PES Chronicles

Back on 24th October, the first thing I did when I opened the PES2008 case was remove the manual. Underneath was a leaflet marked: WASTED POTENTIAL? At the time, I thought it was just asking for trouble…

I have now spent 24 hours with the game since Konami released the PlayStation3 patch yesterday.

The pesky framerate jitterbugs that scarred the initial release – the initial release that should never have happened, as the game was unfinished (curse you Seabass!) – have all but gone. The offline game now plays very smoothly most of the time. It’s not perfect, but it is acceptable. This was #1 on my wish-list for the PS3 patch, so I’ll take it and say thank you very much.

Some niggles remain. Most matches still feature the traditional ‘PES prickle’ of slowdown at isolated moments. But this has been present in every version I can remember, especially PES4. What slowdown remains in PES2008 is nowhere near as bad as that.

The Bernebeu and one or two other stadia are still occasionally problematic. I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable playing on pitches with concentric circles. The time has come to edit all of those pitches out of my Master League.

So the 99% resolution of the offline slowdown is very welcome. But this has come at a price.

Those clever programmers at Konami seem to have given themselves a leg-up by reducing the game’s graphical quality. Textures are rougher, and the grass on the pitches is less detailed – it looks duller and glassier than ever. Perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t think so.

Nothing has been announced by Konami. There is no official word on what the patch has and has not changed. The download was a whopping 130MB – almost a fifth of an average full game – so there’s been some pretty substantial changes. We just don’t know what, exactly. So many people have reported a drop in graphical quality that I think it’s safe to say it’s not just my paranoid and bruised PES-related imagination at work.

Konami has taken with one hand whilst giving with the other. They really did rob Peter to pay Paul.

PES2008’s graphics were already relatively poor when compared to other games on the PS3 – games like Call of Duty 4, Oblivion, FIFA08, and even launch titles like Motorstorm.

Call of Duty 4 features chaotic screens full of true whizz-bang, next-gen action that never lets up, and nary a frame is dropped. It’s a hell of an achievement. Likewise Oblivion and Motorstorm. FIFA08 suffers from odd glitches, but these are so rare that they’re a non-issue for me. Graphically, EA’s football game is a true next-gen experience.

I am not a graphics junky. I have never loved PES for its showstopping graphics – it’s never really had them. Gameplay supersedes graphics when the game’s as good as PES always has been. But I do expect that the graphics should be at least decent. Otherwise, why bother with a next-gen console? Let me rephrase that: why bother with the PlayStation3?

Pre-patch, PES2008’s graphics on the PS3 were decidedly PS2.5. This patch has further degraded them. We’re now looking at PS2.25-style graphics.

It’s not good enough at all.

After I had played several games offline I visited the online section of the Main Menu for the first time. I am not much of an online gamer – PES has always been a solo experience for me – but from time to time I do mingle with those exotic creatures known as ‘people’ on the internet. I was curious.

I’ll get straight to it: the quality of online gameplay on the PS3 is absolutely shocking and unforgivable. Players who instantly teleport from one side of the pitch to the other aren’t even the worst of it. Quite often the ball itself will magically disappear and reappear in ways most strange and unnatural. The action can jump from one moment to several moments later without any warning. During one match I was attacking down the right wing, when there was a momentary flicker on the screen and suddenly my goalkeeper was diving to save the ball down at the other end.

I played around 8 full games. All but one was horrendously unplayable. The one good game was ‘only’ marred by occasional player teleports, which I strangely learned to cope with. I happened to win that game 5-0.

I played as England against Spain. Andrew Johnson was rampant. I was gratified to discover that my offline style of play translated very well into an online match. My opponent didn’t get a single shot on goal. (Possibly he was suffering worse lag than me, but who knows.) I’m only slightly embarrassed to report that I fully exploited my strategy buttons‘ alt formations. My players were always in his way. I ran riot in front of goal.

I could get to like this, I thought. But if the online code is irrevocably broken, and no one knows how to fix it, I won’t be playing online again.

