PES Matters 19th December 2009

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Sat 19 Dec 2009

It’s the final article of 2009 from me, and looking back, it’s been quite a year.

PESGaming.com has grown considerably over the past year, with a very strong community contribution which we are very grateful for.  We’ve had lots of discussion points and arguments – myself in particular causing a fair few arguments and having to wield the banhammer on plenty of occasions.

PES2010 has had a very mixed reception generally, but i do hope you guys can see progress being made in the game.  Perhaps not at the pace many would like, but progress nonetheless.  We face a monumental year in 2010 when we will collectively begin and champion the cause all over again.

In spite of the challenges faced by Konami there is a very strong backing from PES hardcore fans for the series.  We know what WEP are capable of, and we’re all out to try and help them achieve that.  Regular readers will be aware that I’ve stated in the past that we will have to wait until PES2011 for a proper game representative of our expectations, and I stand by that.  Last year’s involvement from the top PES fan sites was the first attempt to influence the process.  This year we should have what I will term a bit more of a “well-oiled machine” in terms of interaction with Konami.

But we’ve plenty of time to get into the new year’s challenges next year, so for now the message from me is to keep the faith.  I’m sure many of you will agree with me that PES2010 is the finest installment in the series to date, and can see that there is unlocked potential that we will be tapping into.

My biggest challenge, with your help, is to help provide as much assistance with the online side of the game as possible.  I have set up a community mode called “www.pesgaming.com” which now harbours a total of 10 members.  I would like to urge you all to please join the community and let’s gather our collective online experiences for Konami.

We will set up as many community sites as is required to try to give the mode a proper thumping.  I have to say that so far my experiences with the online game have been fairly favourable with games.  I haven’t experienced much in the way of the dreaded delayed response.  So I urge you guys to join the community and play against various people and let’s try to see what the game does for us.  I personally can’t complain about the online mode as vociferously if I don’t experience issues, or if people aren’t telling me about their issues.  On that note, thank you to the few people who have said that they are experiencing issues, your comments are being recorded for now.

Finally I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a fantastic new year.

Thanks for reading

Dougiedonut

(dougiedonut@pesgaming.com)

PES Matters 12th December 2009

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Sat 12 Dec 2009

I’d like to start this week’s column by congratulating the three PS2 PES2010 (PAL) copies:

Simon Mcdermott

Steven Victor Lyness

Ebendo Ejechi

I did forget to mention that the copies are for PAL region copies, so hopefully they are still valid for them.  Thank you to everyone who took part in the competition.  There were a few very good entries, and it was a tough call deciding on the final three.  There will be plenty more competitions to run going into next year with hopefully some fab prizes, so please do keep your eyes open.

Can the three winners please email me their addresses so that I can post the games out to you as soon as possible.

Moving on, I have to say that I am still not satisfied with the level of feedback I’ve been getting with regards to the state of play with online games.

Some people are complaining that it is completely broken, others are saying that they have response lag issues.  I am not getting the volume of complaints against the online mode as I would expect.  I think a good reason for this is probably that not many people have particularly bothered playing the game online – myself included.  If you are amongst these people who don’t play the game online, I’d really like to hear why.

Personally I don’t like the whole online interface.  There’s no obvious easy option to play a 1 v 1 friendly by default.  This is a major issue for me.

I don’t want to set up a game room and pray for someone to come across the room by chance and then play against me.  I can envisage waiting for quite a while for that to happen.

Anyway, I think we need to collectively do more to use the online side of the game.  I have created a new Community called: PESGaming.com which I invite everyone to join.  I want to try to give the mode a shot.  I am looking for as many players as possible to join it please.  The purpose of the community will be to hopefully get gaming and see collectively just where the issues with online gaming are.  The intention is to provide valuable feedback to Konami on what we think of the current online system, and to hopefully suggest ways in which we would like to see it improved.

The more numbers we get of people banding together and bouncing ideas off each other, the more the chances of us improving our game.

I would like to remind people that we are stakeholders in PES, and we should do more to exercise our right to opinions on what it needs.

As usual, keeping all criticism/complaints constructive is the only way to do things right.  I don’t want to have to start pulling out the ban hammer, it’s been locked away for a little while now, and please help me keep it there!

I am going to have to cut this one a little short this week since I have a lot going on in my real life, so apologies for not providing more of a read.

Please do join the online community with us, we look forward to seeing you on it.

