Honestly, boss, it’s not what you think
I’ve nearly reached the end of season 2012 in my umpteenth Master League career of the PES season. Actually, it’s my third career on all versions of PES2008, but it feels like my umpteenth because I usually only have one solitary career on the game all year long. Seriously—I’ve got as far as season 2045 or thereabouts in the past.
This year has been different because I started out on the next-gen version, found it incredibly easy after a few seasons, restarted with another team to see if I could extend the game’s lifespan with a few custom ‘House Rules’, and then finally quit in complete disgust when not even that could save the game for me…
But I won’t retread old ground now. Ahem.
Nowadays I’m playing on the PSP/PS2 version, the so-called ‘last-gen’ version, and I’m absolutely loving it. Like its many PS2 forebears it simply plays a consistently challenging and thrilling game of football.
I’ve played so many games on it so quickly that I think I’ll have to stop taking my PSP out with me. I can easily get through 10 games on a slow shift at work and it’s affecting other areas of my life, notably my interactions with my colleagues. Strangely, they seem to expect me to do more than occasionally grunt at them whilst staring down at my lap and fiddling with something there… Weirdoes.
This is my first season in Divsion 1. By now I have played everyone else at least once, and in most cases twice. The big boys haven’t really impressed me so far. I found Real Madrid to be a bit jammy and Barcelona were suspiciously lightweight (I suspect the dread hand of scripting in everything).
I’m sitting in 9th place in the table with six games left in the season. I’m eight points off that 6th spot. I’m currently playing pretty well—nothing spectacular, just scrappy 2-1 wins and grinding 1-1 draws and the like.
If I keep my concentration and discipline—and if the Konami scripting fairy doesn’t throw me any curveballs—I’ve got an outside chance of finishing in the top 6, i.e. in the WEFA Qualifying places. Then I’d have a chance of going for the Treble next season. That’s a hell of a lot of ifs, buts and maybes. But we’ll see.