Optimism so fragile it could evaporate like the morning dew on a hot summer’s day
A short post today. These could be common over the next few weeks. I have been playing the football games, but not a great deal. I’m enjoying the summer.
Over the past 72 hours I have played FIFA09, and once again—I have to say—really enjoyed it. I’ve played PES2008(PSP) and had a traditional few moments of fury about the scripting in one particular match. I’ve played Football Manager 2009, and wondered if I’m shallow for loving the 3D match so much. I’ve played some Final Fantasy VII and seen things—great things—that I’d completely forgotten about. I’ve played assorted iPod Touch games, including a very playable football game (more to come on that, I think). I’ve played some Magic: The Gathering on XBLA—oh yes, I get around. I’ve even played Kitchen Sink: Vengeance on the DS. That one isn’t true.
It’s a bit embarrassing to have a nominally PES-oriented blog when I’ve hardly played the game after Christmas in both of the next-generation years. Become A Legend in PES2009 threatened to revive matters somewhat, but that proved to be a bit of a false dawn. As I’ve remarked before, the past few years’ summertime PES drought just isn’t like me. From 1998 to 2007 I played ISS/PES pretty much every day, all year round. I’m hoping for PES2010 to bring back the game’s longevity.
Speaking of PES2010… Is it me or is there quite a bit of cautious optimism doing the rounds? Various murmurs over the weekend were positive-sounding. Yes, we’ve seen and heard it all before. But the point is that everybody knows we’ve seen and heard it all before, so it’s more likely that this year’s positive-sounding noises will be backed up by something solid. If that makes sense.
Playing FIFA09 the other day, I was thinking about the first time I played next-gen FIFA. That was in 2007, and it was the demo for FIFA08. My very first thought was, wow, this feels a bit like Pro Evo, but PES2008 will blow FIFA08 out of the water… Famous last words that must rank up there with they couldn’t hit an elephant from that dist-
Good games borrow; great games steal. Next-gen FIFA stole lots of good stuff from PES, and next-gen FIFA is a great game. A great game with flaws, but still a great game.
It’s time for PES to brazenly steal back its thunder. I want PES2010 to be as initially startling to me as FIFA08 was. I want to see forums filling up with people complaining about how slow it is. I want to see people calling for the fast arcade action of 2008 and 2009 to come back. I want to see people jeering PES for stealing FIFA’s best ideas. I want to see these things because it would mean that I’ve finally got the PES I wanted back in 2007.
I’m reading a lot into a few stray lines on WENB’s forum and a twitter by somebody at PSM3. But the idea of PES2010 reminding me of FIFA08 yet being Pro Evolution Soccer is just too irresistible for me to resist.
I’ve had a quick scan of the forums and personally I think ‘cautious’ optimism isn’t that encouraging. Cautious indicates the feeling that “Yes this is playing pretty good, could it be a return to form?” But if PES were to take back it’s rightful crown these guys would be shouting it from the rooftops!
You like the 3d engine in FM? I’m not keen myself. I love the 2d engine, where I can imagine what’s going on. Not watching the bland animation of the 3d matches.
Grilled Seabass—The forums might be buzzing with people saying, in so many words, “if PES2010 was anything special Konami would already be crowing about it and there wouldn’t be any NDAs”, but that’s just not how any media company operates, games companies especially, and Japanese ones very especially. What I do believe is that if PES2010 is anything special we’ll know about it on July 9th. That’s when PSM3’s embargo lifts. I’m prepared to be optimistic. One way or the other, I think we’ll definitely know then. And it’s only twelve days away….
I do like the FM2009 3D match! It’s just a 3D representation of the 2D view. I’ve got it running on the highest settings on a good computer and it looks great to me. There are very few moments when I wince at the bad animations – although I do see them, there’s no denying it. And I have only played about a quarter of one season so far.
I don’t mean so much Konami crowing about, I mean the media folks who have got to play the game. As a PES fan if PES10 was really that great I wouldn’t be able to contain myself! Roll on July 9th….
Yes I don’t run FM09 on high resolution so I must be missing out. I bought my laptop just after FM08 was released. I thought I wouldn’t need an onboard graphics card as the only game I play is FM which wouldn’t need 3D graphics… 6 months later I heard about the 3D engine… gutted.
