ISS Deluxe redux
Another end-of-term post today. Tomorrow’s shadow looms large. It’s the UK release of the FIFA10 demo, in case you hadn’t heard.
What will FIFA10 be like? Can the demo possibly live up to the hype? It’s virtually guaranteed that those who are opposed to FIFA as a matter of ideology—and they are many—will be out in force afterwards, proclaiming: “Is that it?”. Perhaps lots of pro-FIFA players will be saying that as well. I just hope the demo does the game justice. The forums will be good reading tomorrow night regardless.
FIFA and I are not on speaking terms at the moment. My belated discovery of the scandal regarding the lack of midweek night matches in Manager Mode’s lower leagues is still fresh in my mind. Sadly, it seems ‘the community’ has largely moved on and let EA off the hook (after they promised and everything). Although I wonder how many people have missed the news completely, as I did, and still don’t know?
For most people the argument ‘gameplay is all’ is the beginning, middle, and end of the matter. That’s pretty much the case for me as well, but for various reasons I need a sturdy, realistic, offline career mode. That’s the only mode I’ve ever played and it’s likely all that I’ll ever play. I’ve waited two long years for a Manager Mode even close to the standard of FIFA’s overall gameplay. The night matches issue in FIFA10 is like a sucker-punch in the stomach. I think it’ll turn out to be forgivable in the long run, as the lower league teams teams can be assigned to night-enabled stadia, but it’s a nasty turd to find in the punchbowl.
I’ve still been playing football games over the past week. I’ve been getting my kicks from the Xbox 360 version of PES6—I’ll come to that later. First, I’ve acquired a handheld emulator and a stack of games, among them the SNES version of ISS Deluxe.
I picked up a Wiz games console a while back. It’s not available in any shops. Its primary function is the emulation of old games and platforms. And thus have I rediscovered a universal truth of gaming: old games are rubbish.
Seriously: back in the day, I thought European PGA Tour II on the MegaDrive was the greatest golf game/greatest game I’d ever played. I played it again the other day for the first time in about ten years and… I was shocked. It was really, really bad in every way. Remember the first generation of Java games on mobile phones? Worse than that. NHL94 and FIFA97, both decent games in their day, also seem poor now. I had a few minutes on FIFA97, playing in the celebrated indoor arena, but had to switch it off. FIFA has certainly come a long, long way since then.
Only the wonderful Cannon Fodder really stands the test of time. And, over on the SNES side of things, International Superstar Soccer Deluxe.
This short clip is out of focus almost all the way through. Sorry about that, but you can make out what’s happening on-screen:
Link: 
I never played ISS Deluxe the first time around. The 1990s was mostly a games-free decade for me. I’ve played just about every other ISS/PES game in existence.
ISS Deluxe is a cracking game! Okay, it’s primitive even by the standards of the first ISS game on the PS1. But it handles decently, and it does to perfection what I first loved about ISS all those years ago: it forces you to pass the ball around and look for space and probe for openings. Wonder-dribbling—of the kind that has sadly infected the PES side of the family tree in recent years—is nowhere to be seen (except on the very lowest difficulty levels, which is fair enough).
I’ve played a few Tournaments. Naturally, the lasting appeal is limited. How could it not be? But I’m glad to have filled in one of my ISS/PES blanks. Now I do believe the only blank left is the mobile phone version of PES2008. Give me some time…
My main gaming time has been spent on PES6(360). I’m back in love with it. I’ve really got back into its rhythms. Dare I say it, I’ve really got back into a PES groove. Like its humble SNES ancestor, it forces a more pass-and-move style of play, but still allows you to dribble with certain players under certain conditions. It’s great.
The lack of Editing is a pain. I’m still not used to seeing my Master League team called PES United.
To finish off today, here’s a compilation video of some recent goals in PES6(360). To forestall the ‘licensed music ban fairy’ that haunts every video-hosting website nowadays, I’ve tacked on a classical tune that is presumably out of copyright.
NB: these goals are all at PES6′s actual game speed. If PES2010 is faster than this, I for one will be extremely disappointed. (Also—after some computer maintenance, I’m temporarily running a browser without an ad-blocker for the first time in years. Have floating adverts always randomly appeared on Sevenload clips?!)
Link:
My two favourite goals appear together late on. First at around 0:55 there’s a vintage strike from Mathieu, which had me sitting up and punching the air. It’s a good strike in its own right, but in context it was a GREAT strike. I was 0-1 down to West Midlands Village and despite having all the possession and all the chances it was one of those PES games when nothing would go right. In the 89th minute I thought ‘I’m not having this’, and you can see me adjusting Mathieu’s run to take the venomous shot… That, in a nutshell, is the famous ‘special feeling’ of PES that people keep banging on about. Good old PES.
Immediately afterwards comes probably my favourite goal overall so far in PES6. It’s a flowing movement that culminates in a delicate through-ball that sets up a first-time rifled shot high into the corner.
So. On the eve of the long-awaited FIFA10 demo, I’m seriously hacked off with FIFA, and I’ve fallen back in love with PES. Interesting times indeed.
I really love the pace and feel to PES 6 X360
. (Btw, I can’t believe you are thinking of getting a mobile version of a PES “just to complete a void.” Just boggles my mind . . . you’re evidently one of the biggest PES-addicts out there–and congratulations my friend 
.) PES 6 (or Winning Eleven 2007 in the US) had probably brought together everything that was good about PES. Just by these videos, I am gladdened and even impressed by the dribbling at regular speed, just changing angles at running speed is that which disappoints me aesthetically with all football games.
