Melengue must go
One of my players may have to go. When the mid-season negotiations come along, I may have to exchange him for another player, or even release him.
I’m talking about my talented left-sided AMF, Melengue. (Actually he’s right-footed, but can play on either side.) Of late I have started to go on wonder dribbles with him. What is a wonder dribble? This is a wonder dribble:
That’s a goal I scored with my right-back, Guimaraes, in my last Master League career.
People who have not played PES2008 on the PS3 (or on the Xbox360 or PC) have a hard time believing that goals like the above were scored on Top Player difficulty. They look like goals scored on Beginner difficulty in old-gen PES.
But no: they’re scored on Top Player, and they’re easy to do in every game, against any opposition, with almost any player if you’re determined enough. This is precisely why so many of us are down on next-gen PES2008. You have to see it and experience it for yourself to (dis)believe it. (How could they ever have thought it would pass muster? Curse you, Seabass.)
By my own House Rules I am not allowed to have any players who are—or who might become—routine wonder dribblers in the Guimaraes/Elcherino mode. Most players can do the wonder dribble, but with a certain type of player (far too many) it’s effortless to do the wonder dribble.
And Melengue looks as if he’s turning into a wonder dribbler.
He scored my winner in a 0-1 victory at Liverpool. It was a bit of a wonder dribble, beating two men on the wing, cutting inside and beating two more, and slotting the ball home with insulting ease. In any PES before PES2008, scoring a goal like that would have had me off my seat and running around the room, screaming like a lunatic. Really. But in next-gen PES2008, such goals are as common as muck. I barely twitched an eyelid and I didn’t even watch the replay.
Melengue was unfit for the next game against top-of-the-table Man Utd. This one ended 2-2, a result I was happy with after going behind twice. I had Matuzalem sent off late on. That was my first red card this season.
Melengue was back against Newcastle, and again scored the winner in a 1-0 victory—and again it was a wonder dribble.
People can say: don’t use the wonder dribble. But with the player on the park and the ball at his feet, where is the line to be drawn? Are one-twos to be banned as well, because of the ease with which they can scythe open a CPU defence at certain times?
For me, the only way to deny myself the use of the wonder dribble is not to play with those players who can do it easily. This is an alarming number of players—who has ever heard of Melengue?!
I’ll be keeping a careful eye on him. If he keeps it up, I’ll bench him and then get rid of him in the mid-season negotiations.
Mate stop playing the game like that and your problem is solved. Don’t do it, your the one with the controller in your hands not the player.
Gignac is a player I got on a free in my first season in Division 2. In PES 2008 for the 360 he would be a wonder dribbler (thank god I play the ps2 version) AND he has amazing balance (almost Adriano like) He does not have any special ability stars though which is a shame- and it does effect him. He is not my main “20 goal a season” player- thats Yamada, but Gignac does seem to stand up for the big games..
And it showed against Manchester United! Conway had a terrible game, out muscled and out fought by Ferdinand and Co. It stayed 0-0 with me hitting the bar and producing wonder saves from the keeper, and I began to have THAT uncomfortable feeling. I take off Conway and put the out of sorts- mentally scarred Gignac on. But sure enough United get a corner in the 85th minute.. after the auto-goal I throw everyone forward, leaving even Yamada on whos down to the red in stamina. We throw everything we have at them and we do a 1999- yes thats right we score twice in injury time to screw them over, just like they did against Bayern Munich. Kader Keita gets the equalizer, and of course Gignac the winner.
On a side note- thats why I stopped playing the 360 version, especially online. I was using Real Madrid all the time and tearing down the wings with Robinho and Robben for the easy cutback. Sure I could have stopped playing that way, but then I would just get beaten. The majority of the online community were better than me at the game. It’s not as simple as just not playing that way- you shouldn’t be allowed too.
I am also playing PES 6 on the psp at work etc I can only play league mode though. The Master League is terrible. Leaving aside the fact that there is NO player development I can’t seem to pick the teams I want in the 3 Divisions- it’s always randomized! No matter how many times I do it, big teams like Arsenal and Chelsea are left out. I just don’t want to spend time on a league without half of the big names in world football. If there is any way round this I’d love to know. (There is no way to buy this option in the PES shop)
I’ll just have to continue the International League, which is proving very difficult even with Spain. Into season 3 and I haven’t come close to winning the league yet..
Sorry for the triple post. Apparently Melengue is Juan Carlos Menseguez and he plays for San Lorenzo.
Paul – I’m aware of your stance on the wonder dribble, but like I said in the post, where do you draw the line? With one-twos I can often slice through CPU defences with insulting ease—are one-twos banned as well?! If a few too many long shots start going in, are long shots banned?
The issue here is that it is the game at fault, not the human player. If the game is too easy, it’s the game’s fault. If a certain element of the game is ridiculously, insultingly easy, it’s the game’s fault. Having to resort to self-handicapping with House Rules is the biggest sign that PES2008 (next-gen) is a sorry excuse for a PES game.
Not Given – ‘Hmmm’ at the injury-time goals. Scripting in PES2008 often seems to go for me as well as against me. I hate both kinds!
I’m on a downer with PES2008 at the moment (can you tell?!). Having got into Division 1 of a Superleague and started playing it wth a relatively mediocre team of 20 players+5 Defaults, I was expecting it to be extremely tough. It’s not. As ever I’m a few days ahead of the blog, and sitting in first place (only on GD). PES2008 on the PS3 is not going to last me all year. Roll on the PSP version….
oh dont get Gignac, hes really really good and he breaks your house rules.
Hes like the new best player in the game
Well I draw the line at wonder dribbles, if I catch myself doing it I’ll just pass the ball instead. I know its quite easy to just say its part of the game (a flaw maybe) but its just like not doing cut-backs. They aren’t essential, I just look at it (for me this is) that its cheating and thus get little enjoyment out of it.
bostongoals – ok, duly noted about Gignac, but when I get the PSP version I won’t be needing any House Rules (hopefully), so I’ll have a look in there…
Paul – I’ve got some time off work coming up and will be able to put together a special post about this aspect of PES, of next-gen PES2008, and the honour code that so many PES players operate under in the game. I’ll probably have it ready for next weekend. For now though I’ll just say that the problem we both have with wonder dribbling is that it’s an easy scoring method. I don’t think these methods belong in the game at all and it should be up to the game to make me play football. I’m having a bad few days with PES2008 where I’m wondering why I’ve suddenly got layers of complex House Rules, where in previous years I never needed them.