PES 2009 Impressions Coming Friday 17/10

[catcatch22]

Quote: Originally Posted by kerosene31

Yeah, I have the full Fifa game, and there are some big AI issues. As an offline player, it is turning me off. I really wish I waited a bit. We don't get PES here for another month.

I don't mind waiting, although I thought FIFA looks so good in every way except for the AI and the up close player faces. I also did not like in the PES demo how on harder difficulty levels the pressure the AI put on you was just not realistic. Well I guess both games have their big weaknesses but at least with PES even with all the pressure on the higher difficulty levels you can still hold on to the ball and move it a bit more realistically than what I saw in the FIFA demo. I'll wait till we get more impressions. Thanks.

[Gamecocks625]

Quote: Originally Posted by kerosene31

Yeah, I have the full Fifa game, and there are some big AI issues. As an offline player, it is turning me off. I really wish I waited a bit. We don't get PES here for another month.

It turned me off, too. I just sold it on eBay and ordered Pro Evo 2009 on Amazon for $39.99. In FIFA 09, time and time again, the attacking AI would simply hit a through ball to the striker, said striker would run at the GK, and then the GK would just walk up and take the ball away. The striker never would fake and fire a shot. It was just the same thing over and over again. Now, the animations on FIFA 09 are fantastic, but that comes at the sacrifice of overall responsiveness. Despite some "last gen-ness" of PES 2009, I'm totally looking forward to this year's version. Even in the demo, the CPU AI attacks in so many different ways, making it much more of a fun offline game.

[therizing02]

Quote: Originally Posted by catcatch22

Sounds good Im debating getting this or FIFA 09. I really want to play with the Red Bulls but after playing the demo of FIFA 09, I was not happy with how the AI push the ball and took it off your players too easily against you. I guess I will go back to PES if all the impressions are sounding as good as you guys have stated.

Catch,

I would highly recommend getting FIFA 09 because not all teams play the same. The DEMO did not do this game justice at all. If you played against a team like Marseille in the demo, then yes, they will press you all over the pitch because that is their playing style. Every game plays out differently because every team plays differently. How many sports games can you say that about?

You just can't judge how this game is going to play out by playing a few games.

I've read so many posts on how much is wrong with this game this year. Yes there are a few AI issues but, they can all be overcome, and none of them are even close to a gamekiller.

The problem with a lot of the folks that are down on the game are because they aren't playing enough games against a variation of teams, they don't play to the team's tactical settings, and/or they are thinking that they can play FIFA 09 in the same style they played FIFA 08.

If your personal style of play is a short passing, slow build up style and you try to play with Portsmouth, you'll struggle because they are set up for fast long ball passing. That's not the AI's fault. It's yours.

If you want to play long ball and use Arsenal, it'll be your problem again. I think you understand my point.

Look, if you want to throw a disk in the console, pick 2 teams and kick off, get FIFA 08 because everyone plays the same. There's no thinking at all.

Now, as far as PES 09, I'm all over it. The fact that they are going back to the gameplay that we've loved for years is enough for me. I'll have 2 games this year!

[pietasterp]

EDIT: sorry, this should have been in the demo impressions section...I somehow missed that there was a thread already.

After spending some QT with the PES2009 demo, I have to say...I've fallen back in love with the series. Really, truly, madly, deeply, etc. Weird, I know, because there isn't one thing necessarily that I can point to and say is radically different, but I fell out of love with the game during its XBox days and early 360 days. I was one of the HUGE fans of the original U.S. release of the game on Nintendo64 when it was called International Superstars Soccer; I remember spending hours manually entering in all the names of all the national teams and editing the players to look like their real-life counterparts (using dot-matrix printed-out rosters for all the 1998 World Cup squads) and adjusting their attributes one painstaking character at a time...What can I say? I was in college - I had spare time. That was way before swappable console files. I honestly just had fun doing it, too. Something about the weirdo Japanese look of the menus and text just really struck a chord with me, and the game itself was basically a work of art. I spent more time with that game than I think any game ever with the exception of ESPN NFL2K5. On the pitch, it was just straight-up FUN to play.