The online session ended as it had mostly gone on – farcically. Playing as Spurs against Arsenal, the game seemed to be doomed from the start, with player teleports galore. Every few seconds the camera would zoom to another area of the pitch, leaving the ball behind. Then I kept seeing the ‘Waiting for another player’ message for several seconds every time the ball was ‘out of play’ (even when the ball was in play, it was effectively out of play, but never mind). After the game had stuck on this message for more than five minutes, I quit in something like disgust and went for my dinner.

Later, I double-checked that my internet connection was still working fine with other PS3 titles in my collection. Warhawk, Motorstorm, FIFA08, and Call of Duty 4 were all working online as they always have done – perfectly. I loaded up PES2008 and went online to see how things were now (this was after midnight) – and it was still a dog’s dinner. If anything, things seemed a little worse than earlier. Sheesh.

But I’m an offline, average, Master League player, so I’m all right, yes? Well, no.

I care about the franchise. I don’t want to see it trashed and trailed through the mud like a common whore. I’m also very keen not to be swindled out of my money by a product that promised next-gen graphics, online play, and a lasting PES experience, and delivered relatively little. I also care how my fellow PES gamers are feeling about the game. We’re a tight community, and my brothers in PES ain’t happy…

What must a very common type of PES player – the type who loves Editing, and loves nothing more than to play online – think of PES2008?

For the first time, I can really understand the anger that is out there amongst the wider PES community. I’m angry too, but I’m less angry now that the offline framerate has been sorted. If I had bought PES2008 primarily to play it online, I’d have been spitting nails during the month since release. After seeing the online game in action, post-patch, I’d be speechless with outright disbelief right now.

At this point, I’m going to execute a rhetorical handbrake turn and re-emphasise what I have stated many time before, here and elsewhere: that I like PES2008. Yes, I like PES2008. I like PES2008 because I’m a Master League player through and through, and I can overlook the game’s graphical shortcomings because I find the gameplay to be satisfying – for now.

Along with everybody else I hate the goalkeepers. I hate the fast pace of the game sometimes (let’s have a FIFA08-style pace for PES2009, eh lads?). I am concerned that I’m suddenly the world’s greatest dribbler after seven years of not being able to dribble at all, but – I like it. It’s still PES, warts and all.

However, for the first time in my entire PES life, I doubt that I’ll still be playing this game regularly in six months’ time. I might not even be playing it regularly in a month’s time. FIFA08 is burning a hole in my shelf right now. So much about this PES year is unprecedented. Perhaps FIFA08’s serious challenge is the most unprecedented thing of all.

PES2008 on the PlayStation3 is nowhere near being the next-gen game that it should have been. It’s not even halfway there. An offline mode that only just passes muster (after a 130MB patch) simply isn’t enough nowadays. It fails on too many fronts for even a dedicated fanboy like myself to continue making excuses. Wasted potential? I’ll say.

For the first time in five seasons, I completed the four-week mid-season negotiation period without signing any new players. That’s how it has to be sometimes.

It wasn’t for the want of trying. I need new players. My squad is a little top-heavy. I have a good First XI, with several established stars and stars-in-the-making (such as Marcos, pictured left). There are some good players in the rest of the squad; a few of them are great players, who I leave out of the First XI for other reasons.

Shaw, with his dodgy Stamina and Body Balance, is a case in point. He’s come on a lot in the past season, as I’ve spent two pre-seasons training him on nothing but Stamina and Body Balance. He’s only a season or so away from being an automatic first choice again.

But looking at players such as Boyd, Folan, Frutos (all three are big, lumbering kinds of strikers, long past their best); Weir and Cafu (Cafu in particular has been somewhat disappointing; he has a shallow development curve that doesn’t peak for about eight more years yet); and even my old warhorse Donadel (despite his excellence in my Division 2 struggles) – all of these have to go, I think, and be replaced by players who can perform reliably week in, week out, if I’m to have the kind of squad that can challenge for trophies in Division 1.

So I’m not buying new players any more just for the sake of buying them. That’s a routine you get into when you start out with the Default players in Master League. They’re so rubbish that you become focused on getting any new players – doesn’t matter who, just anyone – to replace them. Anyone else is better than the Defaults. It takes a few seasons to shake the feeling during Negotiation periods that you must, must, MUST buy new players no matter what.

