PES Chronicles

Today’s post is the final one for the month of November 2008—and it has been a strange old month. At the start of it I was playing FIFA09 and Manager Mode exclusively, and PES2009 was an unwanted guest. If you’d told me on November 1st that by the end of the month I’d be playing PES2009 with great enjoyment—and without having to force it—I would have laughed, or said you were crazy, or done whatever else it is that people do in these “If you had told me…” constructions.

But after getting the sack in a FIFA09 career and—yes—feeling more than a little ‘FIFA fatigued’, I decided to have a few sessions on PES2009. I still mostly disliked the game at the time, although I was intrigued by the peculiar way that PES2009 actually plays a slower and often more considered game of football than the supposed uber-simulation of FIFA09.

The rest of November has been a great surprise to me. I found a lot to like about PES2009, and one thing led to another, and before I knew it PES2009 and me were all over each other. I found something worth pursuing in PES2009, a chink of light, and plunged into it. I never expected it to happen, or even particularly wanted it to happen. PES2008 accumulated a lot of bad karma for Konami and Seabass. I was ready to see PES fail.

The topic of PES2009 and ‘fun’ has cropped up from time to time over the past month. It’s a wearily constant refrain on the pro-PES forums (“PES is fun; FIFA is not fun; PES is great because it’s fun”, etc.). There’s a hell of a lot of assumption in this standpoint. Was the only reason anybody played ISS/PES for ten years because of fun? I really don’t think so.

Hand on heart, I don’t like PES2009 because I think it’s ‘fun’. From my perspective, I’m playing it for the same reasons that I ever played any ISS/PES game—because it involves me and fascinates me and challenges me. Somewhere in the mix, there is something called ‘fun’, but it’s not the prime element of the strange alchemy that makes a good PES game—as I think PES2009 is.

The rise of PES2009 in my estimation hasn’t seen a corresponding fall in my admiration for FIFA09. Yes, FIFA09 has faults, some of them glaring. They’re all well-documented and much-discussed on a dozen different forums. But ‘no game is perfect’ is one of the great truisms of gaming. And FIFA09’s faults don’t prevent if from being, in my opinion, the superior football game. The gap isn’t as huge as I thought it was back in October, but it’s still there.

If I was forced to come up with review-style scores for both football games right now, I’d give PES2009 an 8.5 and FIFA09 a 9. A month ago those figures would have stood at 7 and 9.5 respectively. What will they be a month from now? I can feel a regular monthly feature coming on.

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Back in PES2009 itself, I was at the tail-end of season number 5 in the lower division. One of the more-ish things about PES2009 for me is how tough I’ve found it, particularly after last year’s (non-)effort.

Spending more than three seasons in Division 2 is unprecedented. Only now, in season FIVE, am I finally scrapping for a promotion spot.

I was second in the table with four games to go, one point behind the leaders. My next opponents were those leaders: Middlesbrough—a team who, a bit like FC Bosphorus of old, always seem to prove tough.

The menu screen was in no doubt what the big game represented:

Eh? The title decider? With three more games to go afterwards? Not quite a decider, I’d say. Good old eccentric captioning—a new PES tradition.

I won the Middlesbrough game 1-0. And took possibly the blurriest mobile phone photo ever taken with my trembling hand. I defended well and snatched a scrambled goal with Kim Cyun Hi in the second half. Lots of my games are ending 1-0 or 2-1 at the moment. I’m having a mini golden age of defending.

After the final whistle there was a brief celebration by my players on the pitch. This made me tense up, because I thought the game was about to award me the D2 Championship three games too early. What a monster bug that would have been. But no, the celebrations were only about promotion. The victory had mathematically ensured promotion. I’d done it! After five long, mostly hard seasons. Promotion to Division 1. Whew.

After this, of course, I was top of the league. All I had to do was keep winning and the title would be mine. I wanted that Championship—I could taste it. I can’t remember that last time I went up to D1 as D2 Champions in any Master League.

Sadly, I drew one of my last three games. The CPU has a knack of scoring late heartbreakers this year (more than any other), and it got one, and I lost the title because it. So much for that Middlesbrough game being a title decider.

Here’s the final table:

My bogey team, AIK Athens, are going up with me to Division 1. Good. I owe them a beating or two.

Hopefully that’s the last I’ll see of Division 2 in this career. Although, now that I’m moving up to Top Player difficulty, and PES2009 remains overall a tough game for me, and I’m going to go off and play FIFA09 for a while, who knows what could happen? Never say never. I nearly got relegated last year. It could happen again.