Our game developers really need to look at this. It just doesn’t look right yet. With PES’ introduction of 16 degree increment limitation (which Fifa have simply copied), there was a reasonable compromise for what you could do with the ball when running at speed, but it quickly became predictable. Dribbling in 16 degree increment had quickly become an art form, because 12 year old kids have a need for speed and if the only consequences to pressing R1 is that you predictably move in 16 degree increments and may run into a defender, they might as well use it as a tactic. And when players became faster so as to represent the Ronaldinhos and Kakas of the world. Dribbling at pace just became ridiculous. Not only did it not look right that a player could run and turn so fast with the ball, but that they could do so in such a consistent pattern was simply appalling. Slowing the pace down wouldn’t even fix the problem, if all that did was to make the players take longer to reach the ball, simply because pace and running animations are so uniform.
Having said that 360 dribbling (in both games) seem to resolve my main issues on the aesthetic side. I just wish there was some kind of pace control, at times when you are running which allows you to pick your head up and measure your knock-ons, instead of encouraging a rambling-hammer-the-sprint-button speed dribbling system which drags us to a fantasy football gaming experience. I am befuddled by the use of the word “sprint” in the community because players don’t come near their natural sprint speed while dribbling, and if indeed a player where trying to actually sprint with the ball, it would get away from him in terms of direction and length. Please take a look at this video of a nice Kaka goal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL6g_BRM7wg
Watching this video, notice how Kaka slows down after his initial push past Messi, takes three touches to get the ball under control (two by stroking the ball with the outside of his foot, and one by reeling it in with the inside of his foot)–
At which point he is in cruising speed, not “sprint” speed, where his ability, stamina, and adrenaline allow him to take the final defender on–
He takes two positive touches with his right and then a quick skip touch with his left to shake off and further separate himself from the defender. That is just artful and amazingly beautiful dribbling by the Brazilian. However, I am of the belief that a goal like that is not just a routine event. Kaka had space to run and the defenders were just backing off and had no chance of timing any sort of challenge on him (Kaka was just too fast!).
Seeing that video of PES 6 X360 makes me feel guilty, I remember trading it in to buy 08 after IGN gave it a 9.0 rating :@. In terms of game speed and overall depth and addictiveness, I really believe that was the peak of PES gameplay. Hopefully PES 10 can make a fairy-tale comeback, it’s about time…
The PES 6 video in this post is a stinging indictment of PES 09. I don’t think I’ve had a single moment on PES 9 that produced anything as flowing and beautiful as those goals.
And then to hear Seabass bitching that at the PES championships the two top players in Europe were scoring goals on each other, and therefore the game had to be re-calibrated . . . I shudder to think what might ensue. Historically, PES developers have made defenses “better” by hamstringing attacking play. The PES world doesn’t need more leaden-booted Frankenfootballers scuffing their first touch and making negative runs.
—-
As far as FIFA 10 goes, we’ll certainly know something tomorrow*, but my laundry-list of desires for it is bog-simple, and yet, gone mostly un-addressed during the FIFA media blitz: more varied goals.
We’ll see what they have for me this year, but neither publisher came right out and directly spoke to my concerns. It could be another unsettled year spent waiting for the Champ to arrive.
—–
*Astrologically speaking, Mercury is retrograde right now. While I’m far from a True Believer™, as a technology professional I can tell you that Mercury going retrograde means that communications technology goes bonkers and things just fail for no reason whatsoever. I’ve seen it so many times I can’t even deny it — today was spent almost entirely in troubleshooting hell for me, and I just want to warn you that the likelihood the FIFA demo will get cocked-up or arrive late is very high.
Please calibrate your expectations accordingly . . . I don’t want to see you tear your hair ou . . . er, I mean I don’t want to see you rend your clothing and wail.
did you ever play the GBA version of Winning Eleven, not-greg? An all time classic in my eyes, although this may have partly been in admiration at the way they crammed it all onto 2 buttons! (A+B simultaneously for a through ball, double tap B for a cross, A then B for a shot feint etc)
Steph Wheeler—good football game points in there, but I fear the norm has almost been established with the next-gen games and pace and skill-dribbling will define the games for the forseeable future. ‘The kids’ (of all ages) rule gaming—what they want, or are perceived to want, they get. Thus in your standard action-adventure game we have gruff, macho space marines and impossibly big-breasted females (both aspirational figures in differing ways for the average 14-year-old boy). And in football games we have super-skilled, super-fast star players.
Having said that, I’ve just played the FIFA10 demo and it handles very slow, very steady—both positive points for me.
Patrick222—oh dear! PES2008(PS3/360) almost isn’t even in the same sport as PES6(360), never mind the same ballpark.
I’m still really enjoying it—so much so that when I’ve played the FIFA10 demo for a few days I intend to go back to PES6 and play that at least until October 1st.
PES6(360) is easily the best £2 I have ever spent on a game. It’s worth ten times that. If you see it laying around on a preowned shelf anytime soon, just get it! Even if you just play it for a few days, you’d still get your money’s worth I reckon.
ck—in this post-Gamescom world, it seems I’ve got some kind of magic camera that records things at the speed they happen at…
Having said that (i.e., had a slight go at everyone who said the Gamescom videos weren’t the games’ actual speed), I’ve got to say that FIFA10 is a wonderfully slow game after all! If you’ve played FIFA09 much at all, it’ll seem as if the Arena player is running through treacle. Very uncanny, and very welcome really. It does seem a bit faster once you start knocking the ball around properly, a game or two into it, but still slower than FIFA09, which is a relief.
abbeyhill—there’s… there’s a GBA version of WE?! First I’ve heard of it, and thanks for the tip. *Runs to Internet*