Grilled Seabass—I’m sure you would be able to hold the excitement in if you’d signed NDAs and hoped to do business in the future with the various parties (Konami, other mags & websites etc.). As things stand, we learn from WENB that Suff was very pleased with PES2010 and had enjoyed PES for the first time since PES6. That’s as far as they can reasonably go ahead of PSM3’s exclusive reveal. To me this indicates a lot of good things and is the main reason for my optimism right now. It’s from this morsel that I’ve constructed a fabulous, slow-paced, simulation-oriented PES2010 in my mind. Time will tell.
Certainly if it happens it’ll be the greatest comeback since Lazarus. But do we trust the various preview sources? Weirdly, I do trust them this year. Or better to say: I trust myself to be able to divine the truth, even if it’s hidden or disguised. I think every PES fan will be able to do the same. We all know what kind of tone we’re hoping to see on and after July 9th. Unbridled rejoicing!
I first ran the FM2009 demo on a min-spec laptop last year and the 3D match was truly shocking, worse than a MegaDrive era game. It was laughable at times with players standing still in groups for ages while nothing happened. On my new computer, a mid-spec desktop bought in April, there’s none of that. The game really flows. It’s not jaw-droppingly superb by any means, but it looks the part, does its job, and is a more than adequate 3D version of the 2D match in my view.
I think the caution is because people were too quick to judge the last couple, as being brilliant or poor. The initial reviews of 08 were good but after prolonged playing it turned out to be the game we hoped. Likewise 09, people said it was poor straight away after what happened with 08. After a decent bit of playing time it’s not actually a bad game.
So i think people are being a bit more cautious this time round. I for one am excited!
Liam—I fully agree. The past two years have been strange in so many ways. And the caution will work for us when the news starts coming out. What I’ll be looking for is the PES fans’ gut reactions to PES2010. I don’t want to hear that it’s decent, or okay, or the best we can hope for until PES2011. If I hear even a hint of that I’m taking my ball and I’m going home.
I’m staying optimistic, because really, why not be? I appreciate that I’m setting myself up for a mighty disappointment if Riot’s dread words on that FSB podcast last year (to paraphrase: “PES2010 will be more of the same”) turn out to be the truth. In that case I won’t spend October alternately orgasming over FIFA10 and exploding in righteous indignation over PES2010, as I could very easily do. I’ll just sigh and get on with the PES games I’ve already got.
It is encouraging, isn’t it? The buzz from Adam and Suff seems to indicate that they really liked their playtest.
I think for me, “more of the same” wouldn’t be the worst outcome. If it’s more of the same, we’ll not buy it, and play FIFA all year.
What I’m worried about is “enough of a change to tantalize, but in the end, not enough to satisfy.” We still haven’t heard Konami — not the bloggers, message-board ‘experts’ or football game pundits — say “this is what we have done with PES 2009.”
Fixing online play is a yawn. Solving a bug isn’t a feature.
Yes but what real FACTS do we have to base any optimism upon? Wishful thinking and hype are not reality are they? I’m sick and tired of the likes of WENB talking up poor quality products (8/10 for PES2008 on PS3 – I remember playing my first game of PES2008 on my PS3 and thinking “this is total rubbish”).
I supect that the graphics and some of the animations will have been somewhat polished up in PES2010 but that the engine is basically the same one since the PS2 days. And that is simply NOT good enough anymore. Remember EA have already told us tht 360 dribbing is in. If FIFA10 nails the gameplay this year honestly why would anyone play what is still a PS2 game?
And on that topic Adam from WENB admitted in their forums he still plays the PS2 versions of PES as the next-gen versions are “substandard” – well he didn’t say that when hyping them to the hilt back in the day did he? In my view he is about a trustworthy as a $3 note!
Yes spot on. There is a “cautious optimism” reflected in people’s statements after the playtest. And yes, there seem to be a number of “big features” of which PSM3 has secured the absolutely sacred exclusive…
Also, having the playtest head-2-head with FIFA10’s playtest is a very bold statement, and fuels the preliminary statements with more reasonable optimism.
