So, I’ve been toiling along in PES2008 over the past few days. I switched from the PSP version to the PS2 version, and something hasn’t clicked back into place. I don’t know what it is. I’ve got my theories about screen sizes and controller button placements etc., but it’s more probable that I’m just suffering from PES fatigue and I need a short break to recharge my enthusiasm. A day or two on FIFA08 (I still instinctively shudder to say it) should sort me out. That’ll happen on Monday now.

Here in PES2008, I’ve lost key games in every competition. This was not good in a season where I’m going for another Treble. But every now and then when you’re toiling along in PES, a chink of sunshine breaks through. You get a good game—in this case, it was a very good game. It was the last game before the mid-season break.

Espanyol are not a bad team. They’re not up with the best teams either, but they’re by no means one of the Division’s basement clubs. as ever on PES, these are the kinds of teams that it’s often hardest to play against. I worry about playing teams like Espanyol, Villarreal, Osasuna et al far more than I worry about playing Barcelona, Real Madrid, Deportivo la Coruna et al (Valencia being the sole exception).

The game went my way on this occasion: 7-0. It’s a high-scoring PES year across all the consoles. Things are not so bad (or good, depending on your perspective) on the last-gen PES2008 as they are on the next-gen game, but even so, 4-1 and 3-2 and similar scorelines are sadly a bit more common in ‘classic’ PES than they were in the past (come on Seabass, sort it out for PES2009). But a 7-0 win is still rare enough for it to remain noteworthy.

I was only 2-0 up at half-time. Usually when I inflict a hammering on the CPU, I get most of my goals in the first half and then have to get through a much tighter second half as the CPU exerts itself to get goals back, as if it’s only 1-0 or 2-0 down. In this case, the CPU was only 2-0 down. There was no hint of the goals deluge to come as I defended desperately to avoid conceding. On a random kind of breakaway somewhere around the 60th minute mark, this happened:

Good old Giggs. In real life, for my money, Giggs is one of the very few players who realised most of their wunderkind potential. Who can forget that goal back in 1999? In PES2008 I think Giggs is the best he’s ever been in PES, full stop. I got him as a 17-year-old and he’s 22 now. This goal was an example of my favourite type of PES goal: taken on the half-volley at an angle from outside the box. It’s the kind of goal that a 4-3-3 formation like mine is particularly suited for, with its wide frontmen just waiting for those aerial through balls to come bouncing through.

Giggs went on to claim a hat trick. Kim Cyun Hi got two goals. Andy Cole got one, Bradley the other. A 7-0 win is special in any kind of football, real or virtual.

In all my years on PES I’ve only ever scored one full volley (not a half-volley) from an aerial through-ball. It came over two years ago in PES5, and it can be seen toward the end of my first PES5 compilation video. Maldini floats the cross-field aerial through-ball over to Bergkamp, who deliciously thumps the ball into the net without letting it bounce first. That PES5 incarnation of Bergkamp (he was a Regen) remains the single best striker I have ever played with in 10 years of ISS/PES. The rest of that video (and its follow-up) shows why.

At the time of writing, hordes of disgruntled PlayStation3 owners will say that one of the main reasons they bought their console was for PES2008. The game turned out to be seriously disappointing—even its relatively few admirers would acknowledge that to some extent. Ever since, PS3-owners have been kicking themselves, and whining to anyone who’ll listen—on the internet, in the supermarket, on street-corners—that they feel swindled.

But the whole scenario has a precedent. It has happened before. It will happen again.

In 2005, one of the main reasons I got a PSP was for PES5. The hotly-anticipated first handheld version of PES was beset by technical problems (ahem) and wasn’t released until late November 2005, as I recall, but I thought I’d snap up one of Sony’s sleek new PSP machines on launch day in late August anyway. (I also picked up a copy of World Tour Soccer with it. Not bad for an hour or two, and the sheer luxury of playing a proper game of football on a handheld console was amazing.)

As it turned out, the first version of PES on the PSP was almost soul-crushingly disappointing. Even the normally-slavish Official Playstation2 Magazine, who at the time gave automatic 10/10 review scores to all things PES (and justifiably so, in my opinion), could only bring themselves to give PES5 on the PSP an 8/10. It lacked almost everything that I loved about the game. Not having a Wide camera was bad enough—but no Master League? That was just ridiculous. I played it for a week or two, off and on, chugging through International Tournaments without enthusiasm, trying and failing to convince myself that I was getting an authentic PES experience.

PES6 on the PSP was a lot better. At least it had a Wide camera. At least it had Master League. But it was still not right. There was no player development in Master League, which rendered the whole experience curiously flat and uninvolving. It got more action from me than its predecessor got, but not much more.

In PES2008 on the PSP, Konami finally got it right. Yes, there’s still some slowdown when the screen gets packed, but it happens rarely enough for it to be forgivable. Master League is there in all of its bigger-console glory. PES2008 is the handheld PES that I was expecting back in 2005. Shame about the three-year wait, but better late than never.

Which brings me to the point I want to make: if the PSP experience is any yardstick, we really could be waiting until at least 2010 for a great PES on the PlayStation3. Fingers crossed that this is not the case, but I think we should be prepared for that to happen. There’s no automatic reason why it must be the case. Indeed I have a strange feeling in my water—a completely irrational feeling, based on nothing concrete—that PES2009 is going to be amazing, or at the very least adequate. That’s all I ask of it, really: that it be adequate.

None of the above chit-chat means I’ve stopped enjoying my Master League career as Coventry City on the PS2/PSP versions of PES2008. The reason why I frequently talk about my hopes for PES2009 and/or pick at the old wound of PES2008 on the PS3 is that I have this great sparkling next-gen console, and here I am playing a PS2 game on it, and I have to wonder just why and how this state of affairs came to be.

