Winning Eleven 11/PES8 thread

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:57 pm

JRod wrote:The key with the keepers is that they are eccentric. Some of this really costs.

Tomorrow, when it's not late and I'm not as drunk as I am now, I'm going to write about a match I played this morning which featured a collection of the worst pieces of videogame goalkeeping to have ever seared themselves into my brain. Some of it was eccentric, a quality which we've both noted they possess, but some of it was flat out terrible. Really quite alarming, though of course it's only a demo.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:02 pm

GB_Simo wrote:
JRod wrote:The key with the keepers is that they are eccentric. Some of this really costs.
Tomorrow, when it's not late and I'm not as drunk as I am now, I'm going to write about a match I played this morning which featured a collection of the worst pieces of videogame goalkeeping to have ever seared themselves into my brain. Some of it was eccentric, a quality which we've both noted they possess, but some of it was flat out terrible. Really quite alarming, though of course it's only a demo.

Don't wait...let's see some drunk analysis of PES. Haha.

fanatic · Post by **fanatic** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:10 am

The only thing I'd really like tweaked from the demo is the sensitivity of the shoot meter. As it is now, it's far too forgiving...I can basically fill it up near the top and still be really accurate. It also takes a bit more time to do this than is completely natural.

As a result, the CPU seems to be shooting only low trajectory shots. It's almost as if they too are used to the sensitivity of the old days and are letting their meters go too quickly.

That being said, they are unleashing some beautiful goals on me and are playing FAR smarter than they did last year in terms of building an attack.

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:50 am

I went ahead with the demo, and though I haven't had much time with it, I instantly thought, "wow, this is what PES 360 should have been." After playing the FIFA demo, the gameplay and control in PES feels gloriously smooth. I actually feel like I've returned to an old girlfriend, having to plead "I'm sorry I doubted you....I'll never leave you again."

Need to spend more time with it however before I can judge the finer points of gameplay tweaks, such as through ball placement, minor fouls in midfield, goalies...etc.

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:05 pm

I agree with Naples, I'm liking what I see. It seems to me like the pace is slowed considerably, and guys don't vacuum mark like in the past. I like that you can actually choose to put a little extra on a shot and not have it sky every time.

Nice little touches include the on-pitch ref booking animations, the PIP window of the bench when making player changes and the new font. I also don't want to rip out my hair with the menu music and sounds, which is a nice first - although I fear this will change in the final release.

Stuff I don't like: the fact that there is still no detailed post-match stats as in the last-gen versions. Hopefully this is just a limitation of the demo and will be resolved in the final.

Graphics are definitely "cartoony," but at least honest in their "cartooniness." I'm sure it will get ripped for not being as pretty as FIFA, but I would rather have the nice crisp models than the anti-aliased plastimen of FIFA any day.

I'm not sure what is up with the blue ball, which is called something like the "PES Special 2008." Could it be that they have no ball licenses this year?

Only real concern is a bit of CPU keeper wonkiness. Playing as Argentina against Portugal, I had a two-on-one where the keeper marked the trailer allowing me a straight shot on net. It wasn't a horrible decision, but one I wouldn't have made.

My other concern, as always, is the licensing and editing issues. If they have picked up more licenses and/or allow changing of kits and side and player names then things should be fine.

In any event, kudos to Konami for allowing a full match in the demo, none of this abbreviated half crap of the past.

Macca00 · Post by **Macca00** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:20 pm

After spending a lot of time with the demo I'd have to echo Blub & Naples' statements. I'm not really seeing this Teamvision adaptive AI and I'd agree that the keepers are wonky though I am noticing that Rustu displays way more poor judgement than the other keepers.

I think the player models from gameplay angles are very good and you can much more easily identify players from build. Player faces are also excellent. The pitch textures, on the other hand, are bloody awful! I'm also guessing that this doesn't run at the 60fps that FIFA 08 does because EA's title moves smoother.

According to some at the Evo-Web forums the demo's based on the Leipzig game conference build and isn't as good as the recent TGS build. I hope that's the case - Konami's marketing department is, after all, run by two chimps and a llama.

Feanor · Post by **Feanor** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 4:05 pm

Blublub wrote:I'm not sure what is up with the blue ball, which is called something like the "PES Special 2008." Could it be that they have no ball licenses this year?

