Played 29, Scored 100
Posted by: Greg Downs in Guimaraes, goal replay, league table, team popularity, tags: goal replay, Guimaraes, league tableIt finally happened. A bit sooner than I thought it would, but it happened.
100 league goals. After just 29 games of a 38-game season.
I don’t really feel any sense of achievement. In every PES since PES came into being, 100 goals in a Master League season was almost the stuff of fantasy - for me it was, anyway. I’ll say it again: I’m just an average player. I’m not a PES wunderkind.
I remember getting close to 100 goals in PES6. I was on 92 goals or thereabouts towards the end of one particularly successful ML season. I psyched myself up to get to the magic 100 mark in the last three or four matches - only for two of them to be 0-0 draws, and the other two to be 0-1 defeats. On 92 goals I stayed. But that was PES6.
There was no danger of missing out on 100 goals this season in PES2008. In fact it might even be harder not to score 100 goals, once you get bedded down in a Master League with a squad of good players.
The only thing left to aim for now on the goalscoring front is to get a final goal difference of +100 or more. Now that would be even more ridiculous. The frightening thing is, I’ll almost certainly do it.
At least I had a couple of thrilling matches in among all the goalfests. One match in particular stood out. It was against Portsmouth, away. They’ve been regular whipping boys for a few seasons now. I went into the game anticipating a straightforward 0-5 victory, or better.
It did not go according to plan.
Portsmouth got the early goal to go 1-0 up. Then I had Marchisio sent off. Then Portsmouth went 2-0 up.
I was distraught. Despite being ‘only’ 5 points ahead of Man Utd in the table, I’ve played PES for long enough to know what can happen in a League when results start getting a bit ’screwy’.
Muntari got me one back in the 80th minute. I was 2-1 down, with ten minutes left. I would settle for a point from this game. Could I do it?
Of course I could. I got the equaliser with Shimizu in the 85th minute. Then I got two more with Shimizu in the 89th and 90th minutes. I’d come from 2-0 down with ten men to win 2-4. It felt good, but…
Once the dust had settled, I felt less good about it. There was no way I should have been able to come back like that, even with the players in my squad.
Next I beat Helsingborgs 6-2. Two of my goals came from Guimaraes, my skilful Brazilian right-back. Both were fine finishes after mazy runs through the entire Helsingborgs team. Here’s the better of the two:
(At the point where the clip starts, Guimaraes had already gone past two Helsingborgs players by the halfway line.)
I’m never surprised to score goals like this in PES2008. I’ve said a lot about the difficulty level of this game. I’ve criticised it, carped about it, mumbled and grumbled about it. I won’t say any more now.
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I’ve found out what comes after Team Popularity ‘A’ rank. I’ve gone up another level, to ‘S’.
That progress bar is still filling up after every game. Is there another level after this one? I wonder if I’ll have time to find out before this season and this Master League career both come to an end.
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S is the top level. Can’t go anywhere from that but down.
What about that goal, huh? What difficulty is that, Regular?
Nope, it’s Top Player. Unbelievable, I know, but the game really does play like that at Top Player on the next-gen consoles. You can run the length of the pitch with almost any player if you want to. Have a look through the PESfan forums if you’re still sceptical.
i play mine on 5 mins so there isnt enough time to win 6-0!
5 minute matches are good for pre-season friendlies, but they do end too quickly for me to get any kind of pattern going. They’re counter-immersive! With 10-minute matches most have a story, with players who stand out, and mistakes, and ebbs and flows to the action. Give ‘em a try! If you never have any time to play then 5 minute matches are better than nothing but 10 mins is the golden mean, I think (15 minute matches are too long for me).
Congratulations for the 100 goals! My personal best is 103 in pes6…
I think I will try to play a little pes2008 in christmas holidays and see if it is worthy, because all I have read so far isn’t very promising…
..and all of this could be solved with a patch I think
the Konami should simply introduce a new difficulty level, or two if needed, with the patch - that’s the easy way
)in PES2008 I had a single 1 week injury in 4 seasons, this means I can play at full strenght every match..
however I’m having my own “conspiracy theory” on the sources of all evil:
1. I think that the main purpose for this game is online play.. they assumed that the main gaming mode will be online, even more. they may want you to go online for the new challenges, because online game will never bore you, every opponent will be different, there will always be someone with higher rating, you will engage in a league, the community… etc, etc…
2. when I played PES5 and had a leauge season (not ML, just a standard one) I had continous problems with injuries, condition (and I was furious about that
3. and this leads us to another problem.. transfers: even if I don’t play with full strenght I do play… with full strenght anyway, it’s far to easy to collect a team where every 6 out of your 6 strikers would fit into the first 11 of any top team
…and playing every game with a bunch of 11, fully fit, superb condition, superstars how am I supposed to lose it? considering every single match as a separate, the gameplay itself is not as guilty as it may look like
PES5 gameplay was harder, but maybe it’s us.. simply.. playing, using the same buttons, practicing tactics for years, knowing (from the sites like this one) at least 4 first 11 of the best players to buy we are simply better players every year, and if the game doesn’t get harder we find it easier?
in general I don’t find the game bad, but yes it would be nice to get a higher difficulty challenge, maybe it is somewhere there waiting for unlocking.. and some more “off-the-pitch” factors in ML
PS
I am not a really good player, I know one, I can tell the difference
Hector - PES2008 on the PS3 & Xbox360 is a completely different game from the PS2 version. I hear the PS2 version is just a barely updated PES6. So there are drawbacks to the game on all fronts. If you scored 103 goals in a season on PES6, you’d probably get 200 on PES2008.
Adam - I don;t think Konami will be issuing any gameplay patches, but I’d love to see one. If they did do one, I’d like to see them fixing the atrocious goalkeepers. Making them at least as good as the PES6 keepers would effectively halve the number of goals scored (for me, anyway).
I think you’re right about PES2008 feeling like a game that has been optimised for online play. How bitterly disappointing, then, that the online game is effectively unplayable on the PS3, and unpredictable on the 360.