PES Chronicles

I’ve finished season 2014 in my Master League career with a semi-flourish. I lost the D1 Cup Final, but won the Masters Cup Final and the League. I’m happy with that.

The D1 Cup Final continued the dominant theme of Wednesday’s post. The feeling that a certain kind of outcome is favoured by the game and there’s little or nothing you can do about it.

I scored early, but then the game equalised and that’s how it stayed. 1-1 for 90 minutes. In PES Cup Finals over the years, I’ve often felt that extra time is mandatory. As if the game’s working to a quota system.

I.e., if a certain percentage—40%, or whatever the real figure is—of real-life Cup Finals go to extra time, then the game programmers are damn well going to make sure the same thing happens in PES. I played well enough in the 90 minutes to score a dozen goals and win a dozen matches, but it was never going to happen. 1-1 was the outcome.

Extra time passed without incident. I lost the penalty shootout quite badly. Somehow I managed to skew my first two penalties ridiculously wide. There was no coming back from that.

The Masters Cup final was much better. I ran out a 4-1 winner over Arsenal. The game was a lot closer than that scoreline suggests. It was 1-1, again, for most of the match. I only scored my three other goals in the latter part of the second half.

And so to finish off the League. In the race for the title I’d been suspiciously caught up by a free-scoring London FC. With three matches left we were level on points. I was second on goals scored.

I focused. I focused. And I experienced three of the most satisfying matches of Pro Evolution Soccer I can remember playing in a long, long time.

My three opponents were Middlebrook, Arsenal and Marseille. I beat them all. The scores were 1-0, 2-1, and 3-1 respectively.

When PES really comes together, there’s nothing else like it. I passed, I moved, I created opportunities, I defended well.

And at the end of them I was top of the table. PES United were champions. London FC had drawn one of their matches. I had a cushion, but I had to win that last match to make sure.

Below is a very brief clip showing two goals from my run-in. Zoro, my right-back, is the hero of both goals.

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In the first, I’m madly pushing for a goal. I have switched to my 1-2-2-5 all-out attack alt formation on the strategy button. Ronaldo gets the ball out wide, crosses, and there’s Zoro—my right back—rising on the 6-yard line to glance the ball in with a header. For the second goal, Zoro is running down the wing and lays on a subtle short through-ball for Aguero to rifle the ball past the keeper.

And that was season 2014. Now for 2015 and the Treble…? Is there time?

Hmmm. Am I going to play another season of PES6(360)? Probably—but it’s not certain that it’ll be a very quick season…

Most likely I will play season 2015 v-e-r-y  s-l-o-w-l-y. I’ll have the PES2011 and FIFA11 demos to occupy me. Plus a lot else besides.

I’ve got unplayed games and unread books and unwatched TV shows & films piled up to the roof. From early October I think it’s likely that PES2011 (and maybe FIFA11) will take over my gaming life (and my life?), so I’ve got a lot to get done now.

Wednesday this week saw a lot of new stuff emerging about PES2011. We were treated to a slew of new impressions, previews, videos, screens, prognostications, impromptu manifestos, propaganda, wailings, gnashings of teeth, semi-apocalyptic sacrificial cult-offerings, random FIFA-bashings, flamings, counter-flamings—and the forums were even worse (da-dum-dum-BISHHH!).

When did football gaming get so political? In the Internet era, of course. As sson as people can talk about something in an approximation of a real-time colloquy, they will start forming factions and falling out about things. The tabloids go on and on about Facebook and perverts and the like, but they’re looking in the wrong direction. The politicisation of football gaming is the real big issue of our time.

There’s a lot at stake for a lot of folk, on many levels. The PES-FIFA combatants—and we are all one, to some degree—have their angle. The cudgels are being warmed up as we speak. And at the other extreme are the purists who just want to be left alone in their remote hilltop fastnesses, meditating, writing poetry, and playing Pro Evo or FIFA—or even something else—as they please.

I’m a Master Leagueist. That’s my particular faction. It doesn’t upset me when people critique ML’s faults and omissions, because I know they exist and I accept them. I embrace them. Playing FC Goteborg for the English title doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Quite the opposite. Master League is its own world. Licenses are not required.

I have no worries about Master League. But I am worried about a lot of things to do with PES2011. So far we have heard next to nothing about the state of the AI. A very welcome part of the current WENB podcast (from around 45:00 to 55:00) is the most substantive AI news I’ve come across—and it’s very encouraging. But that’s got to be lot less than 1% of the current PES2011 output across the Internet. At this stage of the build-up, is that really good enough?

Single-player might not be ‘where it’s at’, but it’s still where most of the players of football games spend most of their time. And it’s the place where every single football journo without exception spends about 1% of their hands-on preview time, and even that’s grudging.

