Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 Review

Another year, another soccer game. Enter Konami’s soccer franchise Pro Evolution Soccer 2011, the other 2011 soccer game that is not by FIFA and Electronic Arts. This franchise should have a decent following among soccer game fans here in the United States as it has been running since 2001 under the name of World Soccer Winning Eleven and is now known as Pro Evolution Soccer since 2008. Does this year’s edition bring its game to the table or is it just another repackaging of last year’s version?

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 is a game for soccer fans. If you love soccer, you cannot really go wrong with this game. The controls are some of the most responsive I have come across lately. Playing a match produces the same kind of excitement as watching a high profile game. The virtual players feel like they have real mass and momentum.

For me, Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 had only one particular annoyance: passing is a bit erratic. Most of the time, the ball is passed to empty space rather than to your players, leaving you to wait for the next active player to catch up to the ball. It’s rather weird for a soccer game, as you would expect it to have more accurate passing, as least reflective of the specific player. Overall, Pro Evolution Soccer 2011’s gameplay takes some time to learn and execute well. It is a deep and rich soccer game. Let me remind you, this is not a game for ‘newbies’.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 feels more like a technology platform than a console game. It exudes a sense of largeness with numerous screens to traverse and a seemingly endless variety of options. Thankfully, it is all presented fairly well, save for a few too many notification screens. Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 feels very sleek and polished but there is not anything here that distinguishes much from other modern soccer games. Pro Evolution Soccer 2011’s interface is definitely a more refined version of last year’s Pro Evolution Soccer. One thing to note is that after comparing Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 to FIFA 11, both games look very similar, almost too similar.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 certainly looks the part of a game made for this generation. The game strives for a more mature presentation than last year with a natural color pallet overall. The menus are colorful and animated, yet sleek and mature. Players look sufficiently life-like, though the graphics shine best in the character creation mode. Character creation generates players that seem spawned right from the uncanny valley.

While Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 looks great overall, there are a few noticeable graphical flaws, though none extreme. There does not seem to be any anti-aliasing used in the game at all though the jagged edges are not particularly distracting. Also, many textures don’t hold up particularly well up close and the game can look a little flat when playing with the closest camera settings. Lastly, the frame rates in Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 do not seem as high and smooth as they should be but perhaps that is a PlayStation 3 issue, as other multi-platform games seems to suffer from the same issue.

Konami made sure that Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 featured a wide variety of artists and amounts to a very enjoyable soundtrack. While the genres vary, R and B and rap music are not featured (though they would seem out of place in the overall presentation of Pro Evolution Soccer 2011). The music is mostly played at during menus and intervals between matches. I even went and downloaded some of the songs in the soundtrack. The sound effects match the sounds you would hear from a soccer match broadcast, including commentators in four languages. Thankfully vuvuzelas are not a featured sound effect. Overall, the audio quality of Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 is fantastic. Play it in surround sound if you can.

There is tons of content in Pro Evolution Soccer 2011. Aside from the available leagues and seemingly endless list of teams, there is a robust online component ready to pit your team against other player’s. There is also a robust character creation component that gives players more as much if not more options for customization than any MMO. It also has a stadium creation component but it fails in comparison to the options available in the character creation options. Most players will probably gloss over this bit. The downloads section features lots of content, mostly cosmetic add-ons like soccer balls, hair styles, heads, and other accessories but through it you can also find larger game updates. If you’re a soccer fanatic, Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 should have more than enough content to satisfy.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 is definitely a game that is constantly evolving after each iteration. There are some players who swear by EA’s FIFA offering but both games have their advantages and weaknesses. Of course, for budget conscious soccer fans and for their fanboy brethren, there can only be one. Though some will argue that Pro Evolution Soccer franchise is more like FIFA’s soccer game franchise than ever, it all really comes down to preference and possibly loyalty this time around.