Well, this is a bit of an anti-climax. Here I am at the mid-season transfer window… and I’ve got a transfer embargo on. There’s nothing to do, really, except press the X button as many times as it takes to get me through to Week 19 of the season. I really have got one of those abortive boomerang controllers for my PS3, you know. Honest…

Several posts ago I was talking about my talented left-winger, Melengue. I was worried about his suddenly-discovered ability to run literal rings around the opposition—often performing actual loop-the-loops, what with this being next-gen PES2008 (curse you, Seabass).

This next-gen PES2008 phenomenon of wonder-dribbling, as I call it, sees any in-game player of modest abilities or better (i.e., a lot of in-game players) able to go off on unstoppable runs and beat as many players as it takes and slot an easy goal into the net at the end of it. On Top Player. No, I don’t know what Team Seabass was thinking either.

My House Rules are designed to prevent me having any players with the abilities to go on wonder dribbles. Thus, Melengue had to go. So there had to be some transfer activity after all.

I looked for a decent AMF to swap him for. I found a player called Zicu who, unlike Melengue, was mainly left-footed.

The name worried me: Zicu was sufficiently like Zico for me to suspect an ‘Elcherino moment’ approaching. But Zicu is not Zico. He’s Romanian, for one thing, and his abilities are pretty modest. He’s got decent pace, though, so he’ll have to be watched for signs of wonder-dribbling.

And that was that for the mid-season negotiations. Zicu takes Melengue’s place in the First XI, and it’s on to Week 19, and whoever I’ll be playing there…

I’m not very enthusiastic about the future for me and this game.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (because it’s true): next-gen PES2008 is a terrible PES game.

In its own terms, considered as a standalone game, it’s an okay football game—a solid 7/10 football game. But in terms of the PES franchise? I’d give it 4/10.

For probably the first time since I started this blog, I am not a few days ahead of matters. As of right now (Thursday afternoon, 28/2) I haven’t got any further in PES2008 than the latest news in this post—the signing of Zicu.

I can’t guarantee there’ll be any new news on Friday. I feel a bit PESsed off, to be frank.

I would far rather be playing other games right now. And no, I don’t mean the likes of FIFA08. Currently I’m less than enamoured by all football games, full stop.

I’ve got a load of great games to get through away from the sports genre. Oblivion, Halo3, Assassin’s Creed, Command & Conquer, Mass Effect. I’m currently playing through the opening hours of Okami—a criminally neglected PS2 game with cel-shaded, quasi-anime graphics that look utterly spectacular on the screen. The gameplay’s great as well, fortunately.

And I’ve been playing Portal on the Xbox360. I just finished it late last night. The entire game only lasts about four hours and sees you constantly jumping through wall-mounted vaginas (Freud would have a field day). But I think it’s the greatest game I’ve played for many years, apart from PES—the PESes before this disgraceful next-gen PES, of course.

I’ve been in these moods before and come out of them. Maybe I will again.

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POSTSCRIPT - 15.00 hours GMT

Just received an email from Amazon - my copy of the PSP version has dispatched and should get to me either tomorrow or Saturday. (I’m glad now that I resisted buying the PS2 version. Why should Konami and Seabass be rewarded for shoddy workmanship any more than they already have been?)

Could the PSP version save the day? It just might. I’ve been playing the PSP version of PES6 quite regularly over the past few weeks and—apart from the lack of player development in Master League and the shocking loading times—it’s not bad. Not bad at all.

We’ll see how it goes.

Singers FC are top of Division 2 at the halfway stage of the season. Here in this mid-season negotiation period I don’t need to get a load of new players. But I want to get some new players. It is very strange…

Is there a PES Master League player who is not conditioned to buy as many great players as he can in every negotiation period? It’s just the way you get after the difficult first season(s). Often it’s best to restrain yourself and simply make do with what you’ve got.

There are a couple of drawbacks to bringing in new players in PES Master League. The game models Teamwork, which is based on how effectively your individual players play together. New players will not fit in well to your team for a couple of games, or sometimes even longer. Passes will go astray and shots will go wide. (So how does that differ from normal? I hear somebody ask, waggishly.)

My squad has shown me that it’s more than capable of getting me what I want from this season—promotion—and perhaps even the Division 2 title as well. I don’t need to bring anyone else in.

Still, a few more players won’t hurt. But only a few. And they’ve got to be the right players. Players I need. Players who can fill a specific role in my squad.

I’ve had Morfeo in my squad ever since the first mid-season negotiations. He’s been good for me—he was great in his first season or so—but it’s time to move him on. He’s 36 and decidedly average now. He always was average, of course, it’s just that now he’s among much better players and it really shows.

I traded Morfeo for a player called Rasnic (AMF/SMF, both sides, 26 years old).

I won’t say too much now but Rasnic looks as if he could be a star.

He lacks pace, and he lacks any real special ability traits (such as Middle Shooting) that could make up for the lack of speed, but his other stats are all on the high side. Maybe he’ll be one of those players like Marcos from my last career who just comes from nowhere and turns out to be great and you have no idea why.

I also had a look through the Youth list to see who had popped up. Somebody worthwhile always pops up in the mid-season. That’s when the players who have retired at the end of the previous season reappear as 17-year-old Regens.

This time, I saw Stam and couldn’t resist him. (And isn’t that a great likeness of Stam, pictured right? The man looks like a Bond villain, no question.)

I also picked up Andy Cole—a player I had in my last ML career, and one of the few I’m allowed to have again this time around.

And that was it. Just three players coming in, with one going out as ballast in the deal for Rasnic. But I’m still left with 27 players in the squad. One of my key House Rules in this Master League career is that my squad can be no larger than 25 players. I had to decide on two players to release. (I did put some players up for sale, but that was a forlorn hope…)

One of the players released could be a Default player. Another key House Rule is that I must keep at least 5 of the original Default squad players at all times. I had 6 left: Valeny, Macco, El Moubarki, Libermann, Gutierrez, and Ordaz. One of them could go: I decided it was Valeny. The others have all got things going for them that Valeny hasn’t.

Which left me needing to ditch one other player from the remainder of my squad. It was tough, but I settled on Cassano. He’s been average for me out there on the right, and now that I’ve got Andy Cole I’ll be developing him from the start. I have other strikers who can play when Cole doesn’t. I don’t need Cassano. So it was bye-bye…

…and the game tried to scare me about it. What does it mean, Cassano will be sorely missed? I think that the game is telling me that jettisoning Cassano could cause my team popularity to fall, but that thing’s just window dressing. The team/player popularity mechanic is so half-heartedly modelled in PES2008 that it might as well not be there at all. The only times I have ever sensed it having any effect on the game was during my first ML career when I couldn’t persuade any clubs or players to negotiate with me in the transfer market. Otherwise, nothing. Nada, zip.

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Andy Cole slots into Cassano’s vacant right-sided CF position. Rasnic and Stam can stay on the bench for now. There are 18 games to go. I’m sure they’ll both see plenty of meaningful action before this important season is finished.