This blog is a record of my daily PES experiences. My epic disillusionment with next-gen PES2008 is an integral part of my PES experience this year. I really do think about it almost every day. I may well be deemed clinically insane and/or just plain sad as a result, but it’s true. Hopefully in a year’s time I’ll be waist-deep in PES2009, and I’ll be able to look back and laugh.

I’m still enjoying the PSP/PS2 game as much as ever. At the moment it’s on course to be one of my favourite instalments of PES. I’ll know for sure in a few months’ time, but right now I’ll say it could eclipse even the mighty PES5 (the PS2 version, of course) in my affections.

Week 12. I’ve won all but three of my league games. I drew those other three and remain unbeaten, and top of the league. I haven’t had an unbeaten season since PES4. That’s another thing to aim for this season, as well as the Treble.

I’ve started the Division 1 Cup—and it was very dodgy indeed. Playing against Villarreal at home in the first leg, I only managed a 1-1 draw, which gave them an away goal to play with. Careless.

In the away leg, I had to score, and I did so. I took an early 1-0 lead and that’s how it stayed until the 90th minute, when they got their equaliser. Ho hum. 1-1 in both legs, then, meant extra time unless I could score straight from my kick-off. I played the ball to Dos Santos (who continues to be a sublime left-sided AMF, by the way) and went on a little run, played a one-two, broke through their defence… Could I finish? Yessssss…

There was no time for the CPU to come back. At this stage of the season I’m comfortably top of the league, comfortably top of my European Championships group, and still in the D1 Cup. The Treble is still on.

In this sickeningly disappointing year for PES gamers, I am flailing around in search of a football game to play for the rest of it. I’ve narrowed things down to three potential choices: PES6, PES2008, and FIFA08. Today it was the turn of PES6 to be given the once-over.

I have already flirted with going back to PES5 (my most-favourite PES). But after all this time, I found it wanting. The gameplay was too fast for me. FIFA08 can probably be blamed for that. And I found myself repelled by, of all things, the graphics.

What do graphics mean, really? When I say graphics I mean good graphics. Great graphics. The summit of what modern technology can achieve.

I never thought that graphics meant anything to me. But I’ve discovered over the past few weeks that they do mean something to me.

I don’t like to think of myself in that way. I don’t like to think of myself as the kind of gamer for whom graphics mean something. (Thus I will probably contrive to continue to believe that they don’t mean anything to me.)

But they do mean something.

——————

I enjoyed my session on PES6 this morning. It wasn’t as big a shock to the system as PES5 was. As I have mentioned previously, I am playing a sneaky Master League career on the PSP version of PES6. It’s just something I dabble with on bus jorneys and lunch breaks, occasionally.

The crucial thing here is that I didn’t need to relearn the game’s quirks during today’s several games on the PS3. I already knew them.The pace is almost as fast as PES5, but not quite as fast. And the graphics are better. You still know you’re playing a PS2 game, though, and that is a problem.

I never thought I was a graphics snob until I got a PS3. In five years’ time, when the next next generation of consoles comes along, I’ll probably still think that graphics don’t matter. But they do.

I loved Lords of Midnight on the ZX Spectrum back in the day - 1985 was it? So long ago. As a strategy game fan I would acknowledge it to be one of the genre’s greatest. But a few months ago I played an emulated PC version and… it is bad now. Lords of Midnight is bad now. After so many years - after all the Civilization games, the Total War games, the Command and Conquer games, and so, so many more - it looks and plays like a musueum piece. It is a museum piece.

Match Day 2 is another ZX Spectrum game from more than two decades ago. I don’t specifically remember much about this game, but I remember playing it to death. As with all football games of its era, there was a virtually guaranteed scoring method. The graphics were cutting edge for the time (honestly).

Graphics dictate much more than how aesthetically pleasing a game is. They dictate what games can do in terms of animations, and this in turn dictates the depth of the gameplay. Next-gen PES2008 would seem to be a case against the point I have just made (when playing with good players, it is as about as deep as a puddle). But the immersion factor should not be overlooked or downplayed.

On my HDTV, with my next-gen PS3 console, I’m used to playing games that look stupendously great. Games that shine out of my screen with a preternatural, shimmering grace unmatched by any kinds of graphics from the past. Call of Duty 4, anyone? Oblivion?

I played three games of PES6 on my PS3. I swear I wasn’t biased against it beforehand. If this game grabs me again, I thought, I really will toss PES2008 out of the window. I have no difficulty adapting my expectations to play it on my PSP. Why should things be any different here on my PS3?

But they are different. The gameplay seems shallow without the shining-bright next-gen graphics. I’ve behaviourally conditioned myself over the past few months to expect more when I have a joypad in hand whilst in front of a HDTV.

So my football game this year won’t be PES6. PES6 is another game that I have to consign to its place - the past. If there was nothing else available, I’d play PES6 and be happy to do so.

One thing that PES6 does have going in its favour is online play. The servers are still open and busy. Not surprising, that, with PES2008 continuing to be a disgrace online.

I’ve also been playing next-gen FIFA08 today. The Quadruple is still on. I’ve already won the League Cup. I’m in the semi-final of the European Cup. I scraped into the FA Cup Final on penalties. I’m top of the Premier League on goal difference with three games to go. If/when I win the Quadruple in FIFA08, will my interest in the game diminish?

Tomorrow sees the return of PES2008 on my PS3. I’m actually looking forward to it. For all of its impressive realism and formidably difficult shooting system, FIFA08 can be a bit tiresome some of the time.

It still angers me that none of this would be necessary if Seabass & co. hadn’t dropped the ball and pushed out a sub-standard arcade game ‘for the kids’ this year.