July 15th couldn’t come any sooner….
And yes, Suff’s weigh-in meant a lot after the playtest….
But I am still positive that PES2010 will be “part 1″ of the revolution, completed next year…
ck—I do hope they fix online for all those who love online play, but doing so wouldn’t come anywhere near satisfying my personal criteria for a PES2010 good enough to make me get it. Like you say, if it is ‘more of the same’, well, at least that’s money saved and more time and energy to devote to FIFA10.
Alan_Brazil—there are more questions than answers… All we’re doing at the moment—all I’m doing—is little better than reading tea-leaves.
The blowback from next-gen PES2008 goes on and some will never forgive or forget what the gaming press—ALL of the gaming press—did that year. You know who I feel most PES2008-related rancour towards, to this day? Not WENB. Not even PSM3. It’s the Official PlayStation Magazine, which as a new PS3 owner at the time I was buying regularly (I know, I know: magazines; how passé). Even they didn’t do anything ‘worse’ than the other print and online sources. But they were the ones I trusted the most, and how many mentions of slowdown and super-sprinting were in their review? None. Not even a hint. Yet where are the comments describing OPM and Konami incessantly having oral sex on top of piles of money, that’s what I want to know…
I’m sticking with the wishful thinking. I’m not a penny out of pocket by doing so, and believe me my critical antennae will be twitching on July 9th and after.
TareX—99.9% of my optimism at the moment does spring from Suff’s reported ‘very pleased’ status with PES2010. If you cast your mind back, in a podcast shortly after PES2008’s release he was the one who said his review score for the game would have been 6/10. He said last year that FIFA09 was the best football game by a long way, and that FIFA in general was the pace-setter for the generation. (The infamous Riot podcast on FSB.) After his love affair with FIFA since that time, I’m hoping his happiness with PES2010 means it’s a slower, more considered game.
If PES2010 is trailed, by anyone, as being a placeholder for PES2011, the game’s finished for me. That’s it. Goodnight Vienna. I might pick it up in a bargain bucket next spring. That’s all I’ll bleedin’ do.
I do not want to seem like a bore but…yeah over at WNEB it’s all rainbows and butterflies and everything is overly positive, “most definately”. Every year it is the same, and I love how in their podcasts they say that they weren’t overly positive about PES2009 and how they said it was an ‘evolution’ not a revolution. Well that word is actually in the title. Last year they hyped up the game and said how it was like PES5 which IMO was one of the best if not the best. Honestly did ANYONE think PES2009 was PES5 reborn???? Now that is what I call DISHONEST HYPE.
Now WENB are gloating about KONAMI’s community website. Hello what kind of consultative process is established at the end of the development cycle? A PR token effort that’s what. What possibly could they implement now that would change the game? The way I see it, it will take a minor miracle for PES to be playable. It was not playable in Pes2008 and it was not playable in PES2009. Look at the general standard of games right now, PES is no where near it.
But like every year we hope. To quote Adam “listen everything what you’ve been saying is going to be in PES 2010 to a certain degree but some things are going to be in 2011, but hey Suff so what look at EA theyre doing exactly the same thing”….Yes, but EA (irrespective of whether you play the game or not, or are blinded by your loyalty which is not being repayed by KONAMI) are listening to their consumers and producing quality items that represent what their fans want. I can hear another WENB “told you so” coming on after another disappointing release.
Rant over
Alan Brazil—That’s okay, I’m used to fielding WENB-related comments on my blog. I don’t let the oral-sex-related ones through (by far the majority—its really amazing to see the sheer detail in some of them). I don’t let the personally abusive ones through. I definitely don’t let the racist ones through. WENB’s own mailbag must make for interesting reading.
I don’t mind WENB at all. I like their site. It’s got a lot better over the past year. The presentation and content is much more professional. (I only wish that nearly every one of their headlines didn’t have an exclamation mark after it! Like this! Pointlessly!) I’m not interested in the motion-capture and community website-type stories. I just ignore them. I barely even look at them. It’s all about the game itself and how it’ll handle. I was gutted by next-gen PES2008 (after a few weeks of thinking it was actually all right). Only then was I disappointed that none of the gaming press picked up the unique terribleness of next-gen PES2008 and warned me in advance. I think the scale of the anti-WENB reaction since that time has been massively disproportionate.
