PES Chronicles

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.

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?

So. The word is out: PES2009 is PES5 with HD graphics.

That’s the consensus opinion so far, at 6pm on 20th August 2008. Today was—and still is—a very big day for Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.

A next-gen version of PES5 is what many PES fans called for. I called for it too. Now that it seems I’ll get what I wished for, how do I feel about it?

I don’t know yet. I’m still taking it all in.

I’ve been taking in all the news since midnight last night. Early indications were not good. WENB was down even at 1 am last night, which doesn’t really bode well for the next few months. Thankfully I was able to follow the latest developments on the various PES forums. (Or should that be fora? I’m never sure.)

A couple of websites leapt straight in after 12.00. One said that holding X+Square (clamping, as I call it) far too easily wins the ball back from the CPU. I really, really hope that doesn’t turn out to be true. Talk about a game-breaker.

This morning brought better news. I got up fully expecting that WENB would be down and would remain down all day. As it turned out, they’ve been up all day (disabling their forum temporarily eased the load on their server). It’s been a great source of information.

The WENB previews are positive, as I expected them to be. There’s more than a bit of discussion in the PES community about just how trusting we should be of the WENB coverage of PES2009. Their infamous preview of the PlayStation3 version of PES2008—”Three times better on Blu-Ray”—will indeed haunt them for some time to come. (How much wronger could they have been?!)

Last year they were just starting out, just finding their feet. Their connections within Konami were tenuous at best. But the WENB boys’ enthusiasm for PES cannot be denied, and they see the game through fans’ eyes. Casting my mind back a year, it was literally inconceivable that PES2008 could be anything but magnificent. That fixed pre-conception clouded lots of people’s judgements.

I’m disposed to view WENB’s output this year as being more or less trustworthy. No more or less trustworthy, anyway, than elsewhere on the Internet.

They somehow chose the noisiest cafeteria in London in which to record their ‘videocast‘. Knowing how dismayed Suffwan was by his first hands-on with PES2008 last year, it was interesting to watch his facial expressions as he gave his (qualified) endorsement of PES2009. What do the little glances aside, away from the camera lens, signify? Reservations? Or simple camera-shyness?

Later in the day came the first gameplay videos. At the time of writing (just after 18.00) there are only two gameplay videos that I know of. Now I find this damned strange. Why aren’t we up to our necks in shaky-cam footage from the Leipzig hall by now?

Anyway. I clipped the below segment from the best video so far. The clip is around 20 seconds long, and shows two things. One, it is disturbingly similar-looking to PES2008. Two, the new heavier-looking physics (of players and of the football itself), and the slower speed, are very welcome.

It still looks too fast for my taste. It still looks pretty arcadey. But it’s early days yet. Best not to rush to judgements. This post is only my first impressions for now. I think it’s fair to say that I’m still suspicious of PES2009—what I’ve seen and heard of it. I wished for a new version of PES5 a couple of times, but never actually thought I’d get it. I’m confused.

I think a comment made by Adam in his article on WENB sums it up well. By reverting to an older, tried-and-tested set of gameplay mechanics, Konami has played a ‘get out of jail’ card. It was easy for them to do this. For that reason alone there are some PES players who will never forgive them. FIFA09 sure is looking mighty good.

The next few days will doubtless bring more revelations, videos, and hands-on impressions. (In particular I can’t wait to hear what Riot, a regular guest on the WENB podcast, has to say about PES2009.) I’ll hold off saying any more for now while everything sinks in. I’ll post again on Friday with a more considered reaction.

“Ohhhh, Pro Evo…” This, supposedly, is what Seabass was in the habit of saying, with his head rightly in his hands, whenever anybody reminded him of the fairly dismal first iteration of the game on the PSP. I wonder what he does when people mention the PS3 version of PES2008? I just wonder.

But it wasn’t completely terrible. As much as it’s tempting now to condemn it as an unmitigated disaster, I have to remember that for a month or so I thought PES2008 on the PlayStation3 was a pretty good game.

That seems incredible to me now. I thought it was good for so long due to my averageness at PES. It took me an age to discover for myself what many people were saying on Day 1. In PES2008, on the hardest difficulty setting, you really could dribble past entire teams using almost any player. After I finally discovered the universal ‘wonder dribble’ for myself, I could no longer take the game seriously. It was no good trying to stop myself doing it. Knowing it was possible was enough.

And in many ways the ‘wonder dribble’ was among the least of the game’s problems. When you factored in the shoddy graphics, the slowdown, and the frankly disgusting quality of online play (how Konami have got away with that one in particular is beyond belief), it was easily the worst-ever showing for our beloved franchise. Ohhhh, Pro Evo….

