PES2009, wherefore art thou?
Posted by: not-Greg in FIFA09, PES2009, league table, scripting, tags: FIFA09, league table, PES2009, scriptingThe last few days has seen a lot of news emerging about FIFA09, but very little (in fact none?) about PES2009. It’s disappointing, to say the least. I’ve already seen several video clips—albeit blurry and rather ad hoc clips—of FIFA09 in action. (Here’s some links to that FIFA09 goodness. I’m sure this is only the beginning of a hype-heavy lead-in to FIFA09. I hope it will be matched by the eventual game…)
In the meantime, what do we have of PES2009? A few lacklustre screenshots, which aren’t even unambiguously screenshots of actual gameplay. I’m still convinced that the slightly underwhelming screenshot showing an apparent game in progress between Brazil and Argentina is taken from a devkit. If we can actually play with that camera angle in PES2009 I’ll be very surprised (and pleased).
Yes, PES2009 is on a longer development cycle than its EA counterpart, and always has been. We should expect FIFA to be first on the scene with information and videos in the same way that we expect their finished product to arrive in the shops a month or so before Konami’s. But things are different this year. 2008 was the year that saw PES’s undisputed claim to the title ‘Bestest Footie Game Eva!‘ seriously wounded by a shambling mess of a game. FIFA08 neatly filled the vacuum that PES2008 created; I’m still playing FIFA08 today, over 6 months after I finally abandoned PES2008. Konami needs to get in there right now and start disrupting what looks like being a long, hot summer of stealthy empire-building on EA’s part. Or not-so-stealthy, come to think of it.
We really need to see a PES2009 video within the next week or two. Alas, my head tells me that we’ll be waiting until the month of August and the Leipzig convention before that happens. By that point the downloadable FIFA09 demos should be just over the horizon. Sigh.
————-
All of which talk reminds that there’s something I’ve been meaning to say for a few days. I need to publish a disclaimer. Now that we’re well and truly in the run-up to this year’s release of PES2009 and FIFA09, I’ll frequently be mouthing off here about this or that titbit of news or screenshot or whatever. The daily chronicling of my Master League career will continue, but I’ll often lead into it with my own take on the latest news about the upcoming game(s).
As I say in the box over to the right, I do not claim to be an authority on PES or on football games or on anything at all—and I mean it. I have a lot of faults, but a fixed belief that my opinion is identical with objective truth is not one of them. I know that this is only a blog. I know that everything in it is only representative iof my own mind, thoughts, feelings, and experiences. I’m not under any kind of delusion about my posts being tablets etched in stone.
————-
Back in my Master league career, season 2019 continues apace. I started the Division 1 Cup and drew 1-1 at home with Heracles in the first leg of the first round. I always set out not to concede away goals when I’m at home, and I usually fail. I’m better at keeping clean sheets away from home, or when down to 10 men, or both.
So I was slightly concerned heading into the second leg. Veteran Master League players just know when the CPU might be out to get them. I feared the worst. But really I had nothing to worry about. The second leg was a breezy formality, as it sometimes is. I trounced Heracles at their place. 0-4 to me was the final score, making it 1-5 on aggregate.
So the Treble is still on. As are my other ambitions for this season: I want an unbeaten League season and to concede less than 20 goals.
Game 13 was against my bogey team over the last four or five seasons—Osasuna. Gulp. Words cannot describe the dread I felt about this fixture. They have found so many ways to mess up my seasons so badly that I couldn’t help but tremble, at least internally (I’m not sad enough to physically tremble about a Master League match; not yet, anyway).
Thankfully the CPU was in quite a kind mood. I beat Osasuna 2-0 after a slightly hairy first 60 minutes during which it seemed it was going to be just one of those games. I hardly got a touch of the ball for long periods. My old friend, Gottwald, without a doubt the greatest footballer the world has ever known, was on top form. He fired in shots at my goal from every angle. He out-muscled my biggest and strongest defenders. How he never had a double hat-trick by half-time I’ll never know. The sweet satisfaction of scoring two quick-fire goals partway through the second half was most welcome.
Let’s face it: PES is a computer game and if the CPU decides you’re not going to win, then you’re not going to win, and that’s all there is to it. The big question is whether or not this is all in the human player’s mind. I think not. But I think it’s slightly more subtle than a straightforward ‘win no matter what’ scenario on the CPU’s part. Frequently, based on various factors, the game decides that it’ll be so difficult for you to win that you’re only likely to do so once in several attempts. Thus, if you’re like me and you never reload under any circumstances, you only get that one chance at winning a match. If the CPU has ‘rescaled’ the difficulty against you and raises its team’s performance, you’re already in trouble. If the CPU additionally chooses to handicap your players for that match, too bad. This whole question is at the heart of the great scripting debate that has raged around PES for several years now. Too many years.
Entries (RSS)
The FIFA interview on SvenskaFans.com has some gems in it– the “team play” sliders sound like something I’ve been wanting to see much from PES — over-arcing team approach umbrella that interacts with player tendencies; I’d envisioned it as the “manager” role in PES.
What they haven’t talked about, is doing more to individualize the players, something that PES does very well. One of my gripes about FIFA 08 was that all my players “felt” the same. The game told me that Joe Bob was a 78 player and Jimmy Joe Bob was only a 64, but I couldn’t really tell the difference when playing them.
——
Why there is still a debate over scripting just blows my mind. It only points up that humanity is not really a species possessed of rationality, but a species possessed of the illusion of rationality.
I don’t want PES to give up the scripting — I want them to *cough* “Evolve” it. Make it better, more believable, more accurate with the context of the match, etc.
A great way to do this would be to include Derbys and rivalries as part of the above-board features of the game. When you create a team, you pick 2-3 rivalries, and can set some of them as Derbys.
If Osasuna were your historical enemies, it would make sense that they would elevate their game when they played you! It would be explained within the context of the game, and instead of being weird and annoying, would actually become a feature.
—–
” I’m not under any kind of delusion about my posts being tablets etched in stone.”
Are you telling me that I threw away my golden calf idol for nothing?
ck - the bloke in the second link, the FIFA Soccerblog link (David Rutter?), touches on that whole vexed question of all the players (and teams) in FIFA08 looking and feeling largely the same.
After a time on FIFA08 you can sense the difference between, say, Michael Owen and John Terry, but Michael Owen and Cristiano Ronaldo might as well be the same player.
I can’t re-watch it right now but I’m pretty sure David Rutter mentions the issue and hints at it being resolved in FIFA09.
I found his interview very distracting because when he talked about player attributes he kept stressing the wrong syllable of the word ‘attributes’, making it sound like a verb (att-RIB-utes) rather than a noun (ATT-rib-utes), and every time he did it I thought “that’s weird, why is he saying ‘attributes’ like it’s a verb in this context?” and forgot to listen to what he was saying…
I do need to get out more, yes.
I’ve run into Gottwald in my ML too, and he was good, though not as good as in your ML, it seems.
Why don’t you put a bid in for him in the next negotiations period? I’ve done plenty of that in the past, signing players who did extremely well against me, like Camacho, Ayew, Michael Johnson and a CB called Jean.
I’ll put Gottwald in my list, and see if I can get him.
Adriano - that’s something I’ve never done. I’d only buy a player with a view to playing him, and my experience with the CPU’s ’super-players’ is that they’re usually pretty average, ageing players who benefit from the God Mode dividend. I remember a seriously faded Zinedine Zidane in PES6, still playing aged 40 (!), his stats dropping to near-Youth levels, but still able to run circles around my defence.
Thinking back, I did buy Torres in PES5 after he was superb against me a couple of times, and he went on to become a monster.