The shape of things to come
Posted by: not-Greg in Barcelona, European Cup (ECC), tags: Barcelona, European Cup (ECC), Galatasaray, RooneyI had a good start to European competition in the group phase. I beat AC Milan 2-1 in a very testing game that had looked as though it was heading for 0-0 until the last 15 minutes.
Game 2 of the group was against one of my old PES adversaries, Galatasaray. They’ve tripped me up in so many ways in so many guises over the past three or four PESes that I always head out onto the pitch against them with some trepidation.
And this game justified my fears. They scored with their first attack of the game, in something like the 3rd minute. That’s how it stayed thereafter—the game ended 0-1 to them. I spent the entire match after they scored mounting the most insanely attacking spell of continuous pressure that I think I’ve ever mounted in PES2008 so far. But it just wasn’t to be. All my shots went wide or over, or the keeper saved them, or a defender got that annoying last-gasp blocking leg in the way… It’s a familiar story.
Back in the league I took on Barcelona for the first time this season and beat them 5-1. I was disappointed to concede that one goal—Rooney got it for them near the end. It was certainly 1 goal more than they deserved. It was a comprehensive rout and I could have had 10 goals.
Rooney is still running around up front for Barca at the age of 92, or whatever he is now. It all makes me feel impatient for the day when he finally retires and reappears as a 17-year-old Regen. I’ll sign him immediately when that happens, along with a few others—Torres and Gerrard to name just two.
In my mind’s eye I can see these glorious Regenned superstars, all in their early- to mid-twenties, playing in my team circa 2030 or so. It will happen.
I should just have time to get to season 2030 in this career before FIFA09 and PES2009 come along. At the moment I’m getting through a season roughly every week or ten days. I’ll be playing this ML career until at least the release of the full FIFA09, which will probably be in late September now. Assuming I maintain the same speed, and assuming that FIFA09 comes out on September 19 (for example), I could feasibly make it to 2030 just as the shrink-wrapping slides off my fresh-smelling new copy of FIFA09.
If FIFA09 is any good (and something tells me that it will be), it’ll be my sole game until the release of PES2009. If PES2009 is any good (and something tells me that it, ah, might be), I will continue playing both games for the whole 2008/9 season—although if FIFA09 is very, very good, I might play it as much as (or more) than PES2009, and the blog’s formula might have to change to reflect that.
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Greg
Having read the hands-on FIFA 09 articles circulating the net, it looks as though FIFA 09 will be the football title to play this year.
I believe next-gen PES will be better, it can’t get any worse than 08. Although, I am going to give it a miss this year.
I will be sticking with FIFA, I absolutely love 08, and with 09 going to go a step further and be better. That will satisfy my football gaming needs. I have been converted full-time.
P.s. I reached the PRO tour on Top Spin this morning, how good is this game? My whole game is solid, I may have to move up to HARD level, as I winning every (HARD) tournament on NORMAL. I am now enjoying success with both the R2 and L2 risk shots and serves. I have started serve and volleying from last night.
P.s.s. Got a 360 yesterday for the bedroom and ship, after being hounded by my brother-in-law and mate to get online.
I’ve noticed in the last two seasons that most league games are more or less the same, I fail to score for the first 60 minutes or so, and then I manage to score once, and then the opposition defence gets nuts, and I score 4 or 5 goals in the last 15 minutes. Crazy.
Speaking of regens, guess who’s in my bench getting ready for the future: Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo (though he’s 27 already), Kaká, Eto’o and Aimar.
heraldo - I too believe PES2009 will be better than last year’s effort. I’ll be a lot warier of PES this year, and will probably wait until a demo appears before I pre-order. FIFA09, on the other hand, just sounds better the more I hear about it, to the extent that I’m a little wary of allowing my expectations to reach as high as they look like getting. I had sky-high hopes for PES2008 and look what happened.
Re. Topspin3, I haven’t had enough time to master it properly. I’m still rooting around on the Junior tour with my created player. I keep meeting serve-and-volleyers who destroy me. The game really is the ‘Pro Evo of tennis games’ as WENB described it, although that description is probably a year or two out of date…
Adriano - Curious you should mention that phenomenon, which I’ve slightly noticed toward the end of my current season. 0-0, and the CPU is giving me a solid game, then I score and the floodgates open.
That’s a great crop of Regens you’ve got there. Are you still in 2020? I am, and most of those players are still playing. (I saw the Regenned Eto’o but passed on him, as I’ve never liked him.) Gerrard still hasn’t retired at the age of 40 and still plays the odd game for Barcelona.
Yup, 2020 it is. Rivaldo reappeared a long time ago. I only got him recently, though. The others I got as soon as they appeared.
I also got Anelka and Van Nilsteroy, but I ditched them.
Ibrahimovic has just popped up in the rookie section. There’s 13 pages of players there to choose from. Too bad I already have 32.
Some of my players are already getting on, but I feel bad about letting them go after so many seasons of loyal service.
Many of my subs are already aging without seeing much action. All top players too, like Merino, Nijkamp and Gambino.
Camacho is actually a sub too, as Kaiser gets most of the caps in the CMF position and Bradley as DMF. I can’t bring myself to leave Khumalo off, since he’s nearly as good as Kim Cyun Hi, and he doubles as AMF.