January 19, 2012 Alan Curdie

Tweaky – Taka : PES2012 & Beyond

Highlighting the work of a personal editing community favourite and why Konami should make it easier for him.

If there is one thing that has remained consistent with PES in this generation even if the games themselves haven’t always delivered, it is the excellent output from a passionate editing community. Whether it is kits, teams, player appearances or stadiums, those editing obsessive’s have always delivered as authentic looking experience as possible for the wider community to reap the benefits of.

The editing community consists of more than just these wonderful artists and their wonderful creations, however. Delve deeper into the editing scene and you will find tactical maestro’s who manage to eek out (some would say ‘’fix’’) more from the game that can enhance user experience further thanks to the tactics and strategy options available which although relatively deep, could offer more.

I wish to shine the spotlight on the work of an editing community figure whose work is something of a speciality in itself and always seems to breathe new life into the gameplay experience for me just when I need it most year in, year out. His efforts are not something you see, more so feel.

Super Monkey’s Ball

Chimps – with – Quiffs has specialised in extensive stats edits on the PES series for some years on PS2 and PS3 and such is the quality of his work it can often feel like a PC-like gameplay patch in itself. The tweaks he performs are not wild increases or decreases in values of players certain stats across the board either, with the focus being on improving gameplay balance, response and overall fluidity while also looking to capture the playing styles found across the globe. Essentially, he is looking to make the game play more like a simulation and where a FIFA or NBA2K has gameplay sliders to look to achieve similar (though 2K’s efforts blow EA’s clean out of the water regards impact) Chimps treats each players stats as gameplay sliders in themselves. No mean feat which must take hours upon hours of testing to get it feeling and playing just right, which it does.

Chimps has said that his tweaks on this PES2012 have produced some of the most satisfying results in all his years doing this gameplay edit work and I would tend to agree with him.

Playing the game on -1 speed and with 0 bar passing assistance, matches play out with more of a tactical edge on Super Star difficulty, with the COM showing a great deal more patience and creativity than found with the default settings. While the game plays slower, it feels more responsive and I don’t know what magic Chimps has performed but player individuality is better overall, while being far more grounded into the bargain. Worth noting as well that the R2 dribble does not feel as sticky which is always going to make me happy and although the game may well be slower, the games better passers and dribblers still have that little more zip in their play. Finally, playing on Super Star difficulty, my opinion is that the AI doesn’t cheese it in the way it is known only to well for with ‘’vanilla’’ values. Most games I have played of late have been decided by only a single goal which keeps things very interesting.

Slider Tackling

It begs the question if PES should in fact look to implement gameplay sliders for future releases and make the work of Chimps and others who may wish to get involved in such tweakery far easier. I’ll be blunt and say that I found EA’s slider solution implemented rather cack-handedly, with it lacking the scope required to make it work, thus putting me off the idea completely. It should also be said that I have a level of mistrust of what the merits of gameplay sliders are and have been of the opinion that they are designed more as a developer work around instead of them just getting it right out of the box.

It has been only since I have started playing 2K sports’ marvellous NBA2K12 have I seen the merits of gameplay sliders. Where FIFA’s brush strokes via slider manipulation are broad, 2K have it so as players careful adjustments of a wealth of variables can result in a gameplay experience that allows for a full, real-time simulation of a game to play out to near but not quite perfection in terms of flow, incident and post-game statistics. That is mighty impressive considering it is but a mere videogame simulation of the sport in question using 6year old hardware. Players and even coaches have tendencies sliders as well, so you can essentially customise their behaviours independently of their attributes and formation/tactical/strategic assignments. Imagine something like that in PES where each team could have an AI coach that works in tandem with assigned tactics/strategy and could even change things up. Deep, and maybe contrary to my belief that a realistic real-time 90min match would not be achievable nor a desired gameplay experience, it could well prove possible if those in the community are given the tools to do the job.

To close this quick op-ed, I would encourage UK BLES code PS3 users to try out the game with Chimps tweaks. Special mention of course must go to Goalgerd and Klashman, who are behind the kits, stadiums, formations and tactics in the wonderful European Club Soccer file in which Chimps’ efforts compliment. Links Below…

Base file (required for kits, emblems, rosters) – HERE

Chimps – with – Quiffs Edit File – HERE

As always, we encourage you to get involved in the discussion in our forums or use the comments section below to share your thoughts.