PES Chronicles

In Monday’s post, I’d completed my first full season back on PES6(360) in creditable form, after one year away from the game. But then I messed up the old-school negotiations. Somehow I left myself 5000 points in debt, and saw my first GAME OVER screen in Master League since November 2002. Thankfully, at the start of the period I’d suspected my poor addled brain wouldn’t be able to give me the right information. So I took the precaution of making a separate backup save. So I just rolled back to that. Sorted.

What undid me in the first attempt at negotiations was the bringing in of Maldini, Shaw, Camacho, and Komol. In version 2 of the negotiations, I got them all again except for Shaw. I traded a few players as part of the deals. In this way I finished the period 2000 points in credit, and sailed through to season 2014. Whoo-hoo, etc.

I’ve got to win the Treble in this Master League, this time. Last year, FIFA10 was upon me before I’d mounted a serious challenge in PES6(360). This year, there’s bags of time. Even I, with my less-than-middling skills, should be able to manage it.

I’ve got off to a flyer in season 2014. Finishing 4th last season means I’ve got to qualify for the European Championships. (How long ago and far away it seems, when PES didn’t have the Champions League license.)

Fixture congestion. I’ve got it. I’m playing 2 matches every week for the foreseeable future. That takes it out of any squad, even a pretty talented one like mine is now. As can be seen, I’ve got ample cover in every position. And I need it.

Komol and Camacho have started well. They’re two old friends of mine from PES2008(PS2/PSP). Camacho in particular achieved legendary status for me in that campaign. Komol was not far behind. I still play occasional matches in that career on my PSP from time to time. But it’s been a while. Alas, I’ve become one of those people who claims not to know where his PSP is at the moment. Have you noticed that, on the internet? It’s approaching meme levels, that one. “I don’t know where my PSP is!” – delivered with a chortle. Everybody’s saying it. I’m saying it.

Regen Maldini is going to be more problematic. I plucked him straight from the pool of unattached players. Look at his current stats. They’re the stats of a 23-year-old player who hasn’t played. I’m playing him as much as possible. The problem is that he’ll only start to flower in two or three seasons. By that stage I fully expect to have moved on to FIFA11, and be drooling at the imminence of PES2011. I probably shouldn’t have picked up Maldini this time around. It was purely out of habit.

I won all four opening matches of the season. Two in the league and two in Europe. I beat Benfica 7-0 in one of those European ties. Then I drew in the league against, er, North West London or whoever. I’m up near the top of the table.

The heat is on. I’ve got a few weeks—maybe two more seasons in game time. I think I have to get this PES6(360) Treble now, or maybe never.

Just short of one year ago, I picked up a copy of the Xbox360 version of PES6. I played it for a couple of months. I got through 6 seasons of Master League. I enjoyed it as much (probably more) than my ML career in PES2009.

I only stopped playing PES6(360) because FIFA10 appeared. We love new shiny things in the world of gaming.

As of this week, I have resumed that aborted PES6(360) Master League career. I cannot take BaL any more. I can’t go back to PES2010. I can’t go on with FIFA10. I’ll be playing PES6(360) for the foreseeable future. (It’s worth noting here that the Xbox360 version of PES6 is NOT the same as the revered PS2/Xbox/PC version. Which wasn’t one of my favourites.)

PES6(360) was the first next-gen effort from Konami. Somewhat infuriatingly, it remains the best next-gen PES to date, in pure gameplay terms. (Features-wise it’s probably the poorest effort since the ISS days on the PlayStation. I’ll talk some more about this over the coming weeks.)

A year ago laid the groundwork for today. Below is a record of the career so far. Thanks to PES6(360)’s lack of Editing, I’m playing as PES United. I had my usual struggle with the Defaults. I loathed the Myth of Castolo all over again. The only thing I won was the Division 2 title in season 2008. The current Division 1 table for season 2013 is at bottom right:

The Treble just wouldn’t come for me in the latter seasons. In fact, as can be seen, I was a long way off winning anything at all. So there’s a lot of unfinished business in this career.

