Blackburn 1, Elcherino 5
When Elcherino plays, I score a shedload of goals and I win. It’s as simple as that. Sure, I might concede a few goals. I still haven’t got enough good players all over the park to shut out the CPU.
When Elcherino doesn’t play, I still win – most of the time. My other new players are pretty good in their own right. Altintop and Caracciolo have scored a couple between them. Jackson got a header from a corner.
I haven’t lost a game since the mid-season negotiations. I’ve lifted myself up to 12th in the league – mainly on the back of getting just one player.
Espanyol, one of Division 2’s strongest teams, fell victim to the Elch. He ran riot for me, scoring another hat trick in a 4-0 demolition.
Due to fitness, the man of the moment was missing from a game against Celtic where I struggled to get the ball for long, long periods. I drew that one 0-0 – one of the very few 0-0 draws I’ve ever had in PES2008.
Elcherino was back on the pitch and still on form in a 3-0 win against Genoa – this time he ‘only’ got himself a brace.
To round off this set of matches, Elcherino returned fully-fit to the starting line-up against Blackburn. Here’s the score, and the scorer:
Blackburn 1-5 Singers FC (Elcherino 5)
Below is a single short video showing three of Elcherino’s goals from these matches. The last goal is a nice straightforward wonder-strike. The first two are bog-standard dribble-and-shoot goals. I barely even watch the replays any more. I have to re-emphasise that I really am playing this game on the hardest difficulty settings. Behold this tangle of thorns:
That’s 14 goals in four games from Elcherino. After scoring five against Blackburn, he was rated 9.5 in the post-match screen; again, no other member of the team rated anywhere close to him.
The standard Elcherino goal: get the ball anywhere on the pitch, then run at the opposition, dribble insanely in any and every direction, twist out of dead-ends, double back, loop the loop – and score.
The sad thing about PES2008 (next-gen) is that these goals are not peculiar to the Elcherino-style superstar players. They can be scored with too many players too often for comfort.
I’m not really enjoying the game at the moment.
I could introduce a very strict House Rule. I could allow myself no players of above-average ability.
It would mean having no good players at all. None. And I ask myself: what’s the point of Master League without the various thrills of struggling to improve, and nurturing young players, and then guiding them through their years of superstardom? Why should I have to play in shackles just to accommodate this game’s deficiencies?
I could abandon PES2008 altogether. I should abandon it. I’ve only hung on this far due to stubborn sentimentality. Behind the gorgeous next-gen facade, the game’s a broken, arcadey mess.
It hurts but it’s true.
i havent played pro 2008 in a while :/
i have pro5 for the pc which i had never installed because i always played on my friends playstation. Pro5 on the playstation seems to be better, as i finally installed pro5 on my pc and nothing is as i remember.
i couldnt dribble without losing the ball (i used to always dribble!), i couldnt get a long through ball through (i used to ALWAYS get through balls through!), and whenever i tapped the shoot button, it was pretty much a full powered shot… could the pc and playstation games really be that different?
ill have to wait a while till i have a playstation around me to test pro5/6/2008 against their pc counterparts.
PES 5 here you come.
I think this game is through. No one could accuse you of not giving it a chance. It’s like this isn’t just the second date — you’ve had a round dozen dates and she still smells like fish and garbage.
David – I’m the opposite: I *never* used to dribble. And I mean never. I was always a pass and move player. I found it impossible to dribble in previous games – I’d always lose the ball. I think I scored maybe one or two goals after a dribble in all those years of PES gaming.
PES2008 on the PC is the same as the next-gen versions, so don’t waste your money. (Confusing, I know, as FIFA08’s PC version is a last-gen effort.)
ck – you’re not wide of the mark…. The peculiar thing about PES2008 is that if I hadn’t played a PES game before I’d probably think it was great and there was nothing at all wrong with the effortless dribbling and the 6-2 scorelines. The chatter has it that the game was rushed without enough playtesting. But could it have been a deliberate design choice after all? Hmmm…. Possibly.
To be fair if you wanted house rules, if you wanted it to be realistic when an offer comes in at the end of the season for Elcherino it would have to be accepted.
Good players getting poched by the bigger teams happens in real life, I guess you’ll have to accept any offer that comes in for your star players.
Paul – the idea for my House Rules would be that it’d make the game a bit more like Master Leagues of old. It’s looking impossible now, as any reasonably good player can dribble themselves a goal to order. I even had Altintop at it this morning, and he’s still very young.
