Category Archives: master league

Why is it always Sparta Praha

  By not-Greg | May 15, 2013 - 12:00 | , ,
47 Comments

PESJP2013 ML screen

I’ve begun Master League in PESJP2013. New post-match screen above. That was a Training match on Professional, just to ease myself in. Why is the pre-season opponent always Sparta Praha?

This will be a very text-light and picture-heavy post. I played this morning, and played a few more games than anticipated.

PESJP2013, with my custom settings and custom camera (as seen below), is just so damned good.

PESJP2013-camera

I have started as Anderlecht, original squad, in the Eredivisie. The Italian Serie B is the Division 2. I cannot be arsed with realism. Give me a fantasy world of my own any day. As the great Homer Simpson put it: Every day, the real world just gets fainter and fainter.

First order of business is winnowing the squad down to manageable levels. I hate having a squad of too many.

PESJP2013 before the game

Player development is ON. I’m using a different stats database—the Matrix one, which I believe is more realistic. Yes, that contradicts my anti-realist crowing just above. And?!

PESJP2013-BBC

The various tweaks and nudges of the PESJP patch continue to delight. The novelty is a long way from wearing off.

My ball-weight and referee-strictness adjustments continue to impress me too. It’s not a wildly different game from vanilla PES2013 that I’m playing here, but it’s just different enough to make it intriguing. Not being able to slide-tackle with carefree abandon changes everything fundamentally.

Reggina were my first opponents in the league season proper. I put it up to Top Player for this game. Went behind early and thought, uh-oh. But soon stormed back to a 3-1 victory. And got a player sent off for a tackle that wouldn’t even have been a yellow on vanilla.

The current table:

PESJP2013 ML after 1

With one thing and another, my footy gaming levels are still criminally low. No time.

But for the first time in months, I want to play more than I can. This is frustrating, because I simply can’t find the time—but it’s also reassuring. The old passion hasn’t gone away for good after all.

Happy Sheffield Wednesday

  By not-Greg | April 3, 2013 - 12:00 | ,
100 Comments

After some flitting about I think I’ve settled on my team and setup for the non-development Master League on PES2013.

Sheff Wed squad

It’s going to be Sheffield Wednesday, with their original (patched-in) squad, in the Championship.

As seen here on the right. That’s a good mix of player abilities. Shame about the 80OVR keeper, but I could always sell him. Or keep him.

It wasn’t all plain sailing to get to this stage, as will be seen. And I’m not truly settled here either, as will also be seen.

I went through three separate restarts of non-dev ML before arriving at what is hopefully my final one.

First I went with Catania in Serie A. Being reunited with my old chum Capuano was a bonus. But their players are too good. I won the pre-season friendly easily. Too easily. It felt a lot like my overpowered old ML save from a month ago.

Hmmm. This wasn’t a good start.

From there I tried the Defaults, using Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship. Readers with keen memories will recall that I never got round to installing the full and final WENB Option File before commencing my first, original Master League.

I have installed it now, with all the teams and leagues, the Championship among them.

Minandinho in Sheff Wed colours

I thought this Defaults non-dev Master League was going to be the one. The mixture of 50s and 60s OVR players seemed ideal. Mindandinho looked good and actually handled quite well for a player who would be stuck on 63OVR forever.

But I didn’t enjoy meeting the Defaults again under these circumstances.

It just didn’t feel right. Castolis and Minandinho and co. exist in order to be cultivated, historically.

I’d be swimming against the tide, against all my own established habits and practice.

I played two matches of this attempt at a non-dev ML, and turned it off midway through the second match. The Defaults in a non-developmental Master League might well be a brilliant experience. Currently, it’s not for me.

Now I knew that it would have to be an original squad. I took a good look through the Championship. And I settled on Sheffield Wednesday, who have a good mix of players in their 60s and 70s OVR.

I played a few matches. Won the pre-season friendly, but that didn’t mean anything. I lost 1-2 at home to Birmingham in the opening match.

New ML after 1

I was expecting to be instantly grabbed by the throat and for this to seem the most compelling thing ever. It didn’t happen.

I spent most of the second half of the Birmingham game wondering if I’ve finally encountered the law of diminishing returns in my football gaming.

I found myself thinking of all the books I’ve got to read (and write), the TV shows and movies to watch, the other games to play.

I also found myself thinking of PES2010, where I have a great Coventry City original squad ML save on ice. And of PES2011, where I’d just finished a season with another CCFC original squad.

This is restlessness. This is always wondering if the grass is greener.

Or it might really be the beginning of the end. I’ll be 41 this year. FORTY-ONE. As I’ve remarked recently, I can no longer play shooter or action-adventure games. They no longer interest me. They bore me.

Do I think I’ll be playing football games forever?

Do I think that just because I spent all of 2003 playing football games (which I did), I therefore have to spend all of 2013 doing the same?

Questions, questions.

I don’t know the answers.

I do know that if this Sheffield Wednesday thing doesn’t work out, I’m not going to force it. Not for the sake of the blog, or for anything.

Betwixt and between

  By not-Greg | March 29, 2013 - 12:00 | , , ,
38 Comments

I’m strenuously resisting the urge to go back to PES2013 for a non-developmental Master League experience. I’m against chopping and changing my football game at a whim and don’t want to encourage bad habits in myself.