I know you believe WENB is a front organisation for the Konami-mob. I disagree, and believe that there is abundant evidence to the contrary—not least Suff’s, and sometimes Adam’s, frequent critical remarks and dissatisfaction with the progress and direction of next-gen PES. If these elements have been included by their Konami script-writers as part of the masterplan, it’s a stroke of genius.
Well not-Greg, I wouldn’t expect a complete overhaul that would overthrow the “complete package” that is FIFA10. I do expect, that the game will feature for the first time, much much better visuals, smoother more realistic animations, a return to the slow simulation-feel in gameplay, and a smooth online experience. But if you want a complete revolutionary package, I guess you’re looking for PES2011, which is realistic and makes sense to me.
TareX—I’m optimistic but still realistic. The package you describe, to me, would be acceptable if it nevertheless represented a break from the past two years. What I’m not looking for is PES2009+better graphics+animations+online.
Unfortunately for me, unlike everyone else I would not be satisfied simply by PES2010 featuring the gameplay we all expected 2 years ago. All the talk is about wanting the game to produce a really good on-field game of football, for me that wont be enough to buy it and I fear that with all of the efforts being put in to improving the gameplay that there will be little else done with the game.
The game modes really need a facelift, especially the ML. It has hardly changed at all since it was firt introduced and has for a long time been the only mode I have played on PES. Even if PES2010 produces the greatest gameplay we’ve ever seen it will not be enough for me if some kind of new life isn’t injected into the ML but I seem to be the only one with this belief.
Yea I totally disagree stinger. Gameplay is far and away the most important factor for me. Thats what its all about, recreating the game we love. I mean seriously, if it has “the greatest gameplay we’ve ever seen” you won’t buy it?
Obviously it would be nice for a real evolution in game modes but I’m fairly satisfied with them. And after exploring the game modes on FIFA I still think nothing beats master league. Every game mode on FIFA has big problems, apart from online. That is another factor for me, the ability to simply be able to play an ordinary match online without lag.
I honestly think the gameplay is quite good on PES09 though. Having played a lot of FIFA now, I’m still undecided which has better gameplay. Perhaps its my own skills, but I still feel that PES has the greater scope for expression. You can play a slow passing game, a fast passing game, a long ball game, a counter-attacking game. I don’t think you have this option on FIFA. The trouble I had with PES09 was that it was just far too easy. Like I said before on here, when I bought the game I put it on top player and won my first 15 games. I won the treble in ML in 4 seasons. That shouldn’t happen. So what I’m after is, in order of importance;
1. Even better gameplay.
2. MUCH harder difficulty levels.
3. Smooth online play.
4. Improved game modes.
5. Improved graphics (not very important tbh).
stinger—I remember your horror at ML in PES2009, particularly that giant arrow… As much as I love the old girl, it’s hard to defend the more archaic sides of ML. I’ve mentioned it before, but it really annoys me how you can’t have a player on the transfer list and use him in a trade-in offer for another player at the same time. You have to fiddle around with the menus, take him off the transfer list, and only then use him. Rubbish!
My main criterion for a PES2010 purchase this year is the gameplay. PES2009 was really the game I expected two years ago (apart from the low difficulty).
Now I want something else. I want a PES3-style leap. I’d settle for that, as I didn’t mind old-style ML so much. Even so, I think ML is getting a makeover, although how substantial is anybody’s guess—and will we hear more than token words about any of the game modes from any of the previewers and reviewers before release? I wrote a whole post about this a few weeks ago. In my mind’s eye I can just see the magazine insert boxes next to the main reviews. The boxes will have about 50-100 words in them, filled with standard off-the-shelf fluff about game modes they won’t really have given any time to playing. Once again I think it’ll be down to the forums to tell us what Master League and Manager Mode and other modes in both games are really like.
Grilled Seabass—when a seriously average player like myself is easily winning ML Trebles after 5 seasons, and by a distance of 10 or 20 points, it’s a dumbed-down PES all right. I mentioned a few posts ago that I thought they dumbed it down to try to make it have wider appeal. I actually think this succeeded for Konami to a certain extent. There’s a whole new generation of PES camp followers out there who arrived in the wake of next-gen PES2008. (Those are the people who scare me, because you have to worry about Konami deciding to regard them as the fans, and shape the game accordingly.)
