PES 2014 will mark the "most comprehensive advance" for the series "since its inception"

Pro-Evolution Soccer is a game about kicking a ball around, as this completely pointless E3 trailer confirms. The only thing I took away from it is that sometimes football stars wear garish shoes while absurdly bombastic music plays - but thankfully the accompanying press release had a little more information on hand. PES 2014 features an "all-new engine allowing for the most comprehensive advance for the Pro Evolution Soccer series since its inception," apparently. Konami then bamboozle us with acronyms.

Well, acro nym . M.A.S.S. stands for Motion Animation Stability System, or in layman's terms "?????" Konami went on to elaborate. "Rather than a series of preset animations that occur under specific circumstances, M.A.S.S. reacts instantly to any situation, with the reaction of a fouled player entirely dependent on the direction and force with which they are tackled."

So it's a new, apparently more accurate/fair animation system. I think. But wait: there's also something called Trueball Tech. "Trueball Tech allows the player to trap or knock on a pass using the analogue stick with detailed bar-centric physics determining the weight shift of the player and the height and speed of the pass, as to how the player's body will automatically shape to receive it." Clear as crystal.

What did we think of PES 2013, you ask? We thought "65%" .

For the latest from E3, check out our complete coverage .

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.

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