Komol: a very good player Comments Off
There are plenty of differences between the PS3 version of PES2008 and the PSP/PS2 version of PES2008 that I’ve been playing for the past couple of weeks. They are, after all, completely different games, so this is not surprising.
There is one difference that is just as remarkable as all of the others, and arguably more so. I’m talking about the unusual way that the CPU teams conduct themselves during negotiation periods. I don’t recall anything like it in any previous PES.
I have found that the CPU frequently offers trade-in deals—their own players plus cash—for my players, including the worst of the worst on offer, i.e. my Default players.
A couple of seasons ago I was offered a player called Komol plus about 600 points in exchange for somebody like Ximelez. I know, this Komol character would have to be—how you say?— absolute pants, wouldn’t he? Surely?
Well, no, actually. At the time, I checked out Komol’s stats. He was young, only 18 or 19, but his stats were pretty decent. They compared well to the starting stats for players like Camacho and Yamada at the same age. I accepted the offer, and got rid of Ximelez for this Komol person (and the 600 points, of course).
No, I don’t know what the CPU was playing at either. It did all seem to good to be true at the time. In many ways, taking advantage of this kind of offer from the CPU seems like a bit of an exploit, but I’m currently playing so badly and doing so poorly (I’m in my 4th season in the bottom division) that I need every ounce of help I can get.
Komol has been good. Not brilliant. Not fantastic. Not yet good enough consistently enough to get a regular starting place. But good enough to start getting these kinds of goals lately:
(I don’t know what was going on with the weird blue-screen effect on the main angle in those replays.)
He’s 20 years old at the moment in season 2010. His development curve indicates he’ll peak during his mid-twenties, somewhere in the high 80s overall. (I think I’ll push him further than that. To play with, he certainly feels like a player who’ll peak in the mid-90s. We’ll have to see.)
The CPU gifted me a top player for nothing. That’s what it comes down to. If it hadn’t, I might never have found Komol. I never, ever look at those lists of great young players that people put together every year. Perhaps the PES powers-that-be grew tired of people constantly going on about the Schwarzes and Yamadas of their world? Perhaps this is their way of politely drawing other exceptional talents to our attention—or at least to the attention of lazy people like me. Who knows?