One more season of Master League on PES2009. Then I’ll go and play a full season on Manager Mode on FIFA09. I want to get my ML team promoted before I do anything else in the world of gaming. I have a PS3 copy of Mirror’s Edge that’s been left in its shrink-wrapping for two weeks now, because I’ve become so caught up in Master League all over again. In many ways it feels a lot like the good old days on PES. (If it wasn’t for FIFA09 lurking menacingly off-stage, of course.)
Season 2013-2014 is my 5th consecutive season in Division 2. It’s unprecedented for me. I have always got promoted in older Master Leagues after either two or three seasons. Always. It’s a measure of how tough PES2009 feels this year. It remains to be seen whether it will stay that way, or if it’s just a side-effect of playing a different football game—FIFA09—so intensively for a few weeks beforehand.
I won the first game of the season against Stoke City, 2-0, with some quite flukey late goals. Never mind. My good pre-season form seems to be continuing into the competitive matches, which is all well and good.
As so often happens I met Stoke again immediately in the D2 Cup. I was actually disappointed not to have a bye to the next round, as I have in the past two seasons. The game ended 0-0 in the home leg. It meant that in the return leg the advantages were all with me, the away team. One goal from me would effectively put me through. But it doesn’t always work out. Stoke won that second leg 2-0. It was a poor display from me, especially as I played my first-choice team.
Never mind. In many ways, getting knocked out of the Cup in round 1 is the best thing that can happen to you when you’re going for promotion. I should be thankful to Stoke for beating me. Now I can concentrate upon the League, I thought…
Things almost went slightly wrong there as well. I won my next game, then threw away the victory in the next by conceding a heartbreaker of a CPU goal in the final seconds. Then I lost badly against Lecce, who are newly-relegated this season. I started to think: uh-oh. Surely I won’t have to face a sixth season in Division 2…?
But I came back to win the next game 2-0, which included this fine half-volley from my new striker FORESTIERI:
Those kinds of goals were common as muck in the PS3 version of PES2008. But they actually mean something in PES2009. (For now, anyway…)
All of which leaves the league table looking very healthy. I’m top. As ever I’m not scoring enough, but I’m still not conceding many either. I can’t remember the last time the CPU scored from a corner.
I think this is definitely the season—Division 1, here I come. I’ve decided that it’s my last season playing on Professional difficulty, come what may. I’ll move up to Top Player whether I get promoted or not.
Good stuff not-Greg, nice goal! Yes going out of the cup really is for the best, you should be able to field full-strength in almost every game, so no excuses!!
You’ll have to let us know what Mirror’s Edge is like when you get round to playing it. I enjoyed the demo.
btw has anyone noticed SHIMIZU kicking around this year? I think he would get my vote for best-ever regen.
Grilled Seabass – over Camacho, Kaiser and Schwarz?
Yep, he’s a little bald genius!
Grilled Seabass – it’s an unfortunate truth in PES as in real-life football nowadays. If you could choose for your team not to be involved in the Cup(s) at the start of a big season, you would. Well, I would.
I’m going to make time to play Mirror’s Edge tonight. It’s about time. I’m really into my FM2008 career at the moment as well and that’s taken up loads of time this past week and a bit.
I haven’t seen Shimizu yet, no. There are a few players I haven’t seen yet – Bradley for one. No Orellano in my game yet either!
Liam – best Regen/Konami players ever is a tough, tough question. Bergkamp on PES5 would get my vote for best Regen ever. Best Konami player is harder. I’d go with Camacho just based on PES2008 (the PS2/PSP version). Schwarz a close second.
Even if I see Shimizu again in this ML, I won’t get him. For me he’s too associated with the disaster that was the PS3 version of PES2008. (Because he was so great in it he helped to destroy that game as a PES game after a few weeks.)
Great start to the Season mate!
Hopefully you’ll get to witness some of those fabled celebrations this season!!!
I really think thats one MAJOR letdown in FIFA – lack of any recognition of winning something.
In manager Mode you get a tiny little picture of a cup and text saying you won it – hardly worth a gruelling 50 game season really is it!!!
Im soldiering on with my PES ML – havent played for a few days due to other commitments, and of course its the reds in the Champs league on tv tonight, so will again be limited for game time.
Have wone my first 2 games of the season on Footy manager 2009 for the PSP, was also considering picking up FIFA for the PSP, anyone had any experience of it? I know its obviously not a next gen or ps3 comparable title but good fun and a decent game?
Paul – how’s the 2D match on the PSP FM2009? Any good?
