PES Chronicles

Starting a new Master League season on the PSP reminds me of one of the reasons I dislike the game on this platform. It’s the loading times. Finishing one match and starting another takes a couple of minutes. The machine grinds away for what seems an eternity. When you’re sitting on a bus and hoping to get ten minutes’ solid play, it can be deeply frustrating. Not only the between-games loading is frustrating; the loading times in-game, when going to the menu to make a substitution, or even when the game just wants to show you a cutscene – are several seconds too long.

That aside, PES6 on the PSP is a very good, very playable game. I chose to play as WE United with the default players. After a couple of weeks spent playing FIFA (shame on me) I was nervous about leaping right in on Top Player, so I’ve hedged my bets and gone for Professional difficulty. Another factor to consider is that I’ll be playing this ML for a maximum of 3 weeks. I can’t see me wanting to play any version of PES6 once October 26th is here.

Reason #2 for disliking PES6 on PSP: the lack of editing. I am stuck with the team kits given to me on the disc. I’m hardly the most edit-happy PES player, but I at least like to change the names of all the major clubs in Master League to their original real-world versions.

My first few games went well. I ground out some tough 1-0 and 2-0 wins against an AI opponent that, after those weeks of FIFA, seems to be incredibly pacy and skilful. And lucky. For all its faults, FIFA does not seem to have the kind of scripting that has blighted PES in recent years.

What is scripting? Many people dispute that it even exists, so I will define it. When you clear the ball from a corner and it goes to a CPU player 99 times out of 100 – that’s scripting. When you tackle a player and win the ball but your player is then ‘confused’ for a second or two, enabling the tackled CPU player to retrieve the ball – that’s scripting. There are countless instances of it in every game of PES. The higher the difficulty, the more overt it gets. But that’s one of the things you have to either accept and deal with, or give up the game. I will never give up the game, so I accept and deal with it.

After the first part of the season I’m 4th in the table. I started shipping silly goals (scripted goals!) and going down 0-1 and 0-2 instead of winning by those scorelines. My team needs new players, but possibly the most noobish mistake you can make in the first season of a PES Master League is to spend all your money on new players during the first transfer window. If you do that, the words GAME and OVER will not be far away. I think I can afford maybe one new player and still stay safe.

I scored a beauty of a long-range curler in the last game before the first negotiation period. My AMF received the ball on the halfway line, ran toward the wing, cut inside, beat the defender, cut further inside, beat the next defender, and bore down on goal. About 30 yards out, the opposing CBs were converging. Without breaking stride I unleashed a high, curling, dipping shot that arced through the air and flew into the top corner of the net just under the bar and past the goalkeeper’s showbiz dive. Get in.