PES Chronicles

Today I spent another few hours on the Xbox360 demo of PES2008. All the reports that are starting to appear on PESfan and elsewhere from people who already have the full game are making me grumpy, so another stint of quality time with the demo is more than called for.

I doubt that I’ll be going back to play PES6 again now. There just isn’t any point. So it’s officially farewell from me to a great game. Granted, PES6 was nowhere near as good as its immediate predecessor, the legendary PES5; nor did it quite match up in my affections to either PES2 or PES3. But it was better than PES4 and the original PES1. (In my opinion, of course.)

Damning PES6 with faint praise? Perhaps. The scripting (or, if you prefer, the ‘AI advantage’) was the most extreme we have ever seen in a PES game, in my opinion. While it didn’t exactly spoil the game, it didn’t enhance it either.

My hopes for PES2008 are sky-high. Playing the demo has really helped to set my mind at ease. I did worry that we were going to get a version of PES6 with next-gen graphics. Some would argue that that is what we’ve got anyway, but I see things differently. The players move differently. The ball behaves differently. You can’t first-time 40-yard shots into the net – or, if you can, it’s not immediately obvious how to do it.

The whole game just feels different from any of its predecessors. Reaching back in my memory for a PES with a similar ‘feel’, only PES3 springs to mind.

During my fresh stint with the PES2008 demo today, I managed to allay another one of my worries. I was very concerned that I wouldn’t be able to score long-range goals with such gay abandon anymore (see my PES5 videos – links on the right – for examples of this).

Recent iterations of PES have featured a long-range shooting mechanic that is one of the most deeply satisfying gameplay components of any game I have ever played. Let me just mention here a certain Mr Mathieu bursting past the halfway line and unleashing one of his left-footed rockets. I love long-range shooting and I have scored most of my memorable goals in that fashion. (Ive said it before and I will say it again: I am emphatically not a dribbler.)

So during my first stint with the PES2008 demo on the Xbox 360 last week I was a bit worried by the fact that every goal I scored – even the hatfuls of goals I scored with the difficulty set to Amateur or Beginner – were all scuffed kinds of shots from close or medium range. Despite making scores of attempts to bag myself a PES5/PES6-style 40-yarder into the postage stamp corner of the goal, none of them went in. Most of them barely even left the ground.

But everything is okay. I needn’t have worried. Playing as Portugal against Brazil on Professional difficulty, things were winding down at the end of yet another 0-0 draw. Then I broke up a Brazilian attack and emerged with Simao. I raced him past the halfway line and turned slightly in toward goal. Two Brazilian defenders moved towards me. I was about 40 yards out…

To hell with it, I thought, and pressed down hard on the shoot button. I flicked the analogue stick slightly toward the top right. Simaos right boot swung at the ball, and it flew through the air, travelling, travelling… and beat the keeper’s graceful dive, billowing the net in style.

The best goal I’ve scored on PES2008 so far (albeit in the demo), and a great fillip in advance of PES2008′s D-Day, later this week.

Speaking of which… Monday’s update will be at around 6pm. I’ll be spending the afternoon in town, looking for PES2008.