Going back to PES6(360) has got me reacquainted with my Master League team from a year ago. One of its principal figures: Schwarz. He’s more important than the 29-year-old C. Ronaldo. Mathieu and Bradley and Kim Cyun Hi and others are all good too, but Schwarz stands out. He stands out a mile. Why? Simply put, he’s a killer in front of goal. A veritable assassin.
Indeed, Schwarz is a true PES legend. I was sad to see him nerfed to a degree in PES2010, but I suppose all good things must come to pass. His name will live on, buoyed by the memory of classic Schwarz. For the next few PES games we’ll have to contened with a Myth of Schwarz, in much the same way that the Myth of Castolo has lingered on.
My next post will bear a date in August. The 2011 games are just around the corner. (Where is the summer going?) I feel under time-pressure to get things done. I’ve returned to PES6(360) in the middle of a campaign for the Treble. Alas, the gap of a year has proved too much. I’m out of the D1 Cup, my league position is 7th, and I’ll do well to avoid crashing out at the group stage of the European Cup (as I insist on calling it).
What lends each individual PES game its distinctiveness are the myriad little things that work in them that don’t work in others, and the similar number of things that don’t work in them that work in others. Thus my PES2010 moves mostly get me into trouble; I’m slowly, painfully, picking up the PES6(360) moves all over again. Possibly the most overt of these is the way you’re forced to hold up play while waiting for teammates to get into position. That stately buildup play always been a PES delight, of course, but it seems to be ratcheted up to 11 in PES6(360) compared to PES2010, for example.
The more I’ve played of PES6(360) this week, the more I’ve been impressed with the AI. Konami could do a lot worse than to transpose the code or the algorithms or whatever (like I have a clue) from this game into PES2011. It plays a tough game. And it cheats like crazy, of course.But it feels like more honest cheating than in the last few PES games. I haven’t had any nonsense with passes mysteriously misdirected to opposition feet, for example.
But getting back to that man Schwarz. I was in a tight, tight league match against Manchester United. I was 1-2 down, desperate for a result—and, as happens so often, who was on the end of a speculative pass into the box other than the big guy with the black hair and the mighty left foot:
I was happy and I knew it and I clapped my hands. And, once again, when reviewing the replay, it struck me that it was a satisfyingly different kind of goal—smacked on the turn high into the net through a defender’s legs.
I’ve reached the mid-season negotiations phase. It’s my first old-style negotiations since last year in this very game. Let’s see if I can remember what to do…