While I’m not exactly the most knowledgeable or passionate person when it comes to the ancient sporting art of soccer (you can’t touch me, Europeans), I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy a good few games from the somewhat recently passed World Cup. I don’t fully comprehend the rules, the players, the teams, or the worldly purpose of those who invest so much time and emotion into the journey, but sit me down with good company and a few brews and I can find delight in almost anything. In this particular case all I had to do was yell at the screen a few times, cheer when stuff happened, and indulge in the dry humour from commentators who I swear were about as invested in the “seriousness” of the game as much as I was.
The point is that I had fun, and this fun translated fairly seamlessly to a delightful night at the Surprise Attack HQ with some hot and sweaty hands-on time with PES 2015. It’s a soccer game, I’m told. There was also beer, and friends. So really it was just like the above, only I had to do the legwork for the game itself. Virtually, of course. Nobody wants to see me in those sports shorts for real.
PES 2015 is Konami’s upcoming November scheduled iteration of their triumphant football/soccer franchise; Pro Evolution Soccer. It’s powered by FOX Engine which initially had me suspicious this would be yet another teaser for Silent Hills, the soccer ball slowly transforming into the head of my murdered wife and my team swallowed up by the earthy prison they call a playing field, but nope this is real soccer with real virtual players. Naturally this meant I had to pick Portugal because I can’t think of any logical reason not to. To my ire I was partnered up with fellow editor and bane of my existence, Adam Ghiggino, a man who is very stinky and likes to think he knows a thing or two about this footing of the ball. It was us two seasoned human beings against another two rather lovely gentlemen whose names elude me much like the ball did their players. If you’re reading this, don’t take it personally, I’m really bad with names. Nice guys though.
Sport games are not my forte so while others in the room displayed an instantaneous, magnetic attraction to the PES game systems, I had to muscle through the learning curve and adapt all the skills learned from first person shooters, role playing, and hentai dating sims to football. An impossible task for some, effortless for me. Within minutes I was kicking the ball anywhere and everywhere, an equal opportunity player sharing the love with sportsmen on both teams. If survival is for the fittest then I don’t think it would be obnoxious or arrogant to say myself, and to a lesser extent Adam, had rapidly evolved from soccer scrubs into alpha warriors, champions of the Portugalian Empire. I could taste our opponents fear in the air.
To PES 2015’s credit the game systems are logical and easy to understand, presented in such a way that the basics of kicking and passing and tackling make a certain kind of sense that once you know the difference between a casual pass and punting the ball across the field it’s not too hard to get sucked in. While I might have started with “Oh, I need to press that button to kick goals”, by the end I had probably kicked around three hundred and forty goals (Adam contributing two or three) to the opposition’s one. And unlike certain other Rocket Chainsaw writers and preview events of the past, I did not kick the ball into our own goal.
My lowest moment was querying “Where’s the sprint button?”, quickly amended by a whole bunch of badass sprinting and scoring. I’m not familiar with PES 2014, also powered by FOX Engine and too not a teaser for another Konami franchise, but the animation and graphical quality of PES 2015 was a standard I feel will please most soccer fans. Passing, scoring, and tackling had none of their weird, clumsy animation locking and skipping you tend to get in games trying to simulate precise real world physics. Character and ball motion appeared seamless and believable, much moreso than my claim to three hundred plus goals.
Do they even call them goals? Points?
The most important thing I could take away from my PES 2015 adventure, besides how little I actually know of the sport, is ironically how knowing so little is irrelevant to having a good bit of fun. I’m all for sitting down to a 150 page manual in order to learn the nuances of a deeply involved real time strategy, but sometimes it’s good to pick up the controller and just…play. Hours upon hours atop just as many bottles of beer on Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat with mates who’ve played little of either franchise can attest to that, and PES 2015 was straddling pretty close to that bracket for me. I went from nothing to something in the blink of an eye. A true rags to riches story.
PES 2015 is on track for a worldwide release come 15 November, headlining on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 builds for everybody else. When the time comes, remember; play Portugal. I will be.
