when I noticed it out on Steam, but let's not jump to conclusions.