PES2012 makes you work for everything. It makes you work hard to like it in the first place. And then, after that stage has been reached, you’ve got to play the matches…
Every pass, every tackle, every goal, every point are all dearly bought with sweat and effort and hard work. From Regular difficulty on up.
I’ve played hundreds of matches across about four hundred hours by now. I can probably count on two hands the number of matches I’ve ‘coasted’ through without any trouble. (One of them was that live commentary match from a few weeks age. One rainy day this summer, I’ll post one of the recorded matches where I got thumped. That’ll give a more balanced picture of how I get on with PES2012.)
Here in season 15 of my ML career, I’m going for my first ever silverware on Superstar difficulty.
And I’m out of the Champions League at the group stage. I’ve been eliminated after 5 of the 6 group matches.
I hadn’t been playing well in Europe, but a rich vein of form in the league gave me hope of carrying that over into the Champs League.
Inter were my opponents in game 5, away. I had to win.
On the right you see my actual outfield team, set up defensively, but with plenty of options going forward, of course.
It was, as expected, a hard, hard game. Inter could have had it won easily by half-time. Somehow it stayed 0-0. In the second half all my effort was rewarded with a beautifully-crafted goal by Caracciolo. The build-up was so sweet that I can still taste the pleasure right now, a day later.
Baresi has been a revelation in recent matches, supporting the attack strongly from the back. He’s a great passer. Just prior to this game he basically won me a tight league match against Celtic with a deadly pass from the halfway line into Forlan’s feet in the penalty area. Forlan couldn’t miss.
Here against Inter, Baresi found Forlan again, only now it was on the edge of the area. I spotted Caracciolo making a spontaneous run in behind the defence. A delicate lobbed through-ball put him in for a one-on-one. The onrushing Inter keeper could do nothing to stop the goal.
There were 15 minutes left. I subbed Forlan and Barnes, went 4-5-1 with Perrotta and Gerrard deep in midfield, and readied myself to hang on for grim death.
It went okay, until Inter got a bullshit free kick 25 yards out with 5 minutes left, and curled the ball in. 1-1. I was fuming. All my hard work, up in smoke.
At the final whistle my players sank to the turf. John Champion kindly informed me that the draw wasn’t enough. I was out.
So that’s a trophy gone. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever win the Champions League on Superstar.
The league is looking up. I’m not out of it yet. Still just one defeat—that opening day mauling by Man Utd.
Man Utd are the soaraway CPU team-of-the-season, but they’ve now actually lost a match. I’m within striking distance, but I think if I suffer one more defeat, or even a few too many draws, it’ll be over and I’ll be scrapping to finish 4th again. A long way to go, though.
The FA Cup is still on. An easy first few rounds now sees me in the Quarter Final against Sunderland. It’ll be tough, but I should win. If so, it’ll probably be a semi-final meeting with Man Utd. Then one of the big boys in the Final, if I get there.
I’ll say this for PES2012. It’s lasting.
And I had some wonderful transfer news in late November of 2026. Come January, I’ll be joined by the 29-year-old veteran, SIBON. Yes, I finally got my man.
I have no idea why the latest repeat bid—probably my 20th bid in total—was successful, but it was. I gladly paid £40m for a striker who seems at the top of his game right now, but may be about to decline.
That’s OK. As long as I get one good season out of him, it’ll have been worth it. Roll on January 2027.
Max—I remember you trying to get into Windows Movie Maker. Back when I was on Windows I remember that application as being very crashy, to the extent that I switched to Camtasia Studio. Don’t give up your idea of a full movie. Your goals are tailor-made for the full-length movie treatment.
Paul—I very nearly had my own rage-quit this morning, in a big match that I want to cover in tomorrow’s post, so I won’t say much here now. Suffice to say it was the straight-from-kickoff SCRIPT (that’s what it is) that made me so angry I could have cried. Yes, cried, with anger. But I carried on, and you will too eventually. ML is the drug, PES its wrapper.