I won’t resume this ML career until about this time next week. When I do, I’ll have a lot to talk about. There’s a massive flaw in the all-new ML transfer market that had me seething with rage. In PES2009 you get scout reports that tell you why some players won’t sign for your club. One of the reasons is ‘He won’t come to Division 2′. That’s fair enough when you’re in Division 2… but what about when you’ve just won promotion to Division 1? It wouldn’t apply then, right? Right?!

Wrong. This is PES. This is Konami, and Seabass. The game treated me as if I was a Division 2 team all the way through pre-season negotiations. Even the pre-season friendlies were billed as ‘Division 2 pre-season friendlies’. Grrrrrrr. The crazy thing is that isn’t really a bug. It’s due to the way seasons in Master League are organised. But I’ll talk about this in more depth when I return to PES2009.

The natural break will do me good. The first signs of PES2009 fatigue might just have started to appear, with me trying to ‘auto-pilot’ my way through large chunks of matches. So a quick hop over the aisle to FIFA09 is called for on a number of levels.

Monday will see me return to play regular daily sessions of FIFA09 for the first time in almost a month. At the time of writing I’ve already had my first session—and I still think the game is glorious. And—dare I say it—it’s a lot of FUN. Yes, the faults are there, but when a football game plays as good as FIFA09 does, you can overlook the faults, or even manage to forget them. It’s a bit like PES2009 in that respect. But I’ll save all my gushing for next week.

The wheels have come off my season. Not in a big way – I’m still in touch with the promotion spots. But it’s been a disappointment after getting off to such a good start.

Hammarby beat me 4-2 at my ground in the second round of the Cup. I went 1-0 up in the game and it would have been enough to take me through on away goals. But Hammerby just steamrollered me in the second half.

I’m 11th in the table and 10 points behind the current 3rd-placed team, Wigan Athletic. I’m only 11 games into a 38-game season, so it’s still feasible that I could haul Coventry City into the top 3 by the end.

I’m scoring enough goals to win and draw key games. But I’m conceding more goals than I’m scoring. I’m conceding ridiculous goals – goals like nothing I’ve ever seen before in any PES game.

A CPU free-kick within 30 yards of my goal is usually as good as a penalty.

Corners continue to be a problem – especially ‘blind’ corners from the opposite side of the pitch where the camera – even on Wide – cuts off my view of the six-yard box. Defending these is a matter of using the radar and some guesswork.

Ad hoc games of pinball take place around my box. My players are mysteriously incapable of passing to any of their team-mates, until a CPU player gets hold of it and rifles in a shot.

Occasionally, any old random CPU player will turn into the superhuman love-child of Maradona, Pele, Michel Platini, and Zinedine Zidane combined, and twisty-turn a slaloming path through my entire team until in on my goalkeeper. And then gently chip the ball into the net.

It’s crazy stuff, some of it.

I can’t complain about my goalkeepers. Friedel and Ivarov have been playing alternate games. They’ve both played really well, considering. One of the big complaints some people have about PES2008 is that the goalkeepers are poor. But I’ve yet to see either of mine palm the ball into the net.

Friedel in particular (still only 18) is shaping up to be a great shot-stopper, just like his real-life counterpart. But for some of his meaty slaps at the ball, my goals-against tally would be a lot higher. Thanks, Brad.

There are other plus-points too. Schwarz is the #1 goalscorer in the Division so far. He has 5 goals. Which doesn’t say much for the Division, but I’ll take it. Shimizu and Traore are joint-4th on the Assists table.

It’s a peculiar season. Neither one thing nor the other at this stage. In the previous two seasons, at least I knew where I was by now. I was bottom of the league.

This season is still in the balance. I’m mid-table. A good run is needed now, I think, for me to have any chance of going up to Division 1.

What a relief. I don’t think I have ever wanted the end of a Master League season more. Getting thumped by almost every team is not much fun. Trying to make things happen with a squad of players that make Tony Adams at his worst look like Maradona at his best is no fun at all.

I actually won a game right at the end of the season. I won it 2-0, with a good header from a corner and then, wonder of wonders, a penalty. It was my first 3 points since before the mid-season negotiations. Things were that bad.

I finished the season bottom of Division 2 by some distance, with a pathetic goal difference and my tail firmly between my legs. At least I had persevered. No reloading or restarting for me. That isn’t how I roll.

