Brand New Games on a Decade-Old Console: Have We Lived Through Peak Gaming?

The recent European release (25th October 2012) of Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 (‘PES 2013’) on Sony’s PlayStation 2 (‘PS2′) – an ostensibly unremarkable event – made us think about the grand scheme of video games. For a long time, it seemed natural that in such an apparently technology-defined domain, more processing power and greater amounts of RAM would lead to a sort of gamers’ Nirvana as ever-more realistic graphics and sound delivered increasingly immersive ‘second lives’.

Yet the publication of a brand new title such as PES 2013 on a console such as the PS2 should, within this context, raise plenty of eyebrows: the PS2’s ascension to being an integral part of our contemporary cultural lexicon has obscured the fact that this machine had a release date of 4th March 2000. How is it that an entertainment device with a pre-9/11 release date is still able to capture the imagination of the global gaming community, despite the existence of a perfectly competent (and technically markedly superior) successor?

After pondering this question for some time, we propose the following reasons for this paradox:

1. Hardware Overkill. Contemporary consoles such as the PlayStation 3 (‘PS3’) are actually too sophisticated for the majority of software houses to cope with: faced with comparatively limitless processing capacity, games developers have reacted by attempting to stretch the graphical limits of seventh generation consoles – and have lost sight of other core attributes, such as gameplay.

2. Too Much Information. The technological capabilities of seventh generation consoles may engender a natural bias towards games that are simply too complex to satisfy the average gamer. Titles requiring years of concentrated investment to complete may explain the trend towards simple games with clear premises, a trajectory typified by Rovio Entertainment’s hog elimination-themed Angry Birds.

3. PS2 = Exemplar. Sony’s second games console may have represented a ‘sweet spot’ of electronics architecture, the perfect balance between representational excellence and stimulation of the human imagination. As sobering a thought as it is to contemplate, we may already have lived through the era of peak gaming.

Sony’s PS Vita: The Last Great Japanese Electronic Device?

Tomorrow sees the European release of one of the most magical devices ever conceived: the Sony PlayStation Vita (‘PS Vita’), the successor to an item – the PlayStation Portable (‘PSP’) – which was in itself something that an historical eye-blink ago would have been perceived as something out of science fiction. And we are not applying the epithet ‘magical’ liberally: while the PSP essentially comprises a handheld PlayStation 2, MP3 player, cinema system and (in the right, slightly offbeat hands) a hardware set capable of running sophisticated office applications, the PS Vita is a portable Playstation 3 vaunting a qHD screen, a sensational rear touchpad, augmented reality capabilities and (optional) 3G connectivity. In summa: there might be nothing that this machine can’t do.

Yet we at Mediolana are, to utilise what seems to be a vaguely fashionable Americanism, conflicted, our excitement about the PS Vita overshadowed by the realisation that it represents something intensely sobering: if not the last great Japanese electronics device, then perhaps the last great pre-Fukushima manifestation of Tokyo-based ingenuity.

As regular readers of this blog will know from our 18th December 2011 post FC Barcelona in Post-Fukushima Tokyo: The Fallout Begins, we at Mediolana share the concerns of many, both in the international community and within Japan, that the response of the Japanese government to the catastrophe of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster has been largely inadequate, and that the problems surrounding the multiple meltdowns are far worse than most in officialdom can bear to countenance.

However, a recent article from the Japan Times has forced us to reevaluate our perspective. On 20th February 2012, it was reported that the Deutsche Schule Tokyo Yokohama, a 1904 establishment that serves as an educational hub for German speakers resident in Japan’s largest conurbation, has been forced to seek financial aid from Berlin because, in the wake of the nuclear crisis, enrolments at the institution have collapsed. Many of those whose families left the school did so on advice from the Deutsche Botschaft Tokyo: Germany’s Japanese embassy.