Somewhere along the way, the game got somehow farther and farther away from that original N64 experience, in a way I can't accurately describe. My last purchase of the series was the 2005 release on Xbox, and I played only a handful of games before bailing on it. It just did nothing for me. Not to mention, FIFA was making big gains in the realism department, having abandoned the ol' "slide-tackle-at-will-without-penalty-then-juke-your-way-up-the-field-for-a-goal" style of gameplay. All told, I did not seriously put in time with another ISS/Winning Eleven/PES game until the most recent incarnation, which (happily) immediately brought me back to the feeling I had of playing the original on N64 game. Something about the way the game plays again, the flow, the way you score goals, the absolute thrill of getting one to go into the back of the net (I actually let out a yell when I scored my first goal) and the epic struggle and near-misses has me absolutely loving this game again for the first time in many years. I think the best thing I can say about it, with no insult intended, is that it re-captures the glory of the original N64 game. The only game ever (until now) that I truly felt an epic sense of accomplishment when I scored a goal, and the accompanying excitement.

So I'm not going to say the game is better than FIFA'09, or does this or that or the other better or worse than FIFA (which, incidentally, is a great game in its own right, although I prefer the Euro 09 game for some reason), but my biggest endorsement of the new PES is just that the unbridled joy of playing the game and scoring a goal is unlike any other sports game I think I've ever played since the original International Superstar Soccer (although I wish they had the original hyper-excitable announcer from the N64 game...). I hope you all are having as much fun with the game (at least in demo form) as I am - shaping up to be my fave game of the year hands-down. I think PES 2009 will redeem 2008 as a gaming year for me.

[AUShrop16]

Is there a sim game during master league?

Dont get me wrong I buy the game to play matches but at game twenty I am kind of itching to get to transfer window.

[calcutta]

Got the 360 version yesterday. Haven't played much because otherwise i'd screw myself over in the FIFA OSCL. Some brief impressions:

GAMEPLAY (just a few games on Regular/3-star)
+ much slower realistic pace to both ball speed and player speed
+ i've yet to hit the target from outside the box...much harder to hit the target let alone score from outside the box
+ i've generally had plenty of time on the ball, CPU players weren't hounding me or coming through the back of me everywhere
+ fullbacks are heavily invloved in attack for both team, already scored a goal with Aussie LB David Carney in the Asian Cup final from the edge of the area in open play!
+ in my first Be a Legend game, my CPU-controlled Centre Back team-mate scored twice on corners...i don't even have control over managerial stuff, so the CPU manager of my team was the one who assigned him to be in the box on corners. So expect to see a realistic variety in goalscorers.
- alot of the demo issues still exist IMO...keepers still tend to parry everything, often back into play. This is also due to the fact that most CPU shots and thunderous drives with the top of the boot, but at least in 09 i've seen a few get off the ground unlike the continous CPU daisycutters in 08.
- sometimes my defence is all over the place...i've seen my CBs "marking" each other a fair few times already, leaving one channel and an opposing striker completely unmarked.
- the CPU takes over control of my players too much...especially unnecessary auto-clearances when we have time and space to play our way out of defence, which happens about 3 times a game. The worst incident was when a CPU-controlled Cahill decided to help me out by sliding in on a player from behind and he got sent off! I didn't ask for your help mate (I was NOT holding the "call second defender" button).
- there has been a lack of fouls thus far, similar to what i'm getting in FIFA (playing 15-min games, 16 mins in FIFA). Hopefully this will increase appropriately on Pro and Top Player.

PRESENTATION
+ menu navigation is easy and the menu design is growing on me, but...
- still too much "Engrish" Help on most screens, often becomes a hinderance
- minor issue but team and player names are not consistent...all French clubs seem to have their full names like "FC Girondins de Bordeaux" while most other teams have the letters FC - either as "FC" or "F.C." - but Rangers are called "Rangers Football Club" in full for some reason. It just looks very unprofessional especially because the text itself is a poor choise (yet again), and it bugs me especially since licensed names cannot be edited at all. I'd prefer common names like Bordeaux and Rangers, myself.
- rosters are horribly out of date...Aston Villa didn't have Friedel, Cuellar, Luke Young nor Shorey (who isn't in the game at all). I know Konami need to meet deadlines in production but releasing the game TWO WEEKS+ after FIFA and still not getting it anywhere near up to date in terms of rosters is pathetic IMO. Hopefully the roster updates fix it up well, rather than cause more issues like more missing players etc.

MASTER LEAGUE (haven't played a game yet, just set one up to see whats new if anything)
+ TBA...
- poor format as usual; Div 1 remains 20 teams, but now Div 2 is only 12 teams (22 games)...IMO, 2 divisions of 16 teams each makes much more sense.
- domestic cups are still divided into "Div 1 Cup" and "Div 2 Cup" which makes absolutely no sense...what association in real life are they basing this concept on?! More so because there are 32 teams across both divisions, surely a cup spanning both leagues makes sense, so no teams have any byes in any round!
- we still cannot add the blank teams into ML, so if you're waiting for an Option File for Championship teams for example, unless the OF creator overwrites the unlicensed Spanish teams, you can't include these teams into ML.