My player wage bill would be 9500-odd points. I had 17000-odd points in the bank to spend. I approached the negotiations quite nervously. It’s so easy to overspend and incur a Game Over. It’s also easy to be too cautious and underspend, leaving yourself hamstrung for the first half of the next season. There’s a golden mean which I have become adept at hitting over the years. But rarely before now had it ever been so critical that I get this negotiation period right. My bungled mid-season negotiations had seen to that.

Yes, I had the luxury of a full eight-week period (as opposed to the measly mid-season four weeks). But I still had to be careful. In the first week I had to decide whether to renew several members of my squad’s contracts. This in itself was irritating, as negotiating with your own team – whether you want to extend their contract or not – counts toward the total number of players you can negotiate with, which is limited. As things turned out I was only able to bid for one new player in the first week. I had 31 players in my squad and the maximum allowed is 32.

I headed straight for the Search By Openness To Negotiation category. (Incidentally, it’s nice to see that they spelt Openness correctly this year.) For anyone who is struggling on Master League, I heartily recommend heading to this list of players. Only a few of the players here could be classed as world-beaters (and even if they are, you almost certainly won’t be able to afford them) but they are exactly what you need to get a Default squad out of the doldrums. I should have concentrated on this list of players in the mid-season instead of pursuing Mathieu, but the past is past now.

(On the subject of Mathieu, I did try to get him again but now his team doesn’t even want to negotiate a trade-in deal with me. I can’t afford an outright bid. I’ll get him next time, hopefully. He’s still only 24 years old in the game, so I have a good few seasons left to try yet. )

Just because a player appears on the Openness list it doesn’t automatically mean you’re a certainty to sign him. More often that not, if you can drum up the cash and/or a player to sweeten the deal, you’ll get your man. But it’s never a sure thing.

Without further ado, here are the players I placed bids for over the eight negotiation weeks, and got:

Suzuki (DMF/CWP)
De Ridder (WF/SMF)
Mao Molina (AMF)

These are all good solid midfielders. I do keep going on about the desirability of having midfielders, and that their solidity be unquestionable… ‘Cos it’s important, is why.

I also picked up two players from the peculiarly-named ‘Unbelonging’ list (i.e. unattached and out-of-contract players). This is another favourite stop-off point for the cash-strapped and struggling Master League player. In many ways I prefer it to the Openness list. You only have to offer a contract. There are no transfer fees or exchanges involved:

Klavan (SB)
Rommedahl (WF)

Klavan is a left-sided SB who will easily displace Ruskin in my starting line-up, wonder goals notwithstanding.

I also picked up yet another youngster from the New Players section. He’s a 17-year-old Brazilian SB (right-sided) called Guimaraes. His stats are already better than good players a decade his senior, and the only way is up. I have high hopes for this player. I can see him playing in my team for 15 seasons.

You cannot acquire players without getting rid of some. Especially when you have a bloated squad like mine is. All of these players departed:

Baumann (sold)
Lieberman (sold)
Castolo (traded)
Gutierrez (traded)
Lothar (released)
Ceciu (released)
Stein (released)
Huylens (released)

I usually dislike releasing players. It seems a waste when you can trade them in for slightly-better players in the future. But in PES2008 the penalty for releasing players is comparatively low – 40 or 60 points or thereabouts, as opposed to the hundreds of points in previous games. I also wanted to get my wage bill down, as well as make room for other players in the future. Positioning myself for a good mid-season negotiation period next season does no harm either.

So, six players have come in. I’m happy with my acquisitions. I think I have had a good negotiations period. Admittedly I would have liked to get a good young goalkeeper, but I didn’t see one that immediately caught my eye, and time ran out. I deliberately refrained from getting a striker, as a couple of my new midfielders can also play up front, and I have decided to start playing Shimizu as an out-and-out CF anyway. I’ll be looking for a GK, a CF, and a CB next time.

After a lot of agonising in the Formations screen, this is my new First XI:

I’ll keep Rommedahl on the bench for now. These First XIs at this stage are so provisional anyway. Fatigue, injury and suspensions all mean that it’s rarely the same from one game to the next.

I did play one pre-season friendly, against a randomly-chosen side called The Goliaths. They beat my new team 1-0. I didn’t care. It was only a five-minute match (I temporarily changed the match length because I was so impatient to get the new season going). And I saw enough from my new team to know that the season ahead is going to be a very different prospect than last. Schwarz, playing out on the left for the first time, even had a good game, and I should have scored with him at least once.

One last thing that I did in the close season: I changed my away kit to a Real Madrid-style all white. The home kit stays Sky Blue, always.

So now for the new season.