So now it’s November, and I’m playing FIFA09 as my main game. That’s how it looks like being from now on. We’ll see how the land lies in January and beyond, but I never thought I would ever see the day that the new PES gathered dust while FIFA—for the love of God, FIFA!—stayed in my console as the nights really started drawing in.

I’m sure I’m not the only PES fan who still feels shellshocked about what has befallen the PES series over the last year. In the run-up to FIFA09 and PES2009, although I gave it the big talk and brayed that I’d play FIFA instead of PES if it came to it, I never really believed PES2009 would disappoint me. I believed (in spite of all evidence to the contrary: the mark of a true believer) that it’d be a triumphant return to title-winning form for PES, and that I’d come running back to the fold after my dalliance with FIFA.

Things haven’t worked out as I thought they would. PES2009 barely gets a look-in. I might play it for a few mornings per week, but that’s all for now. Inevitably, at some point in the future I will tire of FIFA09, and I will play PES2009—and I’ll enjoy it. I know this because PES2009 is an adequate football game, and I will still be able to get a lot of joy out of Master League.

It’s just a shame PES2009 is not so, so much more. Like most PES fans, I anticipated a lot from PES on the current new generation of consoles. The reality of PES2008, and now PES2009, is like the taste of bitter ashes in my mouth.

I think this current generation of consoles has effectively been written off by Konami and Seabass (curse his miserable hide). Annual incremental updates are all we’re going to get.  I believe that we won’t see PES truly evolve until the next next-generation range of consoles. I’m talking Xbox720 and PS4. Mark your calendars for 2011 and beyond. And even then it might not happen.

Below is a random picture taken during my two games in Master League. I’m so dissociated from PES now. I just went through the motions, listlessly pushing the analogue sticks hither and thither, tapping the buttons… What has happened to me? I can’t even be bothered to talk about the Regulate Condition screen. (Now that’s not something you see written down every day.)

I’m not going to talk about these couple of games on PES2009. It’s not worth it. I didn’t enjoy them. There were flashes of the old PES fire, here and there—points of light winking in the velvety blackness—but they made me feel sad rather than hopeful. PES isn’t dead, but it’s fast asleep, almost comatose, and its doctors and nurses don’t seem to want to wake it up.

Will I be just as deluded for PES2010? I can say now with conviction that I won’t be. I will also swear right now—and come October 2009, I will be held to this—that I will not buy next year’s game if it’s just another incremental update to this year’s game. I’ll probably wait a few weeks or months and then pick it up second-hand. I’d rather give my money to a games store or to an eBay seller than to Konami and Seabass.

Yes, I know it’s ‘only a game’. I do leave the house occasionally.

Me and PES2009? We’re happier today. But not by much. If yesterday was a 7/10 day for me with the new game, today was a 7.5/10 day. I’ll come to today’s positive impressions at the end of this post, thus leaving my second impressions on a relative high…

Yesterday’s mostly negative first impressions of the full game were a surprise to some readers—and to me. Yes, I thought too that everything was poised for a tear-jerking reunion between me and Pro Evo. What a storybook finale that would have been. What a comeback. Strolling off together into the sunset, hand in hand.

In years gone by I loved every new PES game without fail. I was one of those people who couldn’t see what critics were talking about when they complained about a new PES game. I remember from PES3 all the way through to PES6 that people would post on forums about the new game only being a cosmetic update—a few new animations and some tweaking to various game mechanics (passing, shooting, etc.).

I cared nothing for negatives back then. It was literally inconceivable to me that PES was anything other than glorious. Life was good.

What I loved back then was the core PES game—the scaffolding around which every new game was constructed. PES5 and PES6 weren’t very different—but so what? You don’t change a winning formula. More power to Konami—and to Seabass, bless him—for recognising that you don’t change a winning formula. Incremental updates in the PS2 era were a totally good thing.

But not now they’re not. Not when the scaffolding is next-gen PES2008.

That sturdy old incremental update philosophy has been applied to PES2008, and the result is PES2009. And at the moment I dislike it. There are improvements, there are positives (I’m getting to them)—but at its core this is PES2008 with those same few tweaks.

I’ve spent most of the year calling for old-style, classic PES to be remade in glorious HD. I said that would do nicely. But I don’t think PES2009 is that game.

This morning i played a couple of Exhibition games and some International Cups. This is how I always start a new PES game. Acclimatising myself, until I get to a certain point (I’ll know it when it gets here) when I’m ready for Master League. Usually it takes a few days. I should have my Master League up and running by Sunday night/Monday morning. I’m going to give this game every chance to win me over.