So either I play PES2008 ML without any good players, or I don’t play PES2008. Maybe. There’s still a quarter of the season left. I’ll see how it goes. This might just be a blip.
elcherino is one of the best in the game. he’ll demolish any team (considering how shite the keepers are), i’d get rid of him to keep the game interesting.
altintop is a great player too, but takes a while to get there.
i cant wait for 2009, 2008 isnt that great.
In the last season of my last ML I was doing the same ‘dribble thing’ with Shaw, Shimizu, Guimaraes, Bradley, and Kaiser. This is all pretty new to me – I never dribbled before and now I can’t stop doing it. For various reasons, I doubt I’ll want to play a game where I have to limit the kinds of players I can get to make it challenging. I might as well just play another PES that is still challenging without such stringent House Rules.
Or even FIFA08!
Who would have thought we’d ever see the day….
I actually played most of my PES6 year under the ‘no superstar players’ rule. I actuallly restricted myself to players who peaked under 90. So I suppose I should have given PES up last year.
Mirandinha – I suppose it comes down to what individual PES fans want from the game. For me I love the thrill of either getting star players or growing immature players into star players, and then playing with them until the end of their careers. I’m only an average player so it’s always worked for me/ That’s been the engine that’s driven my ML-devotion year after year.
The problem I face with PES2008 is that its low difficulty completely wrecks my usual routine. I’m faced with either having to bring in a ‘no superstars’ rule (which is against almost everything that I loved most about ML), or stop playing PES2008. Talk about a rock and a hard place….
I agree with the large majority of comments in the above, or below, wherever this is going to be put.. Pes 08 has been waaay to easy.
I started off in Pes 5 when i was young, and didn’t have much of an idea what i was doing, which was heaps fun and i loved that.
Pes 6 came out and i started a Master League with the default players, got out of the 2nd div in the 1st season, and in the 2nd season one the treble, on top player, so then i brought in the no superstar rule. Or actually my rule was no fake players, only real ones that i liked/ had heard of, no elcherinos or c. ronaldos (coz ones fake and one i don’t like)
Pes 08 came out, on top player, with hard master league difficulty it took me 2 seasons to be promoted, i still played with the no fake player rule, but now im still playing that master league, probably 5 or 6 seasons, im the best club in the world, undefeated for match upon match, so then i made it 10 minute games, and played defensive, trying simply to win, without conceding, which has improved the game drastically.
Pes 09 had better be sooo much better or else i dont know what ill do, but i know it wont be converting to fifa *shudder*
Take my advice, play 10 minute matches on a defensive stance, trying simply to win without conceding, and no fake players. its improved it, but not enuff to please me, but meh
Alpin – it sounds as if you’re a very good PES player. Winning the PES6 Treble in two seasons on Top Player is *seriously* good. I’m an average kind of player and I find PES2008 to be ridiculously easy without handicapping myself, as I’m trying to do right now.
If PES2009 isn’t a return to greatness for the series I don;t know what I’ll do. As it is I’m hanging on for dear life, but next-gen FIFA08 (honestly) has shown me just what PES2008 could and should have been like. (If you haven’t played next-gen FIFA08, it’s a completely different game from previous efforts. All they have in common is the FIFA part of their names.)
“Or actually my rule was no fake players, only real ones that i liked/ had heard of, no elcherinos or c. ronaldos (coz ones fake and one i don’t like)”
Elcherino is a ‘reborn’ Eusebio, by no means a fake player. He is pretty much without arguement one of the best players in the game to date.
He scored 727 goals in 715 games when he played between 1960 and 1978, which is an absolutely outstanding record.
u are soooooo bad at this game greg
i play on top player, win every game,
and in 3 seasons rooney has scored over 200 goals, the closest is totti on 90!!
i won the champions league final 8-1 against barcelona-on top player
Hi captain – this was actually all a long time ago for me. I eventually gave up PES2008 becuase I started getting the kinds of results that you’re currently getting. I now think PES2008 on the PS3 was one of the worst football games ever created. If you check out a few other posts you’ll see I, too, was winning every game on Top Player. That was the problem. This is just not PES, IMO.
I mainly play the PSP and PS2 version of PES2008 nowadays, and a bit of FIFA08 as well. I cannot wait for PES2009 to come out – it’s got to be better than last year’s effort. All we can do is wait, and hope. I have faith.