Way back when—November 2008 I think—when I ‘discovered’ that PES2009 was actually quite a good game after all, the main thing that attracted me back to it was how slow-paced it could be played (if you wanted to). I was stitching together passing moves like nothing I could (yet) do on FIFA09. And at its core there was PES-style gameplay. It’s no wonder I spent a blissful month or two squeezing everything I possibly could out of PES2009.
At this moment I stick by my on-again, off-again, on-again assessment that FIFA09 is the better game with the greater possibilities. Playing it as if it’s PES is pretty toxic; easing up on the olde sprint button and really relaxing into FIFA has brought it alive for me over the past few weeks.
I agree with your list, although no. 3 is optional for me and no. 5 will just be nice to see, but not essential. No. 1 towers over everything else like a skyscraper over a matchbox IMO. It’s now or never for PES. I’m tense!
Don’t get me wrong guys gameplay is the number 1 factor in my opinion of FIFA 2010. What I was trying to convey was that we shouldn’t all be satisfied with just being given the gameplay we all expected 2 years ago, there should be more evolution of the game than just that, in the same way that no matter how good the gameplay of FIFA10 is it wont be satisfactory unless Manager Mode is vastly improved.
It’s all well and good to have fantastic gameplay but unless there is a mode to bring it all together than it doesn’t make for a truly great game.
stinger—I’m taking the FIFA10 gameplay for granted, and it’s really all about what they do with the modes (I’ve heard a rumour that Manager Mode will once again have NO night matches and NO weather effects, and I’m not happy).
With PES2010, things are almost the other way around for me. Personally I’d take Master League as it is if they could give us a PES worthy of the name in this generation.
Right now, I’m pessimistic on all fronts. I’ve got an awful, creeping feeling that I’m going to be left disappointed this year.
so your optimism has evaporated like the morning dew on a hot summer’s day!
As far as Suff being “happy” with PES2010 and that being a good thing;well on this video he says he is very happy with PES2009 – it’s around 1.20-1.30ish. So was he lying then or now???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cAK_XLEOoU
Alan, do you not worry that you are becoming obsessed by the vicissitudes of WENB?
abbeyhill—the optimism referred to was PES2010-related, and it’s still around! I was already optimistic about FIFA10 and remain so, despite some doubts creeping in.
Alan Brazil—I remember that video very well. In many ways WENB got more stick for PES2009 than they got for PES2008. I don’t think ‘lying’ is the right word when it comes to a reaction to something like a computer game at any one point in time, particularly after just playing it for the first time (yes, parallels to now, and PES2010, are fully borne in mind).
If he and WENB are indeed in the paid employ of Konami, then yes, he could be said to have been lying, and his enthusiasm was all part of a scripted marketing strategy devised by his shadowy controllers; but if he and the site are what they present themselves as being, which I believe they are, then he was merely wrong about PES2009. Just as I was wrong (and not lying) when I liked PES2008 at first—which I did. I hated the slowdown, but I thought it was a fine PES game for a few weeks. In many ways my reception of PES2008—which could be summed up as “it would contradict reality as I know it for a PES game to be bad; therefore PES2008 is not a bad game; therefore PES2008 is a good game”—was just as blinkered as all of the online sources and print mags.
History might very well repeat itself with PES2010 and you’ll be entitled to a big fat “I told you so” in due course, but a big reason why Suff’s reaction to PES2010 is significant, in my opinion, is that it’s now a year later and the context is entirely different.
Expectation last year, realistically, was just for a bog-standard, half-playable PES, which is what we got. This year… we all want more, and the critical bar has been raised accordingly. For many reasons this year’s PES will be subjected to a level of scrutiny and appraisal that PES2009 and PES2008 never were. The feeling that it’s now or never for PES in this generation is pretty widespread one.
By this time next week it should all have come out in the wash. Whichever way things go, there’s some interesting times ahead.
I guess so – I just HATE Konami shills – well shills for anyone or anything!