The Gamer's Quarter

[Scratchmonkey]

So Toto was talking about picking this up for the DS, so feel free to post impressions of that in this thread too.

I'm going to start off by talking about the recent PS2 release of Winning Eleven, which is my most favorite game series of all time and one that I've sunk a large amount of time in. I was really looking forward to the most recent installment and unfortunately, it appears to be a bit of a coaster. Rather than providing me with enjoyment, I spend most of my time with the title wanting to wing it into the street and then run it over multiple times.

The problem is difficulty. For some reason, which is even more inexplicable considering that the difficulty has been extremely well-balanced in previous games, skips from incredibly easy to unbelievably difficult. From easily beating the CPU when they have the best team and you the worst, to being unable to finish off a bunch of scrubs when you have team of international stars.

How this happens is that when you make the jump from "Regular" to "Professional" difficulty, everything that goes wrong for you, does. Your massively talented striker will suddenly kick the ball as if it were a baloon, whereas their marginal-at-best defensive midfielder will slalom through your defense before launching a guided missile into the corner of the net. Now, soccer being soccer, this should happen every once in a while. Bad teams give good teams a hard time. It's the nature of the game. However, this shouldn't happen every single game. It stretches the belief of the player and worst of all, it feels unfair, like the player isn't failing, just that the game is arbitrarily deciding that the player will fail and the CPU will succeed in similar situations just because that's the only way to make things competitive.

Which, in the end, just makes the game arbitrary. It's no longer a triumph of skill. It's something that you see happen in sports game after sports game and honestly, I'm shocked and more than a little disappointed that the WE team felt that this was the direction that they had to go in order to make the singleplayer game more even. In the end, it's just about destroyed the experience entirely.

[Nana Komatsu]

I had this exact same experience with a number of sports titles, most notably Mario Hoops for the DS. It makes me sad.
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[Scratchmonkey]

Yeah, it's a really common tactic for sports game developers, to basically just take all the user "sliders" and take them down and the CPU sliders and take them up, so that something that should be easy for you becomes difficult and the CPU is suddenly doing difficult things like it's nothing.

It's just bitterly disappointing because it's such a cheap way to do things and this is really the first WE title that's fallen afoul of this. Of course, the earlier versions of the game were possibly too easy, in that a good player with a decent team could regularly beat the CPU regardless of being on even the secret unlockable difficulty level; this is definitely far too harsh of a backlash though.

[Nana Komatsu]

I thought Virtua Tennis for the dreamcast did a fair job of this. It was very difficult in the latter portions of career mode, but they did it by making your opponents more skillful at the game without taking away your own ability. It never felt unfair because you were just playing against someone who was rather good, and so when you beat him there was an actual sense of reward.
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[Toto]

Region releases differ, I've found, after comparing the Australian and UK versions of this game, and I heartily, heartily advise you to pick up the UK version. My Australian version was quite finnicky in regards to shooting, a tad more finnicky than the UK release, and the referee was far too harsh, destorying multiplayer matches with multiple red cards.
I'm really improving at this game, and I feel it is a significant jump in terms of simulation and realism, specifically relating to movement, ball control and an ball physics. Movement is amazing; to use a number of famous examples, Arjen Robben controls like Arjen Robben should; a highly technical winger with bags of pace. Thus, as in real soccer, individuals become threats; my friend is an avid Portugal player, and I must really be careful whenever C. Ronaldo has the ball, as mistakes such as rash tackling go punishes with wonder strikers and cutting runs deep into my own half. On the other hand, plays literally bounce of Adriano, and other large defenders such as Puyol or Rio Ferdinand.
The additon of ball physics has really opened up games, and there are some times when real, honest to god scrambles happen in the box, with the ball bouncing all over the place. It's great.
haven't noticed a broken single player, but then again I have only ventured up to 4 stars, although I have played extensively.
Scratchmonkey any word on the good option files?
Ball controls is far more realistic now, and it is simaltaneously painfully yet joyfully obvious to see how extensive the mo cap has been in the movement of players. I really enjoy how basics work; simply stopping while running works remarkably well, as it should, which ties back into player movement.incl

EDIT: Keep giving it a chance, Scratchmonkey, and defintely play with people you know.
While there are problems, I honestly love it far more than I ever did Pro Evo 5. Problems in the UK version include: the keepers tendency to rush without orders in 1-1s, which seems realistic to me, although it aggrevates my friend because I am a 1-1 God. Just fyi, I play with almost all of the big teams, with a notable exception being England, who I just don't feel. My favourite teams to play are Netherlands, Spain, Czech and Argentina. Still awaiting cash to buy the DS version, so that is a prospect of the future, unfortunately.
In sum: Keep on trucking, Scratch, it's been worth it for me, at least.
I

[Scratchmonkey]

After posting that, I immediately went on a run of good results, so perhaps I was painting a particularly dire picture mainly out of pique. I still think the difficulty jump is far too great, although I think I've managed to figure out some strategies for both offense and defense that greatly reduce the amount of fluffing by my players and unbelivable play by theirs.

All of this is entirely about the single-player game, every multi-player game that I've played so far has been pure magic. The issues I have are all ones with how the CPU seems to "cheat" or at least "cheese" on the higher difficulties, which doesn't apply at all to a game between two human players. We've already had some particularly epic matchups, including an Ajax-Feyenoord derby match that ended at 3-3 in extra-time and we decided to call it a draw, just fantastic stuff.

As for the option files, I don't know of yet, I haven't seen my friend who usually brings the files over from the PC for over a week, I should be seeing him tomorrow and hopefully he'll have an option file or two to check out. In the past, the best option files have all come from this one Euro PES webforum that I'm forgetting the name of right now.