Fine, I can appreciate that the journos travel in packs, or in pairs at least. When they rock up at Konami HQ (I said ‘rock up’? am I down with the kids, now?) they are shown into a comfortably furnished room. There’s a big padded settee. Cool drinks. A shitnormous plasma TV. And two Xbox360 controllers sitting there, just waiting.

Under such circumstances, Hypothetical Games Journalist A might think it churlish to turn and say to Hypothetical Games Journalist B: “Hold on there, sunshine, I’ve got to play Algeria vs Paraguay for an hour while you sit and watch”. But they should. They’re not supposed to be there for their own benefit, but for ours, the end-consumer’s benefit. Surely?

Oh, bollocks to it all anyway. This phase of the phoney war will be over soon enough.

I’m still playing PES6(360), and still loving it. My sessions on the game are so good that I’m getting near to a belief that PES6(360) in gameplay terms is at least the equal of the PS2-era games. The passage of time, and maybe a touch of near-middle-aged senility is affecting me there, but it’s a definite feeling nonetheless.

I’m still saving up goals for a compilation—probably in a few weeks’ time—but here’s one that I have to show off now. I really, really enjoyed this one, but exactly why may not come across in the video. It’s a clipped first-time shot with the side of the foot, up and over the keeper from a fairly acute angle.

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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:

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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…

Just short of one year ago, I picked up a copy of the Xbox360 version of PES6. I played it for a couple of months. I got through 6 seasons of Master League. I enjoyed it as much (probably more) than my ML career in PES2009.

I only stopped playing PES6(360) because FIFA10 appeared. We love new shiny things in the world of gaming.

As of this week, I have resumed that aborted PES6(360) Master League career. I cannot take BaL any more. I can’t go back to PES2010. I can’t go on with FIFA10. I’ll be playing PES6(360) for the foreseeable future. (It’s worth noting here that the Xbox360 version of PES6 is NOT the same as the revered PS2/Xbox/PC version. Which wasn’t one of my favourites.)

PES6(360) was the first next-gen effort from Konami. Somewhat infuriatingly, it remains the best next-gen PES to date, in pure gameplay terms. (Features-wise it’s probably the poorest effort since the ISS days on the PlayStation. I’ll talk some more about this over the coming weeks.)

A year ago laid the groundwork for today. Below is a record of the career so far. Thanks to PES6(360)’s lack of Editing, I’m playing as PES United. I had my usual struggle with the Defaults. I loathed the Myth of Castolo all over again. The only thing I won was the Division 2 title in season 2008. The current Division 1 table for season 2013 is at bottom right:

The Treble just wouldn’t come for me in the latter seasons. In fact, as can be seen, I was a long way off winning anything at all. So there’s a lot of unfinished business in this career.

As for my squad... It’s a good one, if a little light in numbers. There are some great players—Bradley, Mathieu, Kim Cyun Hi, Schwarz, Ronaldo (not the Regen: the original!). It’ll take me some time to pick up the old negotiation system again.

I’m finding it strange coming back after so long. It’s like when you wait a year for the next series of a favourite TV show. You know you should remember the characters and the plot more than you do, but it takes an episode or two before everything comes flooding back. I’m finding the same with PES6(360). At the time of writing I’ve had about three long sessions covering about 6-8 matches each. I’ve more or less got back to where I was last year.

The AI in PES6(360) is amazing. It’s hard. It seems to do things that the AIs in PES2010 and FIFA10 never tried to do. It closes off passing channels, forcing me to indulge in the extended, methodical build-up play that I recall being one of PES6(360)’s most endearing characteristics. That could just be down to my average skills, of course.

Why am I going back to PES6(360)? What gives?

The story of season 2010 for me has been PES2010 Master League. It’s been brilliant, my best ML experience since PES5. My mouth is almost literally watering for PES2011. But I can’t go back to PES2010 now. I have had about 20 matches on it since I stopped, and it seems ridiculously easy. I don’t want to sully the memory of a magical eight months.

The second story of my 2010 gaming year so far has been the relative failure of FIFA10. It’s had its moments. But no more than moments, really. Manager Mode might as well not exist at all.

How about online play? It’s not for me. I don’t like the style of football that manifests itself online. Double-sprint-pressuring is the near-universal technique without the ball. My wrists ache enough already, thank you very much…

Which leaves me with this heap of unfinished business in PES6(360).

To close off today, here are two goals from my early sessions in the return to PES6(360). The first is just a typical PES goal. I include it here because of what it meant to me. After my appalling time with BaL, I needed some football gamin’. I carved out this opportunity with Schwarz in the midst of a tight match. As I teed up the shot, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, which was to sort of whip it over and around the keeper. It came off. The second goal is a type of goal I don’t remember scoring many of in PES. One of the hallmarks of a great PES game is that it can always surprise you—it can always show you new things. My looping cross that went in a surprising direction showed me something new all right. It came in the early sessions as well. It was as if this game was saying: what took you so long?

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