And it could still win me over. I always hark back to how I received PES2008 at this time last year. I liked it. I even loved it at times. The rot didn’t set in for a few weeks. So my falling-out with PES2008 was an organic process. It happened gradually. It’s always possible that I could go through a similar process in reverse with PES2009. And this morning I did see some silver linings among all the clouds…

Some general great positives about PES2009:

• Graphical excellence. Forgot to mention yesterday that I think the graphics are superb. No, this is not as important as gameplay (don’t we know that after all these years?), but I actually prefer PES2009’s graphics to FIFA09’s. I know they’re technically inferior to EA’s game, but I’ve always loved PES’s unique art style. You know a PES game screen just to look at it. The game has finally arrived in the HD era. Crisp, clean, and sharp. A genuine pleasure to look at.
• The new passing game. I was unconsciously trying yesterday to force my way to goal in the style of PES2008. Today I calmed down and really did just pass it around. For quite long periods I saw flashes of a happier future for me and PES2009. The game forces you to slow down and take more care. It’s not as arcadey as PES2008. The R1 sprint isn;t as ludicrously overpowered as last year’s. Sprinting will only take you so far. You’d need a good few yards’ head start to get away from a defender.Which leads me to…
• No wonder dribbling. I’ve often said how I always traditionally played PES in a pass-and-move way without ever dribbling much, or at all. PES2008 changed all that with its notorious ‘wonder dribble’, where you could take on entire teams with one moderately skilful player even on Top Player difficulty. The good news about PES2009 is that this seems to be absent. I’ve tried it, and failed every time. Other reports are mixed… It’s early days.
• Shooting. I can’t score! Well, I can’t score many. And this is a good thing. I’m ‘only’ getting one or two goals per game (in ten-minute games). Whether this lasts is another matter. It’s probably tied into my averageness as a PES player. Other players are reporting cricket scorelines already.

Slightly more optimistic. I wanted PES2009 to be a good game. I still want that. By this time next week I think I will know for sure.

——

With all the excitement of release week and playing the new game, my posting schedule has been thrown slightly out of kilter. I’ll have to skip tomorrow’s (Saturday 18th’s) post now. I’ll post again on Sunday, when I should have a few more bumper sessions of PES2009 to talk about. At this moment I wouldn’t like to predict what I’ll be feeling about the game from hour to hour, never mind in two days’ time…

So, it’s been a few days now. A few more PES2009 gameplay videos have appeared. A lot more reports are filtering through from people who’ve actually played the game.

Today, as of right now, I’m deeply concerned about PES2009. I hope that I am wrong, but I can see a nightmare scenario unfolding before my eyes.

On Wednesday I was quite happy, with just a few reservations. I was happy about the early reports that PES2009 is PES5 with HD graphics (as I and many others wanted it to be).

I’ve spent most of the past year whining about the hideously wrong turn taken by PES2008 (on PS3/360/PC). That game was an arcade score-’em-up for the kids. PES2008 in fact sold a lot of units, but it did so on the franchise’s reputation alone. Right? Right?

Surely Konami doesn’t think PES2008 sold well on its own merits? Because if they do think that, PES is in big trouble. The kind of trouble from which there is no coming back.

The more I look at the videos coming out of Leipzig, the more worried I get. Yes, I wished for a Hi-Def PES5, and IF that’s what’s truly on offer then I’ll gladly take it. But I’m looking at these videos, and hearing these hands-on reports from players at Leipzig, and what I’m seeing and hearing is: welcome to PES2008 part 2.

This is the nightmare scenario: that Konami and/or Team Seabass felt no need to change what for them is a winning formula, and pressed on with a tweaked version of last year’s (in my view) disgraceful excuse for a PES game. My greatest fear all year has been that PES2009 would be merely a touched-up PES2008. Almost everything I’ve seen and heard so far from the Leipzig exhibition hall just reinforces that fear.

The only gleam of hope thus far has been the WENB hands-on preview. They also seem to be bemused by the appearance of the game at Leipzig. Debate currently rages across several PES forums as to whether or not the game at Leipzig is an older version of the game than the one played by WENB. And, if the versions are different, which version is the one we’ll get to play? Confusion reigns. There’s some extremely bitter in-fighting going on in the PES community right now. It’s like the Fall of Rome out there.

The acid test will come with the demo, which I now hear will appear for both the 360 and PS3 “in the week of release”. Hmmm.

It’s all very worrying. I don’t know what to think. On the one hand we have WENB’s (and others’) testimony that PES2009 is a next-gen PES5. Once again I have to say that, if true, I’ll take it and be very happy about it.

But is it true, though? Really?