Max – good news, that training consistency seems to be the key, I have just added the 1m trainer as well so hopefully lots of red arrows without the need to condition. Not buying certainly helps improve the staff which in turn seems to get the most out of the youth/defaults. It did take me a few games to work out where I wanted Ribeiro but last year I used Emile Heskey/Carlton Cole a lot in that position and they scored a lot of similar goals (and were equally slow).
NG – I think the situation is if he is on form, and the AI isn’t set to ‘he is not going to score’ then very little can stop him at least getting one on target. He has scored in CL games, against all the top sides and in finals. It’s the Rory Delap throw in – you know it’s coming but how do you stop it if your CB is 10cm shorter (which is why I try and get 190cm+ defenders!)
The international nonsense is typical of why rather than a switch off rage I have had a ‘restart annoyance’. I couldn’t handle reloading so I get a bee in my bonnet about starting the whole thing again.
Irjescu exhibit B.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=priRhYSa6aw&list=UUHP1eFV4BFZCzKR059rX0Sg&index=1&feature=plcp
Nothing realy special about the shot but it was to win the game 4-3 in the 89th minute. Realy happy with the win of course but it was a bullshit match full of every kind of scripiting imaginable. I went behind 3 times in the match and every time i equalized the AI went into beast mode. After this game i switched off as i could tell i was heading for a down swing, red form players miss placing pass after pass ect.
Uncle turf- Ribiero was on 7 in 6 games but has been purple and blue arrowed for another 4-5 in a row, i might switch training to form before the next game to get him back in the team!
Wheres that cinalton goal??
NG- not even pending the post now? haha
I would realy like to do a highlights reel but i can’t live with the quality of my replays! if only there was a way to convert PS3 saves.
I dont mind losing games in PES, god ive lost enough of them, but to lose by absolute bullshit blatant scripting match after match is disgusting.
I NEVER reload, but after my abysmal session earlier I just turned the PS3 off, so when i loaded PES up again a bit later I had to replay those two games again, and if i won them, id have no guilt or qualms, as i was blatantly ass-f**cked by the CPU, and have been many times, so had no issues with winning the reloads.
The first game i had to replay, FA Cup tie to Cesena, theyre best player is lower rated than my worst, my team is superior in every dept.
ALl my players were on red or orange form arrows, yet couldnt pass 5 yards, missed simple shots, straight at keeper or wildly wide, parking the bus, you name it.
If ever proof was needed that PES is heavily scripted this was it. The first time i played them i went 1-0 up before losing 2-1 in last min of extra time, both CPU goals absolute bullship script goals.
This time round, the game followed exactly the same suit, went into extra time, the CPU almost winning through yet more scripting, before i finally won on penalties.
Both games though, different team selections, different tactics, etc, both were heavy scriptfests, and both went into extra time, despite being different sessions.
The game decides the outcome before you start, im sure of it.
Played about 6 games on PES today…. struggled to score a goal….. the game is just playing at the absolute worst it can, and when PES is bad, its putrid.
Fast falling out of love with it at the moment.
So many things that just annoy, frustrate and disgust me, all seem to be adding up to an inexcusable mes, every session.
Paul- i feel your pain. This afternoon I played about 5-6 games of classic pes magic, the type when you lose you don’t really notice and just jump straight into the next match. Then it started, what i call a down swing. Slowly over a couple of games the scripting gradually gets worse and worse until you hit bottom and your players are unresponsive and every lose ball falls to the AI. This afternoon i could feel this happening so switched off to not get stressed out. Later on with an hour to kill before the Portugal Holland game i thought i could squize 2-3 more games in so i loaded up. W1 D1 L1 it was horrible, i scored an own goal in ALL 3 games each out of my control and the rest were bullshit freekicks. I tried the L1-R3 trick and they some how still scored a shitty floater. For these games it felt like i was using a different formation and tactics, my team felt stretched and i had no options when on the ball. Players were not making any runs and players popping up all over the pitch when they never usually do, Ribiero at RB!?. I can deal with the scripting its fun to try and beat what annoys me the most is the game not letting me play.
