''Pro Evolution Soccer 2012'' (''PES 2012'', known as ''World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2012'' in Asia) is a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...

which is the eleventh edition in the ''

Pro Evolution Soccer ''eFootball'', formerly known as ''Pro Evolution Soccer'' (''PES'') internationally and in Japan and North America, is a series of association football simulation video games developed and published by Konami since 1995. The series consists ...

'' series developed and published by

Konami , is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. Konami has ca ...

with production assistance from the Blue Sky Team.

Lionel Messi Lionel Andrés Messi (; born 24 June 1987), also known as Leo Messi, is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Paris Saint-Germain and captains the Argentina national team. Widely regarded as one of the g ...

, who was the cover star for the series since ''

PES 2009 ''Pro Evolution Soccer 2009'' (''PES 2009'', known as ''World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2009'' in Korea and Japan) is a football video game in the ''Pro Evolution Soccer'' series, which was made by Konami. It is also the exclusive licensed game of t ...

'', was replaced by '' PES 2008'' cover star

Cristiano Ronaldo Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (; born 5 February 1985) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward and captains the Portugal national team. He is currently a free agent. Widely regarded as one of the greatest p ...

, while

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional footb ...

player

Shinji Kagawa Shinji Kagawa ( ja, 香川真司 ''Kagawa Shinji'' ; born 17 March 1989) is a Japanese professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Belgian First Division A club Sint-Truiden and the Japan national team. He is widely regarded as one o ...

replaces Messi as the cover star for the Japanese release. The US and Latin American cover features Santos player

Neymar Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior (born 5 February 1992), known as Neymar, is a Brazilian professional association football, footballer who plays as a Forward (association football), forward for Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain F.C., Paris Sain ...

and Cristiano Ronaldo. Like previous versions of the game, it was licensed by

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

to contain the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

and

UEFA Super Cup The UEFA Super Cup is an annual super cup football match organised by UEFA and contested by the winners of the two main European club competitions; the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The competition's official name was originall ...

competitions along with a license from

CONMEBOL The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL, , or CSF; es, Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol; pt, Confederação Sul-Americana de Futebol) is the continental governing body of football in South America (apart from Guyana, Suri ...

to feature the

Copa Santander Libertadores The CONMEBOL Libertadores, also known as the Copa Libertadores de América ( pt, Copa Libertadores da América), is an annual international club football competition organized by CONMEBOL since 1960. It is the highest level of competition in Sou ...

. Referees' governing UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Super Cup matches will wear the official

uniforms, which is a first for the series.

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (; English: Premier League, also written as Liga Portugal 1), also known as Liga Portugal Bwin for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga Portugal, ...

were included for the first time in series with three licensed teams. On July 28, 2011, Konami confirmed that ''PES 2012'' was going to be released for

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...

and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

on October 14, 2011 in Europe and October 6, 2011 in Japan. At

Gamescom Gamescom (stylized as gamescom) is a trade fair for video games held annually at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Since 2018, it has been organised by ''game – Verband der deutschen Games-Branche'' (English: Associa ...

2011 it was announced that the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

and

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...

versions would follow on October 28, 2011 and the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

on November 4, 2011. The publisher has also confirmed that versions for

Nintendo 3DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generatio ...

and

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

formats are also in development, with firm dates to follow. ''PES 2012'' was succeeded by ''

Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 ''Pro Evolution Soccer 2013'' (''PES 2013'', known as ''World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2013'' in Japan and South Korea) is an association football video game, developed and published by Konami. The game was announced by Konami on April 18, 2012. For ...

''. Online services for the game were shut down on January 28, 2013 due to focusing to newer ''PES'' games.

Gameplay

''PES 2012s gameplay is primarily a refinement of ''PES 2011'', with many improvements and changes in areas such as

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

, speed, animation, and physics. Among the new features is the Teammate Control system, where a secondary player may be controlled, either during play, or at a set piece or throw-in. This allows players to be placed precisely, make runs, and shake off markers before calling for the ball. Manual and assisted versions of the feature are available for varying degrees of difficulty and control. Refereeing has been improved and includes a full implementation of the advantage rule, with the referee pulling back play for bookings after the ball goes out of play. The "catch-up bug", where defenders would catch dribbling attackers too easily, regardless of the attacker's pace, will be addressed. Gameplay is more fluid, with better response when controlling the ball, and goalkeepers have been improved with new animations and generally more reliable goalkeeping performances. Artificial intelligence has been improved over previous ''PES'' games, for example AI players will play more thoughtfully when defending rather than simply applying pressure, and AI teammates will make more intelligent movement decisions.

Content

Thanks to an exclusive deal with

and

, the

and the

are fully licensed. The tournaments are integrated into the new mode, Football Life, which features a Master League mode and a Become a Legend mode, and for the first time, a Club Boss mode. The Football Life mode also includes a Master League Online mode, however, fan favourite 2V2 Ranked Matches have been removed from the Xbox 360 version due to "internal decisions". Like previous versions, there is also a separate two leagues with 18 empty teams (PES League and D2 League), each of which can be edited fully. All the teams are entirely fictional. The UEFA Europa League, the UEFA Super Cup and the PES and D2 Leagues are features not included in the PSP version of the game.

Stadiums

''PES 2012'' contains 30 stadiums, 17 licensed, 12 unlicensed, and 1 that is entirely fictional. There is also a Stadium Editor which allows stadiums to be created and added to the selection.

Reception

The game was met with positive to mixed reception.

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

and

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

gave it a score of 79.75% and 79 out of 100 for the Wii version; 79.70% and 80 out of 100 for the PlayStation 3 version; 78.04% and 78 out of 100 for the Xbox 360 version; 77% and 77 out of 100 for the PC version; 75 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version; 74 out of 100 for the PSP version; 74.60% and 73 out of 100 for the 3DS version; and 65% and 61 out of 100 for the iOS version.

Digital Spy Digital Spy (DS) is a British-based entertainment, television and film website and brand and is the largest digital property at Hearst UK. Since its launch in 1999, Digital Spy has focused on entertainment news related to television programmes, ...

gave the PS3 version a score of four stars out of five, saying that, "For all of its drawbacks, when the whistle blows and the game kicks off, ''PES 2012'' offers a satisfying, unpredictable and utterly enjoyable game of virtual football." ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' gave the X360 version three-and-a-half stars out of five and stated, "The improvements in AI and excellent online modes are a solid basis to continue re-building ''PES'' to its former glory, but the weird physics and newfound lack of weight are a concern. It still feels like ''PES'' just isn't 100% sure where it should be going." ''The Digital Fix'' also gave the same version seven out of ten. 411Mania gave said version 6.5 out of 10 and called it "a fun game that keeps pace with its competitors. Generally the game is good, but many of its flaws really hurt the game. I felt that many of the issues could have been fixed and would have made this a much better game. Maybe next year this game will finally be the top game in the genre of Soccer games." ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave the same version three stars out of five and said, "The frantic and occasional flawed action on the pitch harks back to older ''PES'' games. ''Fifa 12'' 'sic''is the more complete football experience but ''PES 2012'' can still deliver in short hectic doses."

References

External links

*
Winning Eleven 2012
{{Authority control PlayStation 2 games PlayStation 3 games PlayStation Portable games Windows games Windows Phone games Video games set in 2012 Xbox 360 games IOS games Android (operating system) games

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

Wii games Nintendo 3DS games Nintendo Network games 2011 video games J.League licensed video games La Liga licensed video games Video games developed in Japan Sports video games with career mode