With a big changes this year, especially in gameplay and visual terms, expectations were big. PES 2014 should have been a fresh, new start for PES franchise. But unfortunately, it failed.Let's start with positive things:
-> Visuals (except there is no grass, again), presentation and atmosphere are way ahead of it's predecessor. Now, you really have the felling you are playing at a real life stadium. A big improvement for the franchise, no doubt.
-> Full scale control over passing and shooting. PES 2014 offers the most precise passing in terms of controller input, when the "advanced" mode of passing is turned ON. When it comes to "advanced" shooting, some time is needed to get used to it, even for PES veterans like me.
-> Dribbling. I am sure that PES veterans are not that thrilled with it because it is heavily simplified. But I am pointing this out as the overall improvement for a larger community of players. Less skill is needed to perform dribble moves.
-> More licensed teams from other continents besides Europe.
Now, the bad things and it is pretty bad:
-> Performance because of the new FOX engine. There is no replay or any break in the game that will not cause a frame rate drop. It is maybe for a second, but it shows that the game was not optimised as it should have been. And because of the new engine, there is no rain or snow. I mean, really? And no grass again, as I pointed out already.
-> AI (talking from the "superstar" difficulty perspective). Opponent players are pretty clever, maybe too much (magical defending), but the goalkeepers are not impressive at all. Another year and the same problem remained. Also, while playing BAL (Become a Legend), no matter what difficulty you choose, your teammates are braindead. It is a frustrating experience, more than enjoyable and I'm sure that is not the way.
-> Passing. It is the most precise ever, but it demands hours and hours of practicing to be able to pass the ball correctly in the match. Most of the players will not have the patience for it, so they will switch to standard passing system which has another big problem. Pass target marking took one step backwards. In the match, you will pass several balls in the way you did not select at all. Tweeking pass support option does not help. "The game knows better" passes, I call it.
-> Dribbling. As I have pointed out above, experienced PES players will not like it at all.
-> So, with all this said, it is time to point out THE MOST ANNOYING thing in the game. LAG, LAG and LAG. When you press a button, you would expect that the game will perform selected action immediately. But that is not the case here. Game needs a whole second and the most saddest thing is the gameplay was made this way, it is not a performance issue. That leads to a slow and sluggish movement of players which eventually breaks the overall pace of the game.
-> Stadiums. PES 2013 had 37 stadiums and this year we have only 18 if I'm correct. I know there has been some issues with licensing and EA, but common, they could at least add more generic stadiums.
-> Soundtrack. Or the lack of it, better said.
-> Stadium creator. Not existent in PES 2014.
-> Fewer modes.
-> No WE and PES United.
One step forward and two steps back. That sentence would, pretty much, describe what PES 2014 is all about. I will stick to PES 2013 for one more year and hope that 2015 will bring overall improvement to the game. Until then, a mediocore 50.
Verdict: 50/100
Minimum System Requirements
Operating System: Win Xp 32, Vista, Windows 7
Graphic Card: GeForce 510, Radeon HD 5450 512MB
CPU: Pentium D 820 2.8GHz, Athlon LE-1640
RAM: 1 GB
HDD: 10 GB
DirectX: 9.0c
Recommended System Requirements
Operating System: Win Xp 32, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8
Graphic Card: GeForce GT 440, Radeon HD 5550 1024MB
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7400 2.80GHz, Athlon II X2 255
RAM: 4 GB
HDD: 10 GB
DirectX: 9.0c
