PES Chronicles

In this sickeningly disappointing year for PES gamers, I am flailing around in search of a football game to play for the rest of it. I’ve narrowed things down to three potential choices: PES6, PES2008, and FIFA08. Today it was the turn of PES6 to be given the once-over.

I have already flirted with going back to PES5 (my most-favourite PES). But after all this time, I found it wanting. The gameplay was too fast for me. FIFA08 can probably be blamed for that. And I found myself repelled by, of all things, the graphics.

What do graphics mean, really? When I say graphics I mean good graphics. Great graphics. The summit of what modern technology can achieve.

I never thought that graphics meant anything to me. But I’ve discovered over the past few weeks that they do mean something to me.

I don’t like to think of myself in that way. I don’t like to think of myself as the kind of gamer for whom graphics mean something. (Thus I will probably contrive to continue to believe that they don’t mean anything to me.)

But they do mean something.

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I enjoyed my session on PES6 this morning. It wasn’t as big a shock to the system as PES5 was. As I have mentioned previously, I am playing a sneaky Master League career on the PSP version of PES6. It’s just something I dabble with on bus jorneys and lunch breaks, occasionally.

The crucial thing here is that I didn’t need to relearn the game’s quirks during today’s several games on the PS3. I already knew them.The pace is almost as fast as PES5, but not quite as fast. And the graphics are better. You still know you’re playing a PS2 game, though, and that is a problem.

I never thought I was a graphics snob until I got a PS3. In five years’ time, when the next next generation of consoles comes along, I’ll probably still think that graphics don’t matter. But they do.

I loved Lords of Midnight on the ZX Spectrum back in the day – 1985 was it? So long ago. As a strategy game fan I would acknowledge it to be one of the genre’s greatest. But a few months ago I played an emulated PC version and… it is bad now. Lords of Midnight is bad now. After so many years – after all the Civilization games, the Total War games, the Command and Conquer games, and so, so many more – it looks and plays like a musueum piece. It is a museum piece.

Match Day 2 is another ZX Spectrum game from more than two decades ago. I don’t specifically remember much about this game, but I remember playing it to death. As with all football games of its era, there was a virtually guaranteed scoring method. The graphics were cutting edge for the time (honestly).

Graphics dictate much more than how aesthetically pleasing a game is. They dictate what games can do in terms of animations, and this in turn dictates the depth of the gameplay. Next-gen PES2008 would seem to be a case against the point I have just made (when playing with good players, it is as about as deep as a puddle). But the immersion factor should not be overlooked or downplayed.

On my HDTV, with my next-gen PS3 console, I’m used to playing games that look stupendously great. Games that shine out of my screen with a preternatural, shimmering grace unmatched by any kinds of graphics from the past. Call of Duty 4, anyone? Oblivion?

I played three games of PES6 on my PS3. I swear I wasn’t biased against it beforehand. If this game grabs me again, I thought, I really will toss PES2008 out of the window. I have no difficulty adapting my expectations to play it on my PSP. Why should things be any different here on my PS3?

But they are different. The gameplay seems shallow without the shining-bright next-gen graphics. I’ve behaviourally conditioned myself over the past few months to expect more when I have a joypad in hand whilst in front of a HDTV.

So my football game this year won’t be PES6. PES6 is another game that I have to consign to its place – the past. If there was nothing else available, I’d play PES6 and be happy to do so.

One thing that PES6 does have going in its favour is online play. The servers are still open and busy. Not surprising, that, with PES2008 continuing to be a disgrace online.

I’ve also been playing next-gen FIFA08 today. The Quadruple is still on. I’ve already won the League Cup. I’m in the semi-final of the European Cup. I scraped into the FA Cup Final on penalties. I’m top of the Premier League on goal difference with three games to go. If/when I win the Quadruple in FIFA08, will my interest in the game diminish?

Tomorrow sees the return of PES2008 on my PS3. I’m actually looking forward to it. For all of its impressive realism and formidably difficult shooting system, FIFA08 can be a bit tiresome some of the time.

It still angers me that none of this would be necessary if Seabass & co. hadn’t dropped the ball and pushed out a sub-standard arcade game ‘for the kids’ this year.