As for my squad... It’s a good one, if a little light in numbers. There are some great players—Bradley, Mathieu, Kim Cyun Hi, Schwarz, Ronaldo (not the Regen: the original!). It’ll take me some time to pick up the old negotiation system again.

I’m finding it strange coming back after so long. It’s like when you wait a year for the next series of a favourite TV show. You know you should remember the characters and the plot more than you do, but it takes an episode or two before everything comes flooding back. I’m finding the same with PES6(360). At the time of writing I’ve had about three long sessions covering about 6-8 matches each. I’ve more or less got back to where I was last year.

The AI in PES6(360) is amazing. It’s hard. It seems to do things that the AIs in PES2010 and FIFA10 never tried to do. It closes off passing channels, forcing me to indulge in the extended, methodical build-up play that I recall being one of PES6(360)’s most endearing characteristics. That could just be down to my average skills, of course.

Why am I going back to PES6(360)? What gives?

The story of season 2010 for me has been PES2010 Master League. It’s been brilliant, my best ML experience since PES5. My mouth is almost literally watering for PES2011. But I can’t go back to PES2010 now. I have had about 20 matches on it since I stopped, and it seems ridiculously easy. I don’t want to sully the memory of a magical eight months.

The second story of my 2010 gaming year so far has been the relative failure of FIFA10. It’s had its moments. But no more than moments, really. Manager Mode might as well not exist at all.

How about online play? It’s not for me. I don’t like the style of football that manifests itself online. Double-sprint-pressuring is the near-universal technique without the ball. My wrists ache enough already, thank you very much…

Which leaves me with this heap of unfinished business in PES6(360).

To close off today, here are two goals from my early sessions in the return to PES6(360). The first is just a typical PES goal. I include it here because of what it meant to me. After my appalling time with BaL, I needed some football gamin’. I carved out this opportunity with Schwarz in the midst of a tight match. As I teed up the shot, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, which was to sort of whip it over and around the keeper. It came off. The second goal is a type of goal I don’t remember scoring many of in PES. One of the hallmarks of a great PES game is that it can always surprise you—it can always show you new things. My looping cross that went in a surprising direction showed me something new all right. It came in the early sessions as well. It was as if this game was saying: what took you so long?

Link:

This is the best chance I’ve ever had to win the Treble. It’s season 17 of my epic Master League career in PES2010. I’m hungry for it now more than ever.

Could my current squad (pictured left) be my Treble-winning squad? In the mid-season transfer window I picked up several new players. They seem to have cemented my position, providing much-needed quality back-up for my regular players.

Gilardino, a loan signing, is excellent, reminding me of Zaki in his prime. As much as I was impressed by last season’s loan signings, I didn’t try very hard to sign them afterwards. But I will be making Gilardino my number 1 priority transfer target in the post-season. He feels like the missing link. I haven’t currently got any great goals of his to show off. This is because he’s a proper centre forward who scores mainly bread-and-butter goals. He seems to be always there to nod the ball in from 1 yard out, or provide the finishing touch to a loose ball skating across the penalty area.

I bought two players outright. Ivic and Nilsson, both attacking players, and both pretty decent. (Ivic got a good goal on his debut, which features in today’s short compilation video at the end of this post.) I’ve got a poor track record when it comes to bringing in new talent at the right time. Most often I panic-buy players who aren’t right for various reasons. I lack patience to make sure I get the right players. This time, with these three players, I think I have got it right.

Looking down the whole list, there’s some great talent there. A few issues leap out. Morientes, injured again, has been a great disappointment for me. He could go at the end of the season. Castolo, now up to 71 OVR, is the great surprise of the season. Who would have thought Castolo could become not bad? Not me.

I’m top of the table. 3 points clear with seven matches to play, and with a superior goal difference for once.

I’ve made it through to the final of the D1 Cup, where my opponents will be… Rangers. Rangers? Rangers? They’ve done nothing in 17 seasons apart from get to this Cup Final, as far as I can tell. I hope they haven’t got a nasty turbo-charged surprise for me in the final.