I think there will be a decent selection of balls in PES 2008. There's a blue ball that's very hard to see in PES 6/WE 2007, but there's a dozen other balls to go with it.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:18 pm

Blublub wrote:I also don't want to rip out my hair with the menu music and sounds

Me neither. Not since it drove me to cut my ears off, anyway.

Alright, as promised before I was sober, here's a quick runthrough of a game I played as Spain against Portugal. Ricardo and Casillas were in goal - two solid, competent goalkeepers of generally sound judgement.

My Spain took a 1-0 lead when Angulo's terrible, weak, misdirected early cross from the right wing made its way into the 6 yard box, headed towards the unchallenged Ricardo in the Portuguese goal. Ricardo stood two yards out apparently unable to move, finally reacting with a dive towards the ball just as it passed by, leaving Villa with a tap into the empty net that I almost fluffed while shaking with laughter. Soon after, it was 2-0. Another Angulo cross towards Villa 12 yards out was just cut out by Carvalho, who got a chest in the way but couldn't control the direction of the ball as it struck him. The ball was travelling towards the far post, slowly enough that I had time to wonder aloud whether it might go in, but again Ricardo reacted slowly, his dive being sufficiently lengthy to reach the post, but rather too late to stop the ball.

Straight from the kick off Portugal pulled one back, Nuno Gomes advancing to around 25 yards out and firing a shot of medium height that beat Casillas, who had opted to take up a position on the penalty spot. Had he dived with arms outstretched he'd still have saved it, since the ball was only ever a yard wide of him, but for reasons unknown he didn't. I was too busy staring open-mouthed at the replay to mutter any kind of critique.

Torres made it 3-1 in the second half, being teed up by Xavi's run to the touchline and subsequent cut inside. On the near side of the 6 yard box and with no room to shoot, Xavi looked up and saw an unmarked Torres and a curiously positioned Ricardo some two yards outside of his near post. The pullback wasn't great, Torres needing a touch to control before shooting, and this gave Ricardo time to get back and cover his goal, time that he elected not to use. Standing directly in front of the near post was his preferred option, and faced with an open net Torres could hardly miss.

In the 89th minute Simao made it 3-2 to set up a nervy finish, and this goal was well taken and nothing to do with the standard of goalkeeping, which was a blessed relief. I've seen something similar to this in most of the matches so far, but never to such a level and never all concentrated within one match. With the exception of the second Portuguese goal, the only really clear-cut chances of the match were only made so by terrible keeping, and the goals...well, I'm trying not to think about those.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 10:01 pm

Thanks for the sober impressions Simo.

So in your estimation is shoddy goalkeeping something we need to worry about in this game? It keeps coming up how shoddy the goal keeping can be. I remember this being a problem with WE8 or WE9, I can't remember which.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:05 pm

Rodster wrote:So in your estimation is shoddy goalkeeping something we need to worry about in this game?

If this demo is from a build anything like the one they'll release next month, it's annoying at best and potentially gamebreaking at worst. What I've read, though, is that the demo is the build they displayed at the Leipzig game show, and that there's already a more recent build that they're showing at the Tokyo Game Show this week. If that's the case, I can't imagine they've not tweaked it. Ultimately, all of these demos are pre-release and so there's no way of knowing for certain until it launches at retail, but it's certainly something I'll be keeping an eye on.

Feanor · Post by **Feanor** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:38 am

I've played a ton of PES 6 and WE 2007, and I've found the keepers to be extremely well programmed. The only small flaws are the way they sometimes dive like a marine with a grenade at his feet when you do a tiny Super Cancel fake, and they fall for the 45 degree "hidden" L1 lob too easily.

Hopefully the final PES 2008 keepers will be just as good.

dougb · Post by **dougb** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:13 am

PC demo appears available now, although it's near impossible to get onto any of the servers due to all the people downloading.

Doug

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:31 pm

For those that are interested in the achievemens from this game.

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/achi ... gameID=376

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:07 pm

IGN gives PES2008 a 9.2

Indeed, playing next-gen Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 is a warming, blissfully familiar experience that will make you wonder if you've accidentally slipped the old version of the game into the drive.

Mentions some negatives like slowdown when there is a crowd in the box (can Konami ever fix this?), but generally lauds AI improvements and gives it a 10 in gameplay. Comments about game speed are conspicuously absent, as the demo was too fast, though I have heard that later builds of the game were slower.

