Wake up, everyone! With PES 2013, Konami has finally pulled off the excellent game it's been threatening to release for the last couple of years. On the scale of dramatic football comebacks it's not quite up there with That Night in Barcelona (© Clive Tyldesley) or The Miracle of Istanbul, but it surely comes close.
The first thing you notice is what you don't notice. Players are much less likely to ignore the ball as it glides past them within easy reach than they were in PES 2011 and 2012, and somebody's finally introduced the ball to Sir Isaac Newton, so it no longer behaves as though it's weaving through a cluster of dancing singularities, subject to random stabs of acceleration. At a basic level, it's as though all the dangling threads of unfinished programming have been knitted together into something approximating the actual sport.
This year's instalment gives you a much more responsive, consistent and productive range of basic controls, too. Passes along the ground are fast and accurate, there are driven and floated aerial passes, and a good first touch is down to a timely stab of the right trigger, injecting a bit of skill into receiving the ball.
You can do much more with the ball, too, and Konami has slowed the game down to emphasise this. You can put your foot on it and perform quick and easy little rollovers to keep control in tight spaces, you can flick it up and distribute it or knock it over a defender's head if he's right behind you, and you can experiment with fully manual passes and shots. A new controlled shot and driven 'Knuckle' shot gives you more attacking options as well.
Minimum System RequirementsWindows XP SP3, Vista SP2, 7.
Intel Pentium IV 2.4GHz or equivalent processor.
1GB RAM.
8GB free hard disk space.
4x DVD-ROM Drive.
DirectX 9.0c compatible video card.
128MB Pixel Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA GeForce 6200 / ATI Radeon X1300 / Intel HD Graphics 2000/3000). DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card.
DirectX 9.0c or higher (included on Disc). Multiplayer: TCP/IP 192 kbps or higher.
Windows compatible keyboard.
800 x 600 monitor resolution.
Recommended System RequirementsWindows XP SP3, Vista SP2, 7.
Intel Core2 Duo 2.0GHz or equivalent processor.
2GB RAM. 8GB free hard disk space. 8x DVD-ROM Drive.
DirectX 9.0c compatible video card. 512MB Pixel Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 or AMD/ATI Radeon HD2400 or better).
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card.
DirectX 9.0c or higher (included on Disc).
Multiplayer: TCP/IP Broadband Internet connection.
Windows compatible USB Gamepad. 1280 x 720 monitor resolution.
*Link update 29 september 2013
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