It’s been almost a year now and the wounds still haven’t healed. I still feel raw and emotional. I still haven’t got over the shock. One of the many kicks in the balls that PES2008 represented for me was that I was one of many who had bought a PlayStation3 specifically with PES2008 in mind. Yes, it’s safe to say that with PES2008 I got burned badly on almost every front.

Is it any wonder that my spirits refuse to rise (much) at the prospect of PES2009? By this stage there have been plenty of rumours and leaks, enough to pique even the most jaded interest. Call me an old cynic, but everything we’ve discovered so far about PES2009 is just too evocative of last year’s false hopes and ruined expectations. I remember last summer very well. I remember frequently thinking that within just a few short months I’d be playing Pro Evolution Soccer on a next-gen console.

I think my expectations were in proportion. I expected a good, rewarding PES game. I was never one of those who believed it would be the most staggeringly great football game ever created.

A favourite hidey-hole for PES2008 apologists is that the fans’ expectations were too high. Well, my expectations for PES2008 were for a Pro Evolution Soccer game. Nothing more, nothing less.

And that’s what I’m expecting for PES2009. All I want is for it to be a worthwhile game of Pro Evolution Soccer. Not an arcadey, tween-oriented mess.

We’ll see in good time whether this summer’s hopes for PES2009 all turn out to be misplaced. For now, I’m going to set aside my cynicism and examine the most significant leak of information yet. Last week a wealth of information appeared online, courtesy of a supposed games-tester, fresh from testing PES2009.

I’ll glance over this alleged Deep Throat’s main points about PES2009, one by one:

• “Gameplay is PES2008, the way it should have been.” I may be the only man alive who can get worried about a comma, but the comma in that direct quotation does worry me. For me it places undue emphasis on PES2008, as if PES2009 will indeed just be an updated PES2008 (the Doomsday Scenario…).
• “You can no longer run straight through anyone with Eto’o or Ronaldinho.” Setting aside the fact that in PES2008 you could run straight through anyone with the likes of Gary Neville, this is good news if true. But are we really going to start being grateful to Seabass & co. for taking things out of the game that should never have been in it in the first place? I’m not. I’m grumpy and I’m staying that way until further notice.
• Refereeing and diving have been improved. PES2008′s referees gave instant red cards for tackles in non-critical areas of the pitch. They were too fussy, too card-happy. Hopefully they’ll be back to normal for PES2009. And diving was a pretty good idea IMO, if a little misapplied. After trying it a few times in PES2008, I never used it again.
• Attacking and defensive play are more balanced. Goalkeepers in particular had to be improved and hopefully will be. Fully 50% of all goals scored came from the keepers’ useless pat-a-cake saves.
• Licensed teams and players. Don’t care, never have cared, never will care. It’s all about the gameplay. Licenses are a luxury item in PES and always have been (and that’s what Edit mode is for).
• “Become a Legend” mode. This sounds like a cheerful rip-off of FIFA’s Be A Pro mode. That’s okay, really (good games borrow; great games steal). I doubt I’ll bother much with it myself but I hope it works.
• Online vastly improved. As it damn well should be. I’m not much of an online gamer. But I’d love to actually have the choice.
• Crossing is a bit ‘floaty’ and shooting is more difficult. The Seabass giveth, and the Seabass taketh away.
• Graphics are similar. This is quite disappointing, but still borderline acceptable. The graphics for PES2008, although relatively poor compared to other ‘next-gen’ graphics (notably FIFA08), were still acceptable—just. The initial slowdown, though, was almost unforgivable. Shipping a game that works out of the box should be a games developer’s (and publisher’s) #1 priority. It clearly wasn’t in the case of PES2008. What does that tell us about how they see their customers? That’s right—as idiots. Any hint of slowdown in PES2009, and they might as well start including copies of FIFA09 in the same box.

Considered all together, this leak would seem to bode well for PES2009. The big question is: is it all true? Until I see a full hands-on preview from several separate sources that all tell me we’ve got a proper PES game on our hands for 2009, I’ll keep my expectations down low. It’s the best thing all round. But my hopes are slightly rising, I have to say. If this leak is pre-release propaganda from Konami, it’s slightly working on me.

——–

In my Master League career on PES2008, meanwhile, I’m well into season 2021 now. I should reiterate here, for any new readers’ sakes, that I am playing my customary year-long ML career on the PS2 and PSP version of PES2008. The PS3 version might as well not exist for me now.

In 2021 I’ve won 6 of my opening league games, drawn 2, and lost 1. Yes, the unbeaten record attempt has gone early this season.

In Europe I’m in a group with AC Milan again. They were tough in our opening game and it looked like 0-0 all the way. Then I brought on Prieto as an emergency left-back, and went on a late run with him down the wing.

What resulted was probably my single most favourite long-range goal so far. I literally SHOUTED out loud when this one flew in. It’s the angle that the shot comes from, and the placement into the corner of the net, and the keeper’s despairing flap, that all combine to make it for me: