The One Where Pro Evo 2011 Comes Home

I loved Pro Evo 2010. I think that's well documented.

I loved it in spite of it's faults though. A few games on 2011 hammered that home.

Is love blind?



This game reeks class.

The menus are slick (can't wait to get rid of the Euro Pop and put some Biffy or Zimmer on there!).

The load times super quick.

The Pre-game menu, with choice of strip is brilliantly done.

The options well within my comfort zone.

The management screen... Wow. The right stick works as a mouse. It can move anywhere. Click on a player and you create a line. The line moves anywhere on the map/pitch. Click it, the player moves. Click on a sub, they swap. It's just brilliantly realised.

Go to the strategy screen, click on a bar, and increase/decrease any number of settings. Choose what strategy you'll have when winning/losing/drawing. I've never seen that, but it's so simple.

Gone are the days of five minutes faffing to get your team ready. I'm looking at you, JMcG.

It's so intuitive - As if Apple had designed the menus.

Then the game.

In the tunnel, out of the tunnel, warming up. It's 2010, but polished. Players have different warm ups. The crowd feel like they're there in numbers. There's an atmosphere. (And that's minus commentary).

Then, the camera moves out as you kick off, rising up until it settles. You're watching a game on TV. If the keeper gets the ball, the camera moves ever so slightly to the right. Like a real game. It's disconcerting to start with, but works. After five minutes you don't notice it.

You don't notice the power bar either, but what you do notice is the weight of the passing. The sort of total control that when you do a five pass counter attack you punch the air when it comes to an end. It is so playable.

Then you do notice the stamina bar has gone. It's under the players name now. Subtle. Slight colour change when a sub may be needed. And you'll want to sub, just to use that management screen.

Rooney played a pass to Ashley Cole on Friday, which Defoe scored from. A cheeky dink over the top of a static back four. This game makes you try passes like that. It's screaming at you that it's possible to do that.

From a corner Ibrahimovic did a bicycle kick that grazed the bar. It was instantly more spectacular than anything I managed in 2010.

A corner (much improved) was headed near post, into the side netting. Iniesta thought he'd scored, so did a section of the ground.

Another corner (handily tallied by the in game stats - just like watching a game), cleared to the edge of the area. I volleyed it goal wards ala Scholesy and the dip and bend had me thinking it was in. A new animation from the keeper tipped it over. Just brilliant.

Messi is in this demo for a reason. If you get destroyed online with him, you'll need to man up and admit your defending was poor. Yeah, he's class - the skills are on the right stick now, and he's devastating if you get a combo going (that sounds way more arcardey than it is in game). But the defending is there to stifle. Bayern, 1-0 up, just kept hoofing the ball out. Desperate defending, like the dodgy spell England had last night. But totally true of football. The Barca fans were booing their time wasting - wanting them to get on with it. When Bojan scored at the far post, I may have screamed a bit. A low, stooping header - the game reacting to where the ball was. Total control.

They nailed this.

EA have made a huge mistake not naming the demo date for Fifa. Because, put simply, I buy Fifa every year. Then, a week later, (as it falls this year, 1st and 8th), I get bored and trade it in for Pro Evo.

This year?

This year I can't see myself bothering, or needing to bother, with that week.

If Konami did their thing, there was never going to be anything EA could do.

And, after two hours, I can say that confidently. Not hopefully.

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