The Big Dipper
Posted by: not-Greg in goal replay, middle shooting, tags: goal replay, middle shootingAside from all the sound and fury over FIFA09, and the relative mutedness of PES2009 right now (come on, Konami, pull your corporate finger out), it’s worth mentioning that I’m still playing the PS2/PSP version of PES2008 with great enjoyment. In truth, I mainly play it on my PSP nowadays—there are just too many other great games competing for time in my PS3. But I am still playing it.
I will go on playing my PES2008 Master League career at least until the FIFA09 demo appears in September. Even then I’ll probably still play my ML career, off and on, until PES2009 emerges from hiding in late October. Despite this being a proper annus horribilis for PES fans, I’m strangely just as immersed as ever in my Master League. What can I say. I’ve been used to playing Master League all year for several years now, and old habits die hard.
In season 2021, it’s pretty much business as usual. I’m coming up to the mid-season negotiations. I’m top of the league by 8 points (Valencia, as usual, are chasing me in second place). I’m top of my group in Europe. I’m in the quarter-finals of the Division 1 Cup. Things are looking rosy for another Treble.
Regular readers will know how much I love scoring long-range goals. Blasting one in from 30 yards out just feels so good. For me they’re the best possible kind of goals to score. PES has always done long-range shooting very well, particularly from PES5 onwards. The sheer visceral joy of smacking the ball into the back of the net is one of the greatest pleasures that PES gaming has to offer. (FIFA08’s relative lack of oomph in its long-range shooting is one of my minor quibbles with that game.)
I’ve already scored a contender for ‘most favourite PES long-ranger ever’. That one came from Prieto. No, you really can’t beat having a strong DMF with Middle Shooting in your team. In a recent league game I scored a goal with my regular DMF, Bradley, that was slightly different from the norm. Instead of flying straight and true, with power and swerve, it sort of looped up high and then dipped outrageously behind the stranded keeper and into the net. Here’s the default view:
The strike comes from deep inside the centre circle, a yard or two inside the opposition half. I haven’t got out the tape measure to make it official, but I think that makes it a longer-distance strike than the Prieto effort.
The Big Dipper, as I call this goal, truly lives up to its name when seen from pitch-level. The reverse angle shows the crazy path of the ball very clearly. Initially, it rises like a field-goal attempt in American Football.
I scored this goal while sitting at my desk at work. if you’ve got your speaker volume up, you can hear a ringing telephone in the background. I was ignoring it. I was concentrating on filming the goal replay with my mobile phone. Have people no consideration?
In the few months of PES2008 left to me I will, of course, be trying to better this latest long-ranger. I think it’ll be tough, though. To score from even closer to the halfway line I’d probably have to start pressing shoot whilst still in my half—which the game would interpret as a defensive clearance.
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