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 5:25 pm

Can anyone clarify the release dates for the various platforms? Is it still supposed to be out everywhere by the end of the year?

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:14 pm

Blublub wrote:Can anyone clarify the release dates for the various platforms? Is it still supposed to be out everywhere by the end of the year?

Expect the usual February/March date for North America. October 26 in UK for PS3/360/PC.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:21 pm

Blublub wrote:Can anyone clarify the release dates for the various platforms? Is it still supposed to be out everywhere by the end of the year?

Don't know where you heard that, but I'm pretty sure we'll see it released on these shores sometime in late Feb. or early March of next year. Just like always. I do believe the PS3 is not region coded at all, so you could import the European version for that platform if you wanted to.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:51 pm

Zeppo wrote:
Blublub wrote:Can anyone clarify the release dates for the various platforms? Is it still supposed to be out everywhere by the end of the year?
Don't know where you heard that, but I'm pretty sure we'll see it released on these shores sometime in late Feb. or early March of next year. Just like always. I do believe the PS3 is not region coded at all, so you could import the European version for that platform if you wanted to.

I would suggest importing the PES3:UK version here's why. If you have a flash/thumb/jump disk you can put an optiong file there and put it into your PS3. If you get the US version, in the past option files for the UK version were not compatible with the US version. So it would take weeks or months after one option file is released for some poor soul to transfer it over to the US version.

I'm not messing around with that this year. I've missed a ton of option files over the years because of regions. The PC gets everything but the community should out in force for the PS3:UK version.

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:54 pm

Thanks guys - I am pretty far behind the WE times. When it was first announced I could have sworn I heard that they were going to stop the idiotic dual-release thing. Then again it is Konami marketing we're talking about, so I should've known it was too good to be true.

Would the PAL version work on an NTSC set through HDMI?

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:02 pm

Blublub wrote:Thanks guys - I am pretty far behind the WE times. When it was first announced I could have sworn I heard that they were going to stop the idiotic dual-release thing. Then again it is Konami marketing we're talking about, so I should've known it was too good to be true.

Would the PAL version work on an NTSC set through HDMI?

I'm no techie, but I thought for HD inputs the whole PAL/NTSC issue went away. Or are you doing standard def via HDMI port (if that is even possible)?

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:25 pm

JRod wrote:
I'm not messing around with that this year. I've missed a ton of option files over the years because of regions. The PC gets everything but the community should out in force for the PS3:UK version.

When is the PC version release in the UK?

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:28 pm

Naples39 wrote:
Blublub wrote:Thanks guys - I am pretty far behind the WE times. When it was first announced I could have sworn I heard that they were going to stop the idiotic dual-release thing. Then again it is Konami marketing we're talking about, so I should've known it was too good to be true.

Would the PAL version work on an NTSC set through HDMI?
I'm no techie, but I thought for HD inputs the whole PAL/NTSC issue went away. Or are you doing standard def via HDMI port (if that is even possible)?

PAL and NTSC are analog video formats. HD is digital.

Blublub · Post by **Blublub** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:36 pm

Zeppo wrote:PAL and NTSC are analog video formats. HD is digital.

I'm sure you're right - I get the whole thing confused with DVD region-coding and the like. But, how come if I try to view a region-free DVD encoded in PAL using the PS3 it says "this system doesn't support PAL playback?"

I better get this whole thing straight, since I'm headed to 220v PAL land in just a few months. It's not going to be pretty

dougb · Post by **dougb** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:17 pm

Pre-ordered the PC version.

Ign gave it a very high rating but I don't put much stock in their reviews. Would be great if bloody Konami released the versions concurrently in the North America and Europe but then they've got an infinite number of bloody monkeys pounding randomly on keyboards in their marketing department so it's simply too much to ask for.

Best wishes,

Doug

Macca00 · Post by **Macca00** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:59 pm

dougb wrote:Would be great if bloody Konami released the versions concurrently in the North America and Europe but then they've got an infinite number of bloody monkeys pounding randomly on keyboards in their marketing department so it's simply too much to ask for.

Sure the chimps have some part to do with their marketing but don't underestimate the influence of that llama. He's a bastard.

I've pre-ordered the PS3 version today from game.co.uk ......now I need to get a PS3 to play it on.