In the content of Sony’s monumental US$2bn losses for Q4 2011 – a shortfall that was mirrored by other Japanese companies, such as Sharp – the recognition by many Germans who remained in Japan after 3rd March 2011 that the attractions of the world’s third largest economy are fading fast post-Fukushima is an ominous sign for the medium-term future of what was for decades Asia’s paradigm nation. It is now even more imperative for the Japanese administration to act – with transparency and fortitude – to decontaminate Japan and guide it through to a post-nuclear future. Otherwise, the price that will be paid is clear: the history books will record 2011 as the year in which modern Japan – which is generally agreed to have its genesis in the 1868 Meiji Restoration – ceased to exist.

The Equation for PES 2013: PES 3 + PES 6 + 360° Movement and Manual Passing = Footballing Nirvana

As regular readers of this blog will no doubt be aware, we at Mediolana have something of an obsession with Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer (‘PES’) series, a selection of video games that has never failed to beguile us since the autumn of 2003, when a chance encounter in what was the old Virgin Megastore on the corner of London’s Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road led to a purchase of a title that even now evokes passion and devotion: PES 3. And by what appears to be a startlingly general (if hardly scientifically validated) consensus, PES has never really recovered from its transition to the seventh-generation consoles exemplified by Sony’s Playstation 3: graphical embellishments and a slowly-expanding empire of licences have been prioritised over core gameplay.

However, with this year’s iteration of PES – the by now predictably named PES 2012 – Konami, one of many software houses now surreally based in radioactive Tokyo – have seemingly gone out of their way to listen to fans’ feedback on their creation, releasing not one but three gameplay patches (1.01, 1.02 and 1.03) to modify various aspects of the game. Bizarrely, the official descriptions of the patches only seem to vaguely correlate with what players are experiencing; the latest patch, released on 15th December 2011, promises little more than improvements to shooting and some peripheral amendments, whereas in fact it is obvious to any seasoned PESer that the ball physics have totally transmogrified, resulting in an entirely different game.

After some quality time spent with PES 2012 with both Konami’s official Patch 1.03 and PESedit.com‘s magnificent Patch 2.5, Mediolana’s blogger-in-chief is fairly certain that in terms of ball behaviour, the present version of PES is as satisfying as any he’s played in a long while. However, there remains one overwhelmingly obvious problem: the computer AI, which in the days of PES 3 and its sixth-generation console successors yielded a fabulously realistic and intelligent opponent, is all-too-primitive in its approach to the game. Playing as SG Dynamo Dresden, a mid-table side from Germany’s Bundesliga 2, against a computer-controlled Manchester United at Old Trafford, one would expect to be up against a team who would dominate possession, yet the CPU insisted on bombing long balls to, from or in the vicinity of the always centrally-placed Wayne Rooney; United edged the match 1-0 while mustering a mere 39% of the ball. A similar story was seen in a 3-6 reverse for human-manoeuvred Beşiktaş against all-conquering Barcelona: the Catalans, who in real life pass the ball between themselves more than anyone sane can really stand, were reduced to a team which knew nothing apart from efficient, goal-engendering dribbling, mostly by Lionel Messi.

As well as being scared of the ball, the CPU AI in PES 2012 has one other crucial flaw: it does not know the meaning of the violent foul or rash challenge. Yellow and red cards – a staple of contemporary football – occur with startling rarity, with entire games passing without so much as ticking-off from the referee for a tetchy tackle. Again, this is a world away from PES 3, 4, 5 or 6, which prided themselves on being the closest representation of real football in an electronic simulation.

So the message from Mediolana is simple: the Pro Evolution Soccer series must – simply must – go back to its roots as a simulation if it is to capture the hearts, minds and ultimately wallets of the gaming, football-adoring public. If this means dusting off the old PES 6 code, adding 360° movement and manual passing and implementing some presentational tweaks, then so be it. Shingo “Seabass” Takatsuka – a hero in our circles – has already promised a radically different PES 2013; the hopes of the global gaming public are resting on the execution of his undeniably noble intentions.