This offers a deeper approach to FIFA’s simple (yet, admittedly, effective) commands of “press higher” or “offside trap”. This tactical sensitivity extends to the actual gameplay, where new tactics can be implemented on the fly. This means that a right attacking midfielder becomes a right wing in real time, with the attendant effects on players being played out of position.

FIFA tried to get on this in this year’s offering but PES simply does it better, not least because the position a player is in changes dynamically based on where he is on the pitch. The main tactics creation/tweaking screen allows for finite control of player positioning. While clearly not going into Football Manager territory, PES allows for much more robust control over the tactical aspects of the game. FIFA has long been a bit short in the tactical realism department, eschewing the ability to tinker with your tactics in any deep way for quick, arcadey instructions to get on with the game. PES doesn’t really attempt to compete with Football Manager, but it’s worth comparing the two as a means of distinguishing PES from its direct competitor, FIFA. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to do any one thing well enough to distinguish it. PES aims to occupy a middle ground between Football Manager’s dry tactical realism and FIFA’s high gloss style. Which is where Pro Evolution Soccer 2015 comes in. I am remarkably easy to enthrall when it comes to sports games: I want realistic noise and faces, the rest be damned. I play it to feel that slight rumble in my chest when the sound is cranked up and the crowd roars after a Podolski screamer in the top left of the net. FIFA, to me, is less about simulating a “real” soccer match and more about the sounds and sights.

This is where I go when I want glitz and glamour.

The one I play the most, Football Manager, aims to simulate the hardcore nuts and bolts of coaching a soccer team, a sometimes Dwarf Fortressian task that has morphed the series into a cult classic (see the recent documentary about the series for proof of this status).Īt the other end is FIFA.

Over the past few years, the majority of my videogame playing time has been taken up by soccer games.

Pes 2015 pro evolutión soccer