BECOME A LEGEND (only played my "impress the scouts" match so far)
+ you start as a 17 year old and can play until 35, so its a loooooong mode!
+ CPU teams can still make transfers as if it were ML
+ you get to play in World Cup Qualifiers (not just the finals). I created an Aussie, and the 8 Asian nations were divided into two groups of 4 where the top two qualify for the finals...if you create a European player, all 32 teams play qualifiers (8 groups of 4) where the top two qualify).
+ you can play regional national team tourneys too (eg: Euros, Copa America)
- like ML, you can't adjust difficulty once you've started the season...hopefully it can be adjusted in the offseason.
- to call for a pass, you double tap RT. But often even when i'm open and arguably the best option, CPU players have a tendency not to pass it to me.
- you can't use and existing player, have to create your own
- you can't create a CB or FB in this mode, but you can be a WB
- you can't choose which team to play for at the beginning - well you can but the choice is limited to three depending on which league you choose. I chose Italy and only Lecce, Chievo and Reggina offered me contracts.

[giambi]

Calcutta,

Strictly talking about gameplay, how would you compare PES to FIFA from what you've played of both? Do you have a clear favorite?

[billmatic]

I've been playing this quite a bit over the past week and figured I'd share some of my impressions as well, shamelessly stealing calcutta's format.

GAMEPLAY - almost all games on Top Player difficulty

• Like cal said, the gameplay is slower than 08. Part of this at least is due to the fact that the players themselves aren't as fast. There don't seem to be as many players with 90+ speed, and the ones that do have it are very noticeable. For example, I'm playing an Inter ML and Victor Obinna (92 speed) really stands out.
• Everything seems a bit more difficult (on top player at least, which is good, since top player was pretty easy last year). It's tougher to dribble through the entire opposing team now. Their defenders are much better at cutting off your dribble. Shooting is tougher as well. It's more like the older PES games, where you really have to put just the right amount of power on it, or your shot will sky over. It's important that your player is in a good position to shoot, if they're off balance or reaching for the ball, the shot won't end up well. You also won't have easy through balls to play all the time. Passing is a bit hit and miss, the passes seems to be less homed in on players, but sometimes you'll try passing to one guy and it will go towards another guy in a much worse position, and you're just like WTF.

PRESENTATION

• Everything is pretty much the exact same, just with a different theme.
• Konami actually released the roster update accidentally for about 10 hours, then took it back down. Now the people who downloaded the update can't play online against people who didn't, and the update won't be re-releaesd until the 5th. From all accounts, the update fixed all the out of date transfers and added quite a few young players. So, although they shat the bed when it came to the release of the roster update, it's nice that they're actually doing it, and it will be nice to be able to play online w/ updated rosters.
• Some player ratings have been updated, but many are still terrible. Konami just seems to like some players and not others I guess.
• Having full editing back is nice, as there's already several option files floating around with updated kits, badges, names, etc.

MASTER LEAGUE - played about 10 weeks worth

• Same as last year, and every year, from what I can tell so far. Only now, instead of seeing a percentage number for each player that tells how likely a team is to sell them, you see a little heart showing their level of loyalty to their current club.
• CL mode not being included in ML is ******** at best.

BECOME A LEGEND - played about a season on whatever the 2nd highest difficulty is

• You play one training match and then get 3 offers from the league of your choice. The better rating you get, the better the teams that will offer you a deal. The best you can hope for is a mid-table team. I played badly in the training match and got offers from Hull, Wigan, and Westbrom. I played another one, did better, and got offers from Portsmouth, Fulham, and Sunderland. Different teams may want you to play different positions, and they have different tactics, so it really matters where you play.
• On whichever team you join, you start out on their 'B' squad. Then, depending on how your training matches go, you get upgraded to the 'A' squad and if you perform well you get called up to the bench. It's much more realistic this way, then to automatically go into the starting 11 as a crap 17 year old. However, training matches get old pretty quickly, so I went with 5 minute halves for the first season, and will up it to 10 before season 2 starts, as 5 minute halves aren't really long enough to make much of an impact in real matches.
• Your player starts out pretty crappy, and you will likely be on a crap team, so it makes it tough for the first couple years. I thought I was making the smart move when I moved from Hull to Newcastle in the winter transfer window, but their players were so much better, that it was tough to do much in the training matches.