10 Improvements that should be made in PES 2015

PES 2015 has received unanimously good reviews. Whilst there is no doubt Pro Evolution Soccer has improved, especially in comparison to the train wreck that was PES 2014. Konami have somehow managed to give a tough competition to its rival EA.But yet there are some major concerns about the game, which we need Konami to improve in their upcoming patches or at least in the next edition. Here’s a list of the top 10 major improvements that should be made the game.

#1 Licensing

As you all know it, Licensing has been the main drawback of this Konami game. One thing that Konami need to do (as difficult or as expensive as it is) is to get more real kits and players into the game. Honestly speaking the lack of official license is irritating and Konami can’t do about it much.

The range of licenses offered by PES is notoriously worse: only leagues from Argentina, Spain, France and the Netherlands are fully licensed, while leagues from Brazil, the United Kingdom, Italy and Portugal have only partial licenses. Having the rights to the Champions League, Europa League, European Super Cup and the Copa Libertadores is where FIFA have easily won over the audience.

#2 Master League

Arguably the most iconic mode in PES, but the thoughts are mixed, mainly because the gameplay from game to game is great. You get that feeling you’re going through a long season, with each match offering up some different. That’s in terms of style and challenge, especially if you’re playing on superstar.

It’s a shame then that what surround the gameplay in Master League isn’t that great. There’s no real substance to the management part of the mode, and some of it just doesn’t make sense. Then there’s the logic around transfers and there’s no proper way to keep track of your messages either, they’re just part of some random menu that you come across after forwarding time.

That leads me nicely on to my next point, you can’t stop the time forwarding process once you choose to proceed, meaning you could lose 10 days of a calendar without doing anything at all. The calendar will only stop at the next designated event or match, it’s so frustrating as you could lose days in the transfer window at the start of the season.

#3 Online Lag

The early online PES matches were an absolute mess and in all honesty, the game still isn’t much better. This is 2015 and no matter what service you play the game on, whether Xbox or Playstation, the internet service is charged for. Lag shouldn’t be accepted or even seen (unless on rare unavoidable situations) and PES is jam-packed full of lag, disconnections and random bugs that force you to quit and lose points.

For an immersive online experience, that simply cannot continue. Konami should roll out some patches to overcome this unpleasent experience.

#4 Expand My Club

PES’ much-touted myClub feels like a direct challenge to EA Sports. It’s an online-focused mode that invites you to build a squad from a team which has little hope to genuine contenders, and if it takes plenty of cues from Ultimate Team, it makes for a solid, familiar structure.

There’s a fine art to assembling a squad with a positive team spirit: you’ll need to recruit both the right manager and the sort of players who are a good tactical fit for their chosen style of play. Only then will you see the pitch’s heat map redden, denoting a stronger chemistry; but it’s a lot clumsier way of doing things than its rival, which makes everything more transparent.

A good tweaking to this mode can surely make it compititive for the FIFA UT.

#5 The Bias System

The Bias System, claimed to have been removed by Konami every year, is not accepted by the actual fans of the game. It feels scripted, as if no matter how good the player is or how good the team the player controls is, the opposition WILL score. Passes no longer reach the right people; the opposition are first to the second ball and everything drops too easily to them.

Other aspects to be improved are feeling that our opponent improves their level of play exaggerated in the final minutes of the match,

#6 Flashy Presentation

The presentation of some instances seem to be vey flashy. To specify, a goal flies into the back of the net, a wonder strike from the players centre midfielder who they brought through the youth system and built their team around. It’s so good that it will be regarded as brilliant as the Beckham half way line goal.

Even the celebration of a player after scoring looks more running around with their arms in the air and mouths open wide. It is this kind of flashy presentation and feel for the euphoria of the sport that Konami seem to completely miss. Seeing PES and its group of players walk up to a cardboard cut-out stadium fans with a single flare going off is not a celebration. The game needs to be more epic.

#7 Restricted Movement

There are occasions in PES 2015 where we know that our defense should arrive before the ball but magically allows the attacker to steal it without any effort. This is due to the restricted movements. For instance: Imagine the scenario: a looping long ball has gone over the top of the defensive line and Andy Carrol has blasted through the defence (it is a game remember).

Two centre backs watch as the ball floats over. Holding R1 to increase the speed of the defenders should allow the player to get alongside Carrol, physically intimidate him, barge him – anything really to upset his flow.

However, what actually happens is that the centre back runs slower than ever before, as if suddenly a wall of treacle is now covering him from head to toe. Carrol, seemingly unopposed by this wall of treacle, controls the ball and slots it home. Inevitably, you’re in danger of destroying your controller at this point.

#8 Sloppy Menus

Konami being one the major players in the video game market are yet to get correct their sloppy menus. The menus have been a disappointment because in an attempt to simulate the competition have remained in the mediocre and far from the utility that provides in this regard its most direct competition.

But this year the menus have a slight improvement, the main menu acts as a kind of pin system where you can pin the most recent or most used option on the front screen allowing instant access, similar to FIFA. But if you delve into the menu’s more and it is once again the same blocky, standard appearance that has adorned the previous ten PES games.

#9 Editing Suite

The editing suite was the most powerful tool available to any PES fan in the PS3. Real name's of the teams are also not used. Teams walked out draped in sponsorship that fans are used to seeing week in and week out and despite the argument that purists play the game for how it handles, it has always disgruntled every PES fan to see that no difference has been made in the licensing area.

So the newest addition to the PES family has had its editing suite entirely ripped apart. Sony and Microsoft’s next gen consoles PS4/Xbox One are also to blame coz they are still stopping users from uploading their own photos, therefore disallowing the creation of kits to lay over the top of the fake ones in the PES games.

So something like the pixel editor like in the old fashioned PS2 games could be introduced where peple could create logos themselves and then share them across a central HUB. Players could download the newest kits and due to it not being done by Konami, forgo the copyright and licensing laws.

#10 Defenders AI

First, “Artificial Intelligence” The defenders has been one of the most controversial aspects of the last soccer game of the Japanese company. Since its inception, the saga known in Japan as Winning Eleven has maintained the balance between realism and fun for the player, but this year the defenses of the teams arrive with very little training. They fail marking on the inputs and are often left watching the ball unowned when they could do more.

Early crosses can fly in to a centre forward who is completely unmarked for easy headers. The centre backs fail to close down any high ball. And most annoyingly, if a ball is played into the box they will often wait to launch the ball instead of heading the ball, allowing any swift striker or midfielder to simply nod the ball in. This is fine every once in a while as it adds to the elements of mistakes, but when it starts happening every ten minutes or so – on the hardest difficulty – it starts to really grate.