I’ve had a few bad games against supposedly lesser opposition in the league recently. I hate it when you pound the AI goal and dominate possession, and then the AI has one attack, scores with it, and that’s effectively game over. Stoke, mid-table and as mediocre as they come, beat me 1-0 in this way. So did Villa, currently bottom of the table. If it wasn’t for those two results, I’d be 9 points clear—and maybe that’s why they had to happen the way they happened.

I’m in the semi-final of the Champions League. I’m playing Valencia. I speak about that in the present tense because I’m between the two semi-final legs at the moment. I’ve just played the first leg, at home, and I won it 2-1. I don’t like that away goal I gave them. I’ll have to be very, very, very careful in the return leg. With the Treble tantalisingly close, I don’t want to let it slip. Wednesday’s post will take us to the end of the season.

Finally for today, some random goals and incidents from recent matches:

Link:

I’m not changing my kits for season 16. I loaded up the relevant Edit menu, but couldn’t decide which way to go. I backed out in the end and decided to stick with what I’ve got—plain sky blue for the home kit, and maroon-and-yellow halved shirts for the away kit.

My squad for the coming season is a very healthy one. Maybe I lack one or two more dedicated AMFs, but overall I’m happy with it. I decided to get rid of one of my young strikers, Chilnat. I first acquired him as a Youth player. He had a starting role for most of last season but never really deserved it. He was always decidedly average, permanently in the mid-70s OVR, which was reflected in the eventual price he fetched on the market: £600k. Better than nothing.

Money’s still a bit tight, and so for the first time I have brought in some loan players. Ronaldinho is a 20-year-old Regen, and goes straight into my starting lineup. The loan deal cost just £2m. And I also brought in an 18-year-old Chevanton as cover for my main strikeforce—that loan deal only cost me £1.5m. My notorious lack of attention to certain wider details means that, as I sit here typing this, I realise I have no idea what clubs I’ve loaned them from. Isn’t that shocking?

In ‘proper’ transfer news, I made a bid for the 20-year-old Regen Pirlo that was accepted. However the transfer fee would have been £28m, about £10m more than I could comfortably afford. I tried to renegotiate but the deal was abruptly cancelled. At least I know now that Pirlo will potentially come to my club. Winning two Cups last season is already paying dividends.

At the  risk of possibly overloading myself with DMFs, I couldn’t resist finally buying the Regen Mathieu. He looks a lot different in PES2010, or is it me? Younger and leaner. And I didn’t really have to worry about getting too many DMFs. In a real shocker, DMF is no longer one of Mathieu’s positions. I might train him up in that role myself. Or I might not.

For some reason my Youth squad keeps generating brilliant left-backs. Capuano,of course, for one. My new Youth signing Ignjatijevic is another handy-looking SB. The born-again Ceciu is coming along as a very decent CB too.

I still had £12m left, but kept it back as a cushion. I hated having to scrape through last season financially. I prefer the feeling that I can pick up a player or two mid-season if I have to, and not worry about it.

The start of the league campaign has been brilliant. Ronaldinho scored a neat headed goal on his debut in my first attack in my first game. Zaki is firing them in at the rate of nearly a goal a game. I can’t believe I considered selling him a few seasons ago. He’s almost become one of my all-time PES great strikers. He’s not (yet) up there with the very first rank of my former ML legends—i.e., the likes of Vieri, Stoichkov, Bergkamp, plus a few others—but if he continues to put away the goals as he moves through his early 30s, he could be. If I do win the Treble this season, Zaki will play a big part I’m sure.

I’m second in the league table after 9 league matches, just behind Arsenal on goal difference. But for a frustrating trio of goalless games, I’d be top. I got through the first round of the D1 cup, beating Boca Juniors home and away. In Europe my Champs League group consists of Nancy St Lorraine, Besiktas, and FC Kholugavinsk. I have played the first fixture against Nancy and won 2-0. FC Kholugavinsk beat me 2-0 in the second tie. It was another game where I felt I was being artificially prevented from scoring. Still work to do in Europe, then.

All in all, things are set for another season of going for the Treble, and this year it feels very much ON. I’ve got the squad. I’ve got the experience. And most importantly of all, I’ve got a pretty good start.