PES Chronicles

As I whined about yesterday, the game seems to have stepped things up a notch since I went top of the table just before the middle of the season. My on-again/off-again/on-again love-hate-love-hate relationship with Sunderland in PES2008 has taken a new twist. They were my next league opponents. I was more than a little chagrined to find myself 3-0 down by half time.

As usual, Sunderland’s world-famous striker Daryl Murphy played like the unstoppable, wonder-dribbling, simply irrepressible force of nature that we all know him to be from his real-life performances in the Premier League. The greatest footballer of this or any other generation scored a hat trick as my feeble defenders struggled to stop him and failed. Daryl was immune to any and every challenge as he powered his way through my entire defence just like he does every week in real life. I was lucky not to concede 5 goals to the maestro before half time.

Somehow I pulled myself together. I changed things around slightly by moving Melengue up to the left-sided CF role in place of the ineffective Leonardo, and bringing on Rasnic in the left-sided AMF slot.

The effect was immediate. I got a couple of goals back with Rasnic, including this one (eerily reminiscent of a similar long-ranger from Camacho)—

—-to make it 3-2. Then I scrambled the equaliser with Gutierrez just before the end. 3-3. I had to settle for that.

I took on PSV at their place and won 1-4. Liked it. Things felt natural again. Things are always going to feel unnatural when the game’s beating you, because the only way it can beat you is to handicap you in some way. Most of the time.

I played Parma and Benfica in the next two games and drew them both, 2-2 and 1-1 respectively. These were pretty good games. I felt they were fairly balanced. That’s what Team Seabass should be working on, I think: redressing the AI/human imbalance that has crept into the franchise over the past few years. The AI advantage shouldn’t need to be turned up to 11, ever.

Here’s another goal from the apple of my eye, Mathieu:

I was trying to go on a wonder-dribble with Camacho, but he’s not able for it (not yet) so I had to lay the ball off to Mathieu, with the outcome that can be seen. No, it’s still not a true forty-yard net-burster into the postage stamp corner, but it’ll come. I’m sure of it. Mathieu just keeps getting better and better. His value as a DMF is immense. When he plays (and it’s a rare game when he doesn’t), the opposition has a tough time making things happen down the middle and just in front of my penalty box.

—————-

My recent run of poor and indifferent results means that I’m hovering just on the outer edge of the promotion places: hanging onto 3rd place by goal difference, and only 6 points clear of the 5th-placed team.

However, I’m only two points off top spot. I could—and should—still have a great chance of winning the championship.

But securing promotion comes first. Another poor run could see me drop out of contention altogether. The seasons in PES2008 are long and tiring, and I do not want to go through this again. I really, really want promotion this year.

Maximum concentration is required for every game from now on. I’m itching to see what life will be like for me in Division 1 of this Superleague.

The last few games before the mid-season negotiations were all intriguing in their own way. I forgot to mention a few days ago that I took a pasting in the first leg of the second round of the D2 Cup. PSV beat me 4-1 at their place. That game was a disaster. No wonder I conveniently forgot to talk about it…Still, my away goal gave me a sliver of hope. A 3-0 at my ground was not impossible.

I gave it a good go, but never got very far. I was 1-0 up at half time and in with a shout, but there’s a problem in PES when it comes to playing matches over two legs. If you are winning the second leg but the CPU team is still ahead on aggregate, it doesn’t know it’s ahead. It’ll react just as if it’s a one-off game.

I barely had a kick for the rest of the game as the CPU asserted itself, desperately seeking an ‘equaliser’ in the match despite still being two goals up on aggregate. The score stayed 1-0 and I was out of the Cup.

Never mind. I won the trophy last season. Now I can concentrate on the priority: the league.

I had a good 0-0 against Atalanta. Once again I sensed it was a match that I should have lost—that the game wanted me to lose after my great recent run. Atalanta’s midfield seemed to have 10 players in it, permanently. I couldn’t get through no matter what I tried.

Ahhh, but the next game…

It was against Spartak Moscow. I won 2-0. Camacho got my first goal, a nice volley from a long cross.

The second goal? It was Mathieu, getting his first goal for me in his new incarnation on next-gen PES2008. Nothing outrageously special, but it gets him off the mark:

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And now I am top of the league at the halfway stage of the season.

Promotion? Definitely. I’ll need a good whipping if I don’t get promotion. The D2 Championship? Hopefully.

Next is the mid-season negotiations, where I plan to strengthen my squad. A couple more good players should see me through to the end.

—————–

So I attended hospital this morning (Monday 11th Feb) to have a wisdom tooth removed under local anaesthetic. After worrying about the procedure for weeks, I found there was no need. They have this new super-duper numbing agent nowadays that rendered the entire side of my mouth insensitive to any pain whatsoever. It was quite something. It wasn’t the faux-anaesthetic commonly used by dentists. The tooth came out easily enough with just a few tugs (hearing it come loose was the worst moment) and now I am back home.