I have no idea whether the PSP FIFA is any good. I do know that it’s nothing like the PS3/360 version. If you liked the old-style FIFA (FIFA07 on PS2 for example – a decent enough game) you might like 09 on PSP.
FIFA’s Manager Mode is pretty dire when you come right down to it. No weather, no night games, a transfer market that makes early-80s Spectrum titles look sophisticated, weird fixture congestion, and many more problems. Thankfully FIFA09′s gameplay manages to save the mode (for now), but 2010 has got to improve. As it is I think EA have been let off the hook this year on the career mode front.
Nice… do you now think FIFA’s simulation “difficulty” and PES2009′s mysterious “fun” factor is what’s governing your current decisions at this point?
On another notice, I think you need to invest in a post-2003 phone with a post-2003 camera, don’t you think?
TareX – The FIFA-simulation vs PES-fun factor isn’t an issue for me. I think it’s a false opposition on a number of levels. FIFA09 can be ‘fun’ too, and PES2009 can be tedious. Boy, can it be tedious.
Re. the camera, the clip in this post is a particularly poor quality one, isn’t it? But I only do the blog for, dare I say it, fun… If I ever start taking myself or the blog seriously—i.e. as being some kind of sober journalism, rather than just a daily gaming diary—I’ll get a ‘proper’ camera. Until then, the 2003 camera will stay.
I’m coming to similar reservations about FIFA09. The MM just doesn’t stack up and is lacking in a lot of areas. Thankfully however I do genuinely believe that EA intend to do something about it next year, maybe one year late but when theML hasn’t changed at all in 5 years now I think we can forgive EA for missing 1.
I was thinking the other day and it is going to be tough for EA to produce a mode that can rival ML. The simple fact is that if you picked upthe ML and planted it straight into FIFA I really don’t think it would work, it’s just not the sort of game where I can see that working.
FIFA prides itself on it’s licences sokeeping all the official leagues and teams is a must in any career mode they produce. It will be interesting to see what they do because we all love ML so much that it is almost impossible to top
Looks like I missed something with your blog, I had no idea you were playing on Professional. Very suprised to hear your struggles are without being on top player. I always thought it was a given to play on top.
Anyway I think its unfair to judge EA or FIFA09 badly for missing things like weather and night matches that have no effect whatsoever on the game play.
After playing FIFA09 for about 2 hours then straight on to PES2009 for half hour I can I’m sold on MM over ML.
FIFA’s MM might not have some of the aspect of the ML that has made is so popular over the years but at least the fundamentals of the game are in fully working order (even without the patch). I’m still a ‘newbie’ to FIFA but I’ve come around to its style of play and would now strongly defend it someone had the choice between the two games.
Konami dropped a clanger last year, and thankfully due to their laziness of updating their entire catalogue were you and other able to go back to the PS2 for some ‘classic’ PES.
This year is no different in my opinion, the phrase ‘you can’t polish a turd’ I think is a fair analogy in this case. PES2009 is no better so many aspects than PES2008. They knew that the keepers were shockingly bad and they didn’t fix that.
Yet this year EA made a ‘mistake’ with buggy through-balls and they came out with a patch for it to solve it. No game is perfect but in gameplay terms alone FIFA wins hands down in my opinion.
On the fun factor which is where I would of agreed a month ago with PES being the better of the two. I no longer do so, playing by yourself FIFA has become more enjoyable for more. There is probably about 2 or 3 moments in about 10 games for me where the game does something I didn’t tell it too.
PES its every game, probably the same ratio, except its over one half of a match, not almost a dozen.
I don’t mean to rant but to say that you’d rather play PES because it ‘rains’ and it has night games is not enough in my opinion to sell it to me. Especially if they don’t affect the game. Heaven forbid if next year they make rain a “real” aspect of the game that will change how players react on the pitch. Their ball control is already shocking.
Stamina is another major greavance for me, since when can world class players not play one match a week? After two matches I found that I had to bench half of the squad. After playing FIFA where you can actually keep a squad of players playing regular football theres no way I can go back to PES with chop and changing every single game.
Hard to end this on a good note, the one I can find is that me and my flat mates still would rather play PES2008 as a multiplayer over FIFA because it conduces more ‘unpredictable’ games which are good fun when drinking etc.
Maybe the booze would make any football game fun, who knows..
stinger - the MM vs ML thing is a weird one, and you’re right I think, a transplanted ML in FIFA2010 just wouldn’t work for so many reasons.
