PES Chronicles

My God, it’s so close now you can almost taste it. PES2008 I mean…

It’s enough to make me almost wet myself with excitement to think that I will be playing PES2008 next Friday – and that’s in a worst-case scenario. In practice, it’s much more likely that I will get the game earlier in the week. I have a preorder all set to go, and can confidently expect it to arrive on the Thursday (I’ve paid the extra fiver to guarantee it).

But my spider-sense tells me that the High Street stores will break the release date this year again. For some reason I think that I’ll be getting the game on Tuesday or Wednesday. Maybe even – in my wildest imagination – on Monday.

It’s going to be interesting finding out who will blink first out of all the HIgh Street chains and independent game stores – if any of them do.There’s always the possibility that none of them will cave in. I’m certainly going to be out and about in town on Monday afternoon, searching. I’ll be making special posts all next week on The Quest for PES2008.

Right, to business. I sailed through the remaining knockout games of my PES6 International Cup tournament, and played France in the final. (Don’t be suspicious about the apparent sudden ease with which I got all the way to the final. Normal service has been resumed for me on PES6. I was only out of practice because of my recent dalliances with FIFA08 and the PSP version of PES6.)

I went 0-1 down to a good Henry goal that he scored on a quick breakaway – one of those where I advanced my keeper and he humiliated both my keeper and me by simultaneously taking it around me and chipping it…

I was back on even terms just after half time: a corner taken by Beckham (back in the team only because I forgot to drop him before the match started) floated over toward the penalty spot, where Owen got a good meaty forehead on the ball and sent it into the back of the net.

Events moved to extra time, and looked to be heading for penalties. You never seem to get enough time to actually do anything in extra time on PES. Not unless you change your match lengths to more than 10 minutes. And I ain’t doing that. Scientific studies have proven that the optimum length of a PES match is 10 minutes. Not 5 minutes. Certainly not 15 minutes. It’s 10 minutes, as ordained by God himself, so I believe.

Then I was suddenly clean through on the right with Joe Cole. I darted toward goal, shot – and it was suddenly 2-1 to me. The game ended, and I watched the celebrations and the ceremony more out of a sense of obligation than any real desire to watch them. These portions of PES games have been so much generic pap for five years now.

PES2! Now there’s a game that knew how to reward a cup winner. We Are The Champions. ‘Nuff said.