Latest Playtest Impressions - Part 3

Part 1 Here, Part 2 Here


Goalkeepers
Unfortunately once again the keepers in the version we played did not allow you to choose which defender to kick the ball out to from goalkicks. The default first defender is still the only recipient of a short ball out.
Apparently you should be able to use the right analogue stick which is still the manual pass stick to take goal kicks and pass the ball to any player you see fit.
Keepers were ok I didn’t see any real dodgy clangers going in or anything like that.

The one new feature which was present which I think really opens up goal keeping was the ability to press the right analogue stick in to give you total control of the keeper. What this did was allow you to rush out at players in the area and give you more say in how you defend against an attack. Its a bold innovative system which works very well.
It will of course mean you will need to learn how and when to switch to manual control in play to stop
attacks, but ultimately you are rewarded with unprecedented richness should you be brave enough to try it.
One thing I should mention is that when you activate keeper control, you remain in control until you press the
right analogue stick back in again. If you don’t press in it again all your outfield players are CPU controlled.
So that could throw some people who expect the control outfield players automatically when the keeper plays the ball to anyone.

Odds and sods
Still present in this build were the old invisible barriers that we know and love to hate.
Again we were expecting these to not be present, but again it could just have been the feature wasn’t included in our build. Because of build differences I don’t want to be critical of the game.
Now that we have access to early dev builds of the game we must be careful to ensure we only report issues which we expected to have been dealt with and not moan about things which we are being told are being addressed. It is very easy to get into a state where this privilege that has been afforded to us by Konami could inadvertantly bring about bad publicity for them through basic miscommunication.
We are very keen to avoid this situation. I am expecting us to get to play at least one more build very soon. If the features are still missing at that advanced a stage, then I think we can begin to worry. But so far Konami have been true to their word in their dealings with us, and we respect that, and won’t do anything to misrepresent any information they afford us.

The trick stick still isn’t present as I had hoped. You still have to use R2( or RT on the 360) to trigger tricks with the left analogue stick/d pad. The right analogue still is still the manual pass stick. Again there have been mixed messages about this, so again it could be a feature that didn’t make the build played, so once again I ask you to reserve judgement on this for now. I will try to get the official position on this as soon as I can. So with the current implementation of tricks, being the same as pes2009, I felt a bit more comfortable with it, but given a choice, i’d ditch it.

Stadiums
There are 22 stadiums in all. The pitches have their own grass patterns, and look very lush.
They definitely are more pleasing to play on.

Summary

I left the playtest with a quiet confidence about PES2010. We’re well onto our way to getting a serious game that has bounced back. I am holding back from declaring my undying love for it, because we’re on the home straight, but the race isn’t over yet. It would be easy for Konami to start to wave to the crowds and even perhaps sign a few autographs, and offer self-congratulatory smiles to the crowds with the finish line in sight. But the big three sites which in my opinion are us guys at PESGaming, WENB and PESFan (in no particular order) will be continuing to provide feedback and request more out of Konami until the very last minute, because there are still small details to iron out.
I’m trying to think of negatives to point out, as I did with my previous playtest, but I can honestly say that there isn’t anything that sticks out that is fundamentally wrong with the game. We need to play a build that is closer to the finished product to categorically state whether the last few features that we want to see implemented are added (such as the invisible throw-in barriers, keeper goal kicks etc, as well as online play).


Credit : www.pesgaming.com