What they could and I think must have is a proper transfer market—what was wrong with the one in pre-next-gen FIFAs? I remember the FIFA07 transfer market being very robust—it was almost Football Manager-like. Playing as Coventry, I had no money and couldn’t attract any players. We’ve got to have that level of depth for FIFA2010, surely! I have faith that we will get it.
Paww - Yep, Professional level for five seasons now. That’s hard enough for me at the moment, although this will be the last season on it. I was an automatic Top Player player until PES2009.
I’ve never said anywhere that I’d rather play PES because it rains and has night matches in its career mode. What I have said is that the variation of feeling that night matches and weather brings to ML is something that MM really, really lacks. Of course it’s nothing to do with the gameplay, but in a career mode scenario I think you need that visual variation of tone to keep your momentum going and your virtual pecker up. After a few seasons of MM you’ll be completely fed up of the unending bright sunny days too!
I’ve also never said anywhere that PES2009 is worth playing because of fun. I’ve never even said that PES2009 is fun. This fun issue is a total red herring for me. My opinion on PES and fun is still the one in this post, in the 3rd and 4th paragraphs in particular.
I think PES2009 is vastly different from PES2008 in one core aspect: the dribbling. Last year you could dribble anywhere and do anything with almost any player. In PES2009 that just isn’t possible (for me anyway).
The keepers are actually better than last year—but still pretty shockingly bad. And the control issue is a massive one for the game. A long time ago now (only about a month) I said that the sheer amount of control it gives you on the pitch is the main reason FIFA09 is a greater football game than PES2009. I still think that.
I think you are right about the weather actually having an effect. It doesn’t dampen the gameplay experience but for one reason or another I find it really difficult to sit down and play say 8 games in a MM session, I find myself only playing 3-4 where as with PES in previous years I could play 8-10 no problem given the time.
That is not that I find FIFA inferior, quite the opposite but I think that slight lack of variation in time of day, weather effects and many other aspects will often see me playing shorter sessions of FIFA than I am used to playing in PES sessions, I stillplay it just as much as I have previous football games, it’s just in shorter bursts at a time.
Of course the other contributing factor in my shorter sessions at the moment is the continually fantastic Fallout 3. It is so great to see a next-gen game that is not designed with online play in mind, it’s totally single players and they have done a fantastic job on what is the most important part of any game (IMO), offline single player action. That also stands for FIFA and PES, which are designed with a fair eye on online play these days, possibly taking away from potential improvements to the single player experience
Not-Greg – PSP FM2009′s match engibe is very basic, just top down birds eye view with circles witrh the player numbers in and a ball. I only have it set to show key incidents which are basically goals.
Its a good game, very thorough albeit a striopped down ver of the pc game so can only imagine how in depth that version is.
If only FIFA could merge footy manager into its manager mode…..!!!!
Stinger – Fallout 3 really that good? Whats the pace fo the game like? Are you a big RPG fan already? 1 thing I get bored of in RPGs are random battles, does this happen in Fallout 3? might have to pick it up.
1 game to go in my 2nd season on ML, am top (just about) an can’t wait for the negotiation period and 1st division! PARK CHU YOUNG has been a revelation this half season, I highly recommend his purchase, he’s tall, good in every area and and has both all-important scoring stars. Picked him up for about 5500.
stinger - I finally picked up Fallout3 a few days ago. Installed it to the 360 hard drive and everything. The only problem is, no bleedin’ time to play it… Maybe a few hours one or two days a week. I think a game like this needs to be played every day or almost every day, otherwise you just drift away from it. But we’ll see.
Paul - I had a PSP version of FM a few years ago and disliked it because there was no 2D match. (I was never a Champ Man player.) I might pick up FM2009 on PSP if I see it on a bargain shelf in a few months. There are too many games nowadays!
Grilled Seabass – Fallout3 is an ‘action’ RPG. You do some character customisation as the game progresses but the combat is more FPS than RPG (with some quite deep but optional strategy elements). It’s nothing like the old-style turn-based RPGs, which I actually prefer and just miss more and more as the years go by. Thank God for the DS is all I’ll say…
Grilled Seabass – As not-Greg said Fallout is much more of an ‘action RPG’ combining elements of FPS games with an RPG game. You don’t encounter random battles, rather while travelling the wasteland in game you may happen to come across different groups.
It’s hard to explain really, but basically it acts like a FPS but don’t let that turn you off if that’s not your usual sort of game. I really think there is something there for everyone. It’s not fast paced like your average shooter and at the same time you don’t get tieddown in RPG-like random battles everywhere and you don’t have to take time out to level up or anything like that (although there is a levelling system).