Toto, deffo post any impressions that you have of the DS title.

[Toto]

Yeah, in fact immediately after I posted, I went and tested your theory, and to some extent it is true. Let me elaborate.
I play usually on Regular, but I wanted to see if what you said was true, and bottom line: it is. I used my favourite teams against weaker opposition, although not terrible opposition. A couple of example match ups are France - Turkey, Spain - Australia, Italy - Bulgaria. I lost my first game to Australia 1 - 0, but with Italy I managed to hammer whoever it was (either Cameroon or Bulgaria) with two late goals, one of them being hands down the most entertaining goal I've ever scored (a backwards header). I won all of my other match ups, games of similar caliber, although it wasn't a breeze; at times it was tight. They definitely have done one thing; they've been more strict on the shooting. You do know that physical proximity to defenders affects the power and accuracy of shots? In PES5, one was able to run shoulder to shoulder with a defender down the field, and then blast a strike past the keeper. This has been changed. However, in order to balance this, 1-1 scoring is still relatively easy; I ripped the keeper once using a change of direction while sprinting, a plan which works when defenders are on your tail, thus having the defenders block the keepers dive for your ball. Another time I used a fake shot to the job (about fake shots, in professional the computer uses them with devastating effect, an example later.)
So I decided to up the ante; I played Brazil against Sweden. Now Sweden, to me, is where the teams start to become world class; they're not top echelon, but they're top tier, if you know what I mean (Turkey is relatively the same, only slightly worse). I was up 2 - 0, but then a keeper error (the keeper AI decided a charge was for the best) and a strike Ljungberg (ach! I hate him) dragged it to extra time, where Ibramhimovic was set up with a great ball from Larsson, who has beaten my defender with, you guessed it, a fake shot.
In conclusion: Some more games and the HAMMERING OF THE CPU will begin.

[Scratchmonkey]

Yeah, part of this is the reality that I have never mastered using a handful of the more sophisticated attacking gambits, those being:

- fake shots
- one-twos
- the lofted through-ball

It just hasn't been necessary in previous versions of the game; I'm starting to wonder if success on Professional will come down to getting better at these aspects of the game.

[Scratchmonkey]

Toto, the option file that we're working with right now is one that was linked off of the PESFan forums, it seems to be pretty good -- it has the winter transfers and the whole Bundesliga edited in, as well as:

CSKA Moscow
Red Bull Salzberg
Boca Juniors
River Plate
Sao Paolo
AEK Athens
Panathinaikos
Olympiacos
Anderlecht
Club Brugge
Sparta Prague
F.C. Copenhagen
Juventus
Rosenborg
Benfica
Porto
Sporting Lisbon
Besiktas
...

Pretty good. I think it's very similar to the one that we've used previously. It's got the new Tottenham Hotspur logo!

EDIT: It's the OF done by 'pescrazy' and you can get the most recent version here:

http://pesgaming.com/showthread.php?t=47500

[Toto]

Some of those clubs are already in the game, like Juve, Olympiakos and some other names on the list.
That sounds great so far, but does it have:
real team logos?
club kits edited with logos?
real national team names?

EDIT: The fake shot is easy to get used to. Same with the lofted through ball. Both are highly context sensitive.
1 - 2s I can't do yet

[Scratchmonkey]

Yes.

Yes, although they may not have all of them perfectly since I haven't seen all of the teams yet, I just went in as Chelsea vs. Boro and the kits look fine, complete with logos, the correct advertiser, etc.

I think so, I haven't seen any fake names so far on the international teams, including the Dutch.

[Toto]

Nice.
Now I have to buy a Max Drive though. Damn
Is there any way to do this without paying money? I don't think there is.

[Scratchmonkey]

The closest way to do it without spendng money is to have a friend with a Max Drive/Shark Port/what have you or to have me mail you a memory card, which I could probably be talked into.

[Toto]

Are Memory Cards region free? If so that is an ace idea, and I'd rather pay a forumite than realgamer.com.au, which I don't really trust.

[dessgeega]

[Toto]

That's good to know, thanks Dess. But I think I'll buy the smaller Max Drive. I've always wanted a Pro Evo exclusive Memory Card, and the Max Drive stores 2 full memory cards worth of stuff.

[Scratchmonkey]

Toto, did you ever get that Max Drive? If you didn't, I'm willing to mail you a PS2 memory card with the option file on it for freeeeeee. Let me know.

And I think what I might have been noticing when I first played the game is that they're really stretched the expeirence between having poor players versus having good players, even more so than they've done in the past. Unless you have really good players, Professional level difficulty is going to be really hard, when previously once you had moderately good players, 4-star wasn't that difficult. So, lack of practice and some slight tweaks are probably what caused my initial meltdown of discontent.

[Nana Komatsu]

I am glad to hear that there is more depth to the harder difficulties in Winning Eleven given such the high standard I have always heard it held up to.

I saw a demo of Super Mario Strikers Charged today, and while there are some obligatory wii remote antics, it didn't seem to take advantage of the Wii remote much at all.
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[Scratchmonkey]

That's not too surprising, given that it's based on the old Sega Soccer Slam engine. It must be really tough to take something and graft motion-sensor style controls onto it.

[Toto]

[Scratchmonkey]

Loads of people just upload their replays to YouTube. It's actually kind of annoying because you'll search for a neat real-life goal from last weekend and the search results will all be people doing 40-yard free kicks in Pro Evo.

I need to bump up the difficulty in Master League as I'm absolutely killing people right now. Having Robben and Messi as wide support strikers (and Aguero to back them up) is ridiculously fun.