I’ve just had a few games of PES in my current state. Ahhh, there’s nothing like PES… (The games weren’t the games that I talk about above, in the bulk of this Mathieu Scores! post. As ever, my real-time progress in PES is a couple of days ahead of the blog.)

The anaesthetic has yet to wear off, though. Something tells me I’ll have a wee bit of pain to deal with it when it does… I haven’t even made a start on tomorrow’s post yet. Hopefully I’ll get it done in the next hour or so before the jab wears off (it’s starting to wear off right now). But if tomorrow’s post appears later than usual, or is more incomprehensible than usual, or both, that’s why.

The first week of negotiations immediately presented me with a dilemma. Two CPU teams made bids for my players. One bid was 5000 points for Ruskin; the other bid was 7800 points for Altintop.

Both players were key members of my squad, especially Altintop with his burgeoning talent. What to do?

Okay. I’ve been thinking about doing this, and I’m going to do it: I’m changing my House Rules to include a rule that I heard about elsewhere.

From now on, “if a higher-ranked side comes in for a player, and offers the listed price or greater, he must be sold.”

This means I had to sell Ruskin and Altintop, right now. It hurt, but I did it. Away they went.

The point of this kind of House Rule is to make the transfer market more realistic. In reality a team that finished 6th from bottom of a league’s lower division (as I did last season) would never be able to keep a player that a better team wanted to buy. Even if the club declined the offer, the player himself would most likely rebel and the team would be unsettled. So in most cases it’s best to sell such players. That’s how the dynamics of the transfer marketplace operate in the real world, and now it’s in my Master League career as well.

But… I’ve got to include a personal caveat with the new House Rule.

Master League, for me, is immersive and compulsive for many reasons. One of those reasons is being able to get young players with average abilities and grow them over many seasons into superstars. I would sorely miss this aspect of Master League if I had to sell my best youngsters as soon as they showed a spark of a talent.

So I won’t sell them. Not all of them. I’m going to designate three members of my squad as protected players—they don’t have to be sold if bids come in for them. Two of those three players will be Camacho and Maldini.

And the third protected player will be… Mathieu.

I finally got him. Flush with cash from the sales of Altintop and Ruskin, I made two straight bids (just money, no exchanges) for Mathieu and a decent-looking striker called Cassano. Both bids were successful.

Throughout my first ML career as Coventry City, for five full seasons, I tried and failed to sign Mathieu, even when my team ranking was ‘A’ and then ‘S’. I have no idea why I’ve suddenly been successful in getting him this time around.

For the past three PES years, Mathieu has been the rock upon which I have built my teams. I’ve never played him as a left-back (unless injuries or suspensions have forced me to). Mathieu’s best position in PES is his alternate DMF position. Not even the likes of Gerrard has played better for me as a DMF through all the years.

Here’s Mathieu on the pitch in my first pre-season friendly, wearing the sky blue of Singers FC. I could hardly stop cackling with maniacal glee…

I hope Mathieu will be as good for me in PES2008 as he was in the last few versions. I’ll file a full report on his progress toward the middle of the coming season. If he’s anything like his illustrious counterparts in PES5 and PES6, I should have scored a couple of super-long-range blockbusters with him by then. Here’s hoping.

———————-

I bought a versatile WF called Melengue in a trade deal that saw Recoba depart from my squad. (Good riddance to Recoba: a good player, but absurdly unfit almost all the time. He only ever played about 1 game in 6.)

I also plucked a celebrated PES name out of the Youth list: Kompany, a CB. Both Melengue and Kompany are pictured to the left. Melengue has the most ridiculous hairstyle of any player I’ve seen on PES2008 so far. Kompany merely looks a bit camp. (Or kamp?)

I’ve never actually played with Kompany before, so I don’t know what to expect. At least the name ‘Kompany’ is rich in punning possibilities. If he has a couple of poor performances that materially affect my results, I’ll go straight for Bad Kompany, no messing.

I also picked up a decent young CB from the Rookies list called Serrano. Hiding in the Unbelonging list (always a must-see list for the stingy-minded ML manager) I found a great Brazilian left back called Marcelo. I needed a replacement for Ruskin. Marcelo and Bale will swap the left-back position between them.

I could have got plenty more players. Most of the cash from the Altintop and Ruskin transfers is still unspent. I’ve still got an excess amount of Default players in the squad. I could’ve gone mad on the transfer market if I wanted to. But I’m happy enough with the players I’ve brought in. I don’t want to buy new ones just for the sake of it. I’ll save my money to strengthen my squad in the mid-season period if necessary.

