PES Chronicles

The slump continues. In fact, slump is the wrong word for it. Slump implies a temporary condition from which recovery is not only possible but most likely imminent. I can’t see any end to this.

After my mini-recovery just prior to the mid-season Negotiations, I am still playing much better, but it’s not getting me anywhere. I’m back to grinding out results. The new signings aren’t doing particularly well just yet. Friedel is fine when he plays (one game in two). Ditto Weir and Folan. Duffy and Traore are adequate.

Schwarz and Shimizu are coming along in leaps and bounds, but they’re only two players – and young players at that. Like my other youngsters, they can usually only play one full game before needing a rest for a game or two. So I’m making do with the lesser players when I have to – and I often have to.

What is it about PES2008’s players that makes them such delicate little flowers? I lose players to ‘blue arrow syndrome’ for several games in a row for no apparent reason. I’m loathe to use the Regulate Condition feature to temporarily change blue arrows to green or orange. It just deepens any underlying stamina issues. I prefer to let the players recover naturally.

I think if I were to start Master League all over again I’d be better prepared for the tough first season, and thus I would pick up some results, and thus I would be able to afford better players sooner. Starting again is not on the agenda, but there was a moment during this morning’s session on PES2008 when I briefly felt like giving up on the entire game.

For what felt like the hundredth time in the match, a CPU player had barged me off the ball and run away with it. No free kick for me. For what felt like the thousandth time in my fledgling PES2008 ML career, I had conceded the softest of soft goals. For about the millionth time, I had received a yellow card for a tackle that would barely merit a stern look from a referee in real life.

These moments accumulated over the course of several matches until I was so frustrated that I switched off my PS3 (after auto-saving, of course).

I lay there for a few minutes, wondering what to do with myself. I still had a good half-hour of playtime left before I had to go to work. FIFA08? I played that for a month before PES2008 was released, and I have to say it’s a fine game. I’m not one of those PES fans for whom ‘FIFA is a joke’ is almost an article of faith. Granted, for most of its life the FIFA franchise has been a joke – in my opinion. But FIFA07 was a good game. And FIFA08 is a very good game. Lots of people disagree, some of them vehemently – and some of these people have actually played FIFA08, so I respect their opinion while not sharing it.

But I don’t want to return to FIFA. Maybe I will play a few sessions on it in the future when I’m in need of a break from PES2008 (because even I suffer from PES-fatigue occasionally – like today). That day is not today, though.

For some reason I found myself standing in front of my PS3, holding my copy of Pro Evolution Soccer 5. (I still own all of the old PES games from the original PS2 edition right through to PES6. None of them have been traded in or will ever be traded in.)

I wasn’t sure it would even work on the PS3, but it did. I played a ten-minute Exhibition match, England vs. Scotland.

PES5’s graphics look terrible now – all chalky and cartoony. The gameplay is fast - faster by several orders of magnitude than PES2008’s supposedly turbo-charged gameplay. I’d forgotten about the knock-on effect of pressing R1 as the player receives the ball. Shooting felt very ‘arcadey’ to me after playing PES2008. I launched one 40-yarder with Rooney that positively zipped through the air like a bullet. It crashed off the crossbar. It looked and felt spectacular, but is it what I want from a football game?

The game finished 0-0. I played through extra time and then penalties, winning it in sudden death. Then I switched off PES5 without another thought. Yes, a great game, but it was of its time and that time is not now.

I fired up PES2008 again and played one more match before going off to work. The experience was a lot better. PES2008 actually looks great compared to the old PS2 games. And its gameplay, while fast and frantic at times, is actually variable. It’s a slow-paced game if you want it to be. As ever with PES, you get out what you put in.