It’s a tempting call because I really do think that PES2013 is the apotheosis of next-gen PES. Every good idea they’ve had since 2007 was put into the on-field action. What a shame it was so severely let down by the Master League and other modes. (I don’t regard any kind of online football—or ‘squeezeball’ as I call it—as a football game. I’m sure the people who play it like it. They’re welcome to it.)

Only PES2011 is keeping me from PES2013 again. Only PES2011 is stopping me installing the final WENB patch on the PS3 and setting up again in PES2013 with a new team in a non-dev ML.

I’m nearly at the exciting end of my first season on PES2011. The current table:

PES2011 on PC season 1 after 31

Too many draws have cost me my top-three spot. With three games to go, I could miss out on promotion (although somehow I think I’ll make it).

The final three opponents are all top teams, with at least one of them also vying for promotion:

PES2011 PC season 1 run-in

So I’ve been playing on with PES2011—only a few games per day, on average, but enough to keep the flame alive.

I’m even enjoying nursing a certain Myth from the depths of youthful mediocrity towards being a respectable striker again. This is him after almost one full season. He plays as a sub most of the time and gets the odd goal.

Castolo in PES2011

The 34-year-old Sibon has been hugely disappointing. One goal since he signed mid-season. I marvel at how PES uncannily models the fading performances of a retiring player.

I swear that this game has got the PES ‘X’ factor. I rather misjudged it back in the day. I was too ready to see its gameplay features as insurmountable obstacles rather than as challenges to be dealt with.

I do miss a lot of what came in later PES editions. I sorely miss PES2012/13′s right stick control, especially at corners.

I even miss the ‘send player on run’ feature.

I also miss the L2+directional buttons method of changing the ATT/DEF levels.

On PES2011 you have to awkwardly tilt your controller towards yourself and press SELECT+R1/R2 in order to change the ATT/DEF levels. It’s never a comfortable way of doing it, and I’m not surprised it only lasted one iteration of the series.

Another downside to PES2011 is that I’m playing it on PC. Yes, the novelty has worn off a touch. The PC’s graphics and customisation options are wonderful, but I miss the convenience and routine of the console.

So the arguments to head back to PES2013 are stacking up, but I’m resisting—for now.

I do want to see what happens at the end of this season in PES2011. If I get promoted, I’ll be tempted to play on. But I know that if I play PES2011 into next season and pursue this career, it’ll be a while before I’m ready to look at PES2013 again.

And with so much PES under my belt, would I still want to play PES2013 in a few months’ time?

All things considered, the only window of opportunity to play a non-dev PES2013 ML might be right now… The decision time is coming.

The time and the place

  By not-Greg | March 20, 2013 - 12:00 | , , ,
84 Comments

ML2011 front end

Playing PES2011 on PC means a better class of screenshot. See the old front end of Master League 2011 above. It doesn’t take long to settle back in and resume navigating the long-abandoned menus and features like a champ.

The theme for today is: PES2012 and PES2013′s Master Leagues: what happened?

ML2011 mid-season 1 formation and squad

Here’s my mid-season squad. This is after all the mid-season transfer activity. Many of my starting Coventry original squad members are already history.

I’m currently only playing on Regular difficulty—due to go up to Professional for the latter half of the season (because it would be rude not to).

I bought the 36-year-old Sibon in what is probably his last season before retirement, figuring his goals and power might just take me over the line into the Premier League.

Before the kickoff

Palmieri and Schmidt are raw Youths but still better than the Coventry City original defenders that my option file came with.

I also got Ruskin. That’s a journeyman right-back, Damia, on the other side. And a journeyman striker up front, Pavone.

Here’s the table—only on Regular, remember. I wanted to ease myself in, and I’ve done that. No, there’s not many goals around:

ML2011 season 1 after 16

These screenshots are scrumptious, aren’t they? I like not holding my phone up to a screen. I like rather a lot about being on PC, actually. I’m not a convert to the Master Race yet. Consoles are just too convenient and hassle-free in too many ways. But let me just say that the PlayStation4 doesn’t feel like as much of a must-have item as it did a few weeks ago.

And of course this ‘old next gen’ Master League with all the features can be enjoyed on any platform. I’m enjoying PES2011.

Sibon’s individual training regime, as designed by me:

Sibon Training

I figure I might as well get all the shooting and power out of him that I can in the last months of his career.

Here’s young Palmieri’s training regime, on the other hand:

Palmieri Training

Much more balanced, with no shooting training for now. The way PES2011 plays, I’ll rarely want to see Palmieri storming forward.

Here’s a gratuitous shot of the Myth of Castolo about to score a vital goal:

The Myth in Motion

I’m playing in a  generic lower league stadium for now.

ML2011 my stadium

Looks lovely, doesn’t it? Here’s another one from another stadium—Watford’s:

The Goalkick

But what about the gameplay? What about the stumble? What about the step-around? What about everything that almost drove me crazy back in 2010-2011, and is still there for all to see?

This post from May 2011 is fairly representative of the loathing I came to have for PES2011. What about all that?

What about it indeed. I just don’t know. There’s no accounting for context, really. Some things have their time, and it feels as if this is PES2011′s time for me.

The PES that got away is now firmly back in my sights.