Here’s my new First XI and my 25-man squad in full:

Maldini drops to the bench, but he’ll still play in almost every game at either CB or SB. PES2008′s ‘quirky’ fitness and stamina modelling guarantees it. Caracciolo takes Altintop’s place as lead striker. Cassano displaces Kmolo. (And something occurs to me: 9 of my 25 players—over one third—have names that end in -O. I could easily assemble a novelty team made up entirely of such players. That might be one to think about for the future…)

——————

Pre-season friendlies. I only played the two matches that were chosen for me. Usually I like to skip pre-season friendlies completely, but when you have a lot of new players it’s always best to play a couple of meaningless games to enable them to settle down quicker. It still takes many more games for Teamwork levels to come up to scratch, but at least with two friendlies you’re getting a head start.

My friendly opponents were Lokomotiv Moscow and a South American Stars selection. I drew 1-1 with Lokomotiv. I was able to field most of my new signings from the start. Marcelo and Melengue are both very quick down the left side. Mathieu seems just as solid as ever, although I didn’t get any clear-cut chances to test his famous long-range shooting. They’ll come.

In the second game against the South American Globetrotters, I took a pounding. I was 0-3 down at half-time. Kompany was sent off as my frustrations grew. Somehow I prevented them from scoring any more goals, and then I noticed that their goalkeeper was taking all of their corners and free kicks. Near the end of the game, I got a consolation goal after one of their corners…

—————-

And so to business. There’s real talent in this squad and I plan to challenge for the title, not just push for promotion. Plus I’ve got Mathieu at last…

In my quest for a football game to play all year (it’s a bad year for PES) I was going to play PES6 today, FIFA08 tomorrow, and PES2008 on Thursday before making up my mind to play one, some, or none of them from now on. There’s been a slight change of plan.

I last played PES6 several months ago. My old Master League save is stuck on a PS2 memory card. I’m not going to pay £10 or £15 or whatever it is for a PS2 save converter that I’ll only use once. So there’s nothing going on for me in PES6 right now. I’d have to build it all again from scratch.

FIFA08 is a different matter. I wanted to play it this morning. I had to play it this morning. I’m in the midst of an ongoing narrative in FIFA08. I felt the urge to carry it on. I’m invested. I have a great manager mode career going with Coventry City that’s in its 6th season. Here’s my current First XI in FIFA08:

I’m playing on Professional difficulty – the middle of five difficulty levels. It’s hard enough for me at the moment. My record in the current season so far is won 15, drawn 6, and lost 6. I’m 4th in the Premier League with 11 games to go. I am also still in all the other competitions: European Cup, FA Cup, League Cup. The Quadruple is on.

Even with my team of quasi-galacticos I have to work hard for every result. Manchester City turned me over 1-3 in my last league game, denying me the chance to go top. I failed to take them seriously and tried to ‘PES2008′ my way to victory. It didn’t work because you just can’t play FIFA08 that way. Almost every goal has to be the result of thought and skill in some combination.

Take this goal for example. Van Persie applies what looks like a simple finish, but just watch the build-up:

I’ve just played and won the League Cup final. My opponents were Chelsea. It was a great game, one of the best I’ve played on FIFA08. It ended 3-2 to me – a rare kind of scoreline. I was 2-0 up but let things slip to 2-2. Then, in the first period of extra time, I scored another FIFA08 rarity. Goals like this do not come along very often in this game:

The shooting mechanic in next-gen FIFA08 is one of the reasons so many PES fans hate it. Everything has to be just so, otherwise the shot will balloon over or go straight to the keeper. In the above replay you can almost see me, the ghost behind the machine, waiting for the ball to bounce just right, and then guiding the shot toward the far corner.

No other FIFA game has affected the PES community like FIFA08 has. The forums over on PESfan show a lot of confusion and anger flying around in all directions. Some posters love next-gen FIFA08; others hate it; still others are somewhere in between, as I am.

People are very categorical when it comes to games. “FIFA08 is the most realistic football game ever, no question.” “FIFA08 is crap!” They interpret their own estimation of any game as an objective, infallible, universally-applicable measurement of the game’s worth. But it is not so. Check this interesting PESfan thread (membership required to view) for abundant examples of frayed tempers, partial judgements taken to be objective truths, and sheer aggro. I’ve stayed out of all the arguments, despite being tempted. My days of arguing on the internet are long gone.

I think I could play next-gen FIFA08 for the rest of the year. I don’t think I’d play it every day, as I have done with PES games in the past, but at the moment it’s the leading candidate. There are gameplay issues that rankle, but PES has issues too, and I never had any trouble loving PES (until this year).

But I can never quite shake the feeling that liking next-gen FIFA08 is shameful in some way.

I can feel my cheeks almost burning with shame and peculiar embarrassment to admit that I prefer next-gen FIFA08 to PES2008 (at the moment; PES will still get one more chance). Liking FIFA has for so long equated to being a frivolous and shallow football gamer that it really does almost stick in my throat, despite this year’s next-gen version being a wholly original and refreshing change of style.

Tomorrow I will be playing PES6. If I can drag myself away from my pursuit of that Quadruple…