Soccer Gaming

Thanks for the comments on last weeks column.  Some interesting points raised, Andy stating the transfers in ML can be made manually, an option I’ve struggled to find.  Under general settings there is two options for ‘leave to agent’ or ‘negotiate directly’.  The later still leaves an annoying and unnecessary wait for the somewhat useless agent who comes back with one in ten deals for you to confirm.  If negotiate manually is an option me and many others are missing, please feel free to point it out !  Glad to hear we generally agree that setting up team formations is somewhat protracted and could be simplified.  Perhaps a point for Konami to note in developing pes2011/2012.

Transfers continued…..

This weeks ‘Do I Not Like That’ is going to start with a point very well made from Brainplant; so many thanks for that. If you’d like to comment or expand on the topic please feel free.  For those that didn’t read the comment, Brainplant rightly pointed out that when you start off with a basic team on the game such as PES United, and personally for me I’ve found the same with WE united, and you do reasonably well over your first few seasons its only natural you start receiving offers for the best players; nothing strange there.  We turn these down, as we won’t win much without our best players, this is when the system becomes flawed.  In turning down these offers our players become aggrieved and angry, dismayed with the club and management.  The more offers that come in and are rejected the angrier the player becomes and the more affection for the club they lose.  This lasts for some time and affects form and overall happiness of the player.  This isn’t, and shouldn’t be, right. At the point the manager breaks their will and sells the player the whole team turns to purple form with sad faces.  Brainplant points out that this shouldn’t be the way and that more than silverware should make a difference to a players affection. Whilst this is mostly right personally I’ve found the older players, that you often sign on a free, and the players you do use most of the time, only resting the odd game, seem to grow more affection to the club. However I’ve found the worse the player the more the affection and twice damage to the squad when you need to move them on.  I’d like to point to the likes of Raul and Giggs as examples but if they are then Konami are seriously wide of the mark with the ML transfer system and players of either Man Utd or Real respectively would all be annoyed if either of these were transfer listed.  I think this could be improved by some sort of past form rating for the squad, maybe in a similar way to the teamwork stat.  As a player becomes a big presence for a club you should keep them, like wise if not, others shouldn’t be annoyed if they leave.  Is it right that a players teamwork stat always improves.  Look at the Liverpool squad from last season to this season.  I’m sure Gerrard would not be on a purple or a sad face if some of the other players of that current team (about 8 of them..!!) were transfer listed.  On the other hand I think Konami have improved the sales aspect of ML though.  Experience over a few years tells me that I’ve never really sold a player for a ‘silly’ profit and most of my earnings in ML has been from winnings.  This year however I have managed to sell two players for astronomical profit.  A point much improved and much more realistic.  Do we think this part of the game is improved? I think Brainplant hit the nail on the head about his player affection comments, do you agree? Have you had other experiences? Would the squad approval of players performance provide more insight into the squads behaviour?  This must be, or is a serious omission from, part of the ‘become a legend’ experience… if your face doesn’t fit and all that…..   

Yawn…..

I do not like the loading times of this years football games.  There isn’t really much to discuss about it in my opinion.  What is the point is the point of PES loading up the calendar screen and pointing out you’ve moved on half a week and have no game.  Its just ridiculous.  Its not even like its loading the next week in the back ground, you have to go through the same process during match week, and surely that’s all we need; The calendar, or just the facts, on match week.  As for FIFA, the load time during the game is absurd, the graphics in the menu system must be so much that when you move between your squad and formation settings (see last week!!!) you have to wait for an age.  In the era of modern gaming capabilities this should not be happening or necessary. FIFAs load screen of the goal scoring attempts can only be a drain on an apparently stretched system.  Maybe I’m way missing the point and don’t fully understand programming, maybe I do, but either way I don’t seem to play many other games which require as much load time as football games.  This could move me nicely onto PES crashing in the tunnel sequence but surely the people behind the game are embarrassed about this enough…

Thanks for the constructive comments last week, feel free to add onto this as these columns couldn’t be made without the readers and contributors.  If the comments section doesn’t appear correctly on your computer, we’re working on it, but don’t let it put you off commenting as I receive email copy’s of comments and will reply to or feature them as much as possible. 

I suppose all that’s left to say is well done to Fulham and Liverpool for being the last English teams in Europe this year, and congratulations to Messi…. Wow, I’m already dreading playing against him ‘on a red’ next season !!

Thanks for reading