Armed with my new Team Ranking – ‘C’ – I hoped to at least get past first base in my usual attempt to buy Mathieu. (If and when I finally do get Mathieu, I will speak at length about why this player is so important – even talismanic - to me in PES.) His club has so far blocked all efforts to negotiate directly with the player. This time, however… This time, permission was granted. I was talking to Mathieu!

I slapped in a hefty bid straightaway. I looked down my list of players and decided that Mathieu’s club should find Frutos+7000 points completely irresistible. Mathieu himself should be unable to resist a three-year contract worth 1300 salary points.

I always bring the length of the contract down when I think a player might be difficult to sign for the full five years. After a shorter contract, the player gets a chance to negotiate with you for a higher salary a lot sooner.

Some tipsters in the wider PES community recommend offering key players one-year contracts at ridiculously high wages. They report success using this method, but how crippled is their wages budget afterward? If they’ve offered Thierry Henry, say, a one-year deal at 3000 salary points, after the year is up he’s never going to agree to take anything less than 3000. You’d have to offer 3100 or more to keep him. Then you’re stuck with that ridiculous figure (the salary, not Henry…) for good. Unless you ship him off. In which case, why the fuss to get him in the first place?

So as much as I value Mathieu (and any other great players I’ll be going for in the future) I’m not going to threaten the stability of my entire Master League career by offering them silly wages. No player is worth sending your budget all out of whack for. It’s Master League, not Mathieu League.

I went to the next week, all excited. I hadn’t even looked at any other players. I thought: this is it! I’ve got Mathieu. Bwahaha, as they say.

I was disappointed to see a notification message saying ‘Negotiations broken down’ instead of the hoped-for ‘SUCCESS’. However I was cheered to see an encouraging message in the main menu window. It looked as if I was on the right road, in the ball-park, and so on. I just had to make the right bid, evidently.

I went back into negotiations, and this time offered the club Braafheid+7000 points, and Mathieu himself a two-year deal worth 1350 points. It was a wrench to contemplate getting rid of Braafheid – he’s been a great SB for me so far. But I figured that the prospect of getting a really good, rising star might tip Mathieu’s club’s hand. I thought the two-year deal on offer to Mathieu would clinch it.

Again to the next week, and again no joy. There were two weeks left. I started to think I’d better look at a few other players. It might not be the time for Mathieu after all. My Team Ranking was probably the culprit. Mathieu just didn’t want to come to me right now. His current club was ranked ‘B’. Mathieu himself was an ‘A’-ranked player.

I made bids for Mathieu, and again for Micah Richards. Just the two of them. (I checked my List again and tried to negotiate for Maldini (a 20-year-old youth at this stage of my ML), who is at Manchester United and not really playing for them. Man Utd refused to negotiate.)

Went to the next week, and the Mathieu and Richards deals had both broken down. I concluded that it was the players themselves who didn’t want to come to me right now. I got the message. I gave up for now. I didn’t want any other players. I wanted to hold onto the excess points and try for Mathieu and Richards again in the off-season. I went past the final negotiation week and into Week 19 of the season without placing any new bids.

Despite knowing that I don’t have to buy new players in every single negotiation period, I did feel that I’d wasted this one. I could and probably should have looked for another top-drawer striker. A superb CB would also have come in handy. The dead wood in my squad is still there, gathering dust. They only play when there is absolutely no one else available, which isn’t very often.

I also feel that I have a few too many players in the squad. 32 players is the maximum size allowed, and having 32 players limits my opportunities to get new players from the Youth and Unbelonging lists. At the end of the season I’ll be looking to get the squad down from 32 players to about 26 players. Make room for the next generation.

For now, it’s back to the ups and downs of my season. I took a look at the Calendar before Week 19, and was shocked to see two games per week for the next several weeks. Of course, when I won the Division 1 Cup last season, I automatically qualified for the PES equivalent of the UEFA Cup – the European Masters Cup. Caught up in a tense relegation battle at the time, I hadn’t realised.

So. Two games per week forever, eh? No problem…