Honestly I haven’t played all that much PES in recent years so I will be looking at PES 2012 with fresh eyes. It took only a very short time to see that the character models were better than the other leading soccer title on the market which wasn’t hard.
PES 2012 offers a variety of ways to play and those familiar with the series could easily skip to the second page of this review to get to the meat of the matter.
Exhibition matches are of course a given as everyone needs a bit of practice now and again and if you haven’t got time to sit down for a full match or to put the concentration into a game that will count toward a league record, this is where you go.
League play is, of course, there as well since club football is massively popular around the world. I PES 2012 you get UEFA Champions League, the pinnacle of European football along with Europa league and Super Cup. You can even take a club team from their own league to Europa, Champions and Super Cup with consistently good seasons. Along with the Europe-wide leagues there is also Copa Libertadores Santander which is the international South American league.
Some other modes include Football Life which consists of Master League, Become a Legend and the all new Club Boss which is unlockable. Master League is more like manager mode where you can do everything from player development to transfers and other management duties to bring your team from the local league to international play in the Euro leagues above. Become a legend is all about you taking your rookie potential star and leading him through his whole career whether that is with one team for the whole or several teams based on how you perform. The New Club Boss mode, which is unlockable, you take an even higher level look at the sport from the boardroom that sees you doing things like finding a manager, lucrative sponsorship deals and generally guide the entire club in day-to-day operations.
You can of course play online with quick matches, competitions, master league online (with your personally created team), legends (where play can be 4-vs-4) and community matches include master league and inter-community matches.
PES 2012 again offers up the UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Super Cup, this year, all the way down to the official uniforms for the referees in the matches. On top of that it’s also got Copa Santander Libertadores the South American club football international.