Another fine goal max but that vase is a shocker! Sort it out….
uncle turf—I often find the post-International games a tad easier to cope with the post-post-International game, after your best players have been in to ask for a rest.
Max—I love the Exhibit B Irjescu goal—am a big fan of floater-type goals that the CPU keeper just watches into the net.
Paul—I think you’ve been generally on a down-curve with the game for a few weeks now. The highlights seem to have been getting less and less frequent. Why not give FIFA12 a proper week or two to see if its time has come at last? If/when I finally tire of PES2012, that’s my plan. If you love FIFA12, great. If you go back to PES2012 with renewed zest that’d be great too. Win-win scenario.
leroy getz—Max’s vase looks suspiciously similar to the generic Cup awarded in football games where the real one isn’t licensed! Maybe it’s custom memorabilia?
Absolutely max. I hear ya mate.
Its something that needs addressing totally for PES13 – Its like Ferrari making a new model thats the best drive of your life, but will only start up once every 3 or 4 attempts, and when it does you dont know if its going to try and steer itself or let you steer!
As ive said before, when PES plays properly, ie scripting isnt that evident, its the best PES ever made.
When it employs all its dirty cheat tactics, its possibly the worst, most frustrating and annoying video game ever made.
You could cope with the odd smattering of shitty sessions, but every one is like that at the moment.
Oh well, try again tonight……
Paul—as I said in my last comment, I don’t think you’ve been in the PES2012 zone for a few weeks now. What changed, a few weeks ago? Was it all the moving around the difficulties, unsettling you? Whatever it was, you could probably do with a few days or a week off. FIFA12 might be worth a look? Or an older PES game. (Did you get PES2012 for the Vita?)
Or failing all that, just jump back into PES2012 and take its often bitter medicine…
Not really, have had odd sessions where its annoyed me but not to this extent.
Nothing has changed. Just seem to be rolling the black side of that random die!!!
I think its just down to the fact that the game is very unbalanced and when youve played as many hrs as I and yourself have, the bad points are far more apparent along with the good points.
Has anyone else noticed that when the CPU plays one of its infamous defense splitting through balls or lofted through balls and you track the runner with your defender, if you use super cancel so you can manouver your Def into a better position to take the ball, then he will stop his tracking run then carry on, every time, giving the CPU CF 2 yards of space to run unchallenged on goal ?
The vase- if you think that’s bad you should see the curtains! I moved into a new flat a few months back and the previous owner was an old woman. We cleared out most of the stuff but that vase weighs an absolute ton and we decided to leave it for another day, plus it doubles as a lamp…
Nevermind the Vase, i was more impressed with the bottles of alcohol to the left of the tv
Paul—I go through phases of being annoyed by different things, and at the moment it’s a tie between the straight-from-kickoff script and the one where you play the perfect aerial through-ball but can’t unglue your player from the defender’s side to run onto it.
Max—that vase IS the Supercup in PES2012, I’m sure of it.
At the end of the day – and possibly with the exception of the shooting – I think by now we have to put all these moans down to the same as the recurring moans we all have about real footy.
The occasional scripting is like the occasional dodgy ref our teams suffer from.
Or it’s the goal that never was or the disallowed goal that should of been.
I really don’t get stressed by this game at all any more and switching to Fifa or an old PES is only to switch to a different set of reasons to feel wronged.
John—I’m pretty much at peace with PES2012 now and have been for some time. I only have micro-annoyances that come and go, not macro ones. The biggest danger for me is becoming exhausted with the immense effort and focus required to compete on Superstar.
I’ll be sticking to the game until I feel I’ve reached a natural end-point or suspension-point, whether that’s a Title, a Treble, or just the year running out and PES2013 landing on the doormat. I’m often tempted to fire up FIFA12 out of curiosity, but I don’t want to break the ML spell. I agree with the Bible: “No man can play two football games: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve PES and FIFA.” (Matthew 6:24)
(Sneak preview there of one the The Book’s ‘amusing’ epigraphs… I am due to resume intense work on it in July and have it done by September.)