Thanks for reading

Dougiedonut

(dougiedonut)

PES Matters 5th December 2009

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Sat 05 Dec 2009

I am interested in getting some PES online competitions going via www.pesrankings.com for PS3 players initially.  I think it’s about time we started to run regular competitions which are open to all.  I know Dan runs his own little league, and I shall try to get him to follow into running it via pesrankings too.  We will be getting prizes to give away to winners too, so there should be a goal worth going for.

I have tried to post a competition for this weekend, but so far haven’t had any interest, and probably because I haven’t advertised it on this site.

So, if there is anyone interested in joining in this weekend, look for the “PESGAMING CUP” taking place today and tomorrow.

I am looking to get a few trial cup runs going to get used to the format and to administrate them before launching proper competitions which prizes up for grabs.  I’d appreciate some assistance from you guys with it, so please do give it a bash.
Dan has mentioned recently in his column that we will be looking to collate our criticisms/suggestions/ideas for PES2011 in the new year, so I think it would be a good idea if you guys could use the rest of this month to systematically go over the current game and start to put your thoughts down on paper ready for the big initiative we will be driving.

I know there will be people stating that Konami don’t listen and won’t do what we want them to, and if you seriously believe this, then please don’t even bother to post comments back.  We do believe Konami are listening to us, and so we want to try to help shape the game by getting our concerns addressed.  I’ve said it in the past, and I’ll say it again, pessimism and negativity won’t change anything positively.  But if like us, you would like to try to make a difference then please join us and I know for a fact that we’re being listened to.

I have a good measure on what I consider to be the key issues with PES2010 for me, and I will be listing them in the new year.

For now, I have to say that there aren’t enough comments reporting back about the online issues that PES has.  I personally don’t like the whole online implementation, with regards to creating match rooms and having to wait around in them for people to connect to and play.

I think the whole online interface needs a complete overhaul, but I need to sit down and pretty much list the important factors that it should have.

If there is anyone interested in helping us to design the online interface that we think would work, then please do give us a shout.

I know we won’t get the whole system changed as per our idea, but we should give ample food for thought at the very least.

Finally, thank you to the few people who have taken part in the PS2 PES2010 competition, I will be announcing the three winners later this week, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Thanks for reading

Dougiedonut

(dougiedonut@pesgaming.com)

PES Matters 28th November 2009

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Sat 28 Nov 2009

I’d like to start this week’s column by saying a big thank you to MatTheCat, christos21 and Nobby04 for their support given the abuse which was left in last week’s comments.

I’d like to address the point MagicaRoma made about not talking to individuals in my articles.  Basically this site is first and foremost a community site.  We exist to not only provide information on the game, but to try to create a healthy environment for debates about issues with PES that we may have.

I like to interact with you guys, as it makes these articles more personal for many of you, rather than me just discussing a topic, and ignoring what you guys have to say about issues.  The only restriction we place on the site is that people pay respect to everyone when on this site.  It’s a small ask, but clearly beyond the grasp of the many people that have got themselves banned from the site.

The trouble for me is that some of these inconsiderate people actually have a good point underneath their ill-mannered ways.  So I’m left with the dilemma of either trashing their comments for the abuse posted, or leaving it as they do have a good point.  More often than not, I tend to leave the comments on the site against my better judgement, but this seems to come back to haunt me more often than not.  So from now on, any abuse in a comment, no matter how valid the comment, and it will be deleted and I won’t address it.  But I know this will lead to a backlash regardless, but we’ll see how it goes.  The bottom line is that you guys make this site what it is.  If we don’t get interaction and participation in what we have to say, then there’s little point in me writing for the site, in my opinion.

Anyway, I have to say that I’ve not seen as many comments and complaints about the online play as I expected.  In past years, we’ve been inundated with lots of comments by people moaning about the online game, but at the moment that seems to be relatively low.  So if there are more people who are not having a good time online, please do leave comments for me.

Now that people have had enough time to grow accustomed to PES2010, we will be approaching a period soon where we can provide Konami with feedback and improvement suggestions for next year.  I expect to start the collation period fairly soon, so if you are interested in participating, then I’d suggest you guys start to analyse the key areas that you want to see improved in PES.

I’d also like to hear this week where you think PES should be in 5 years time.  Do you have definite views on where you think the direction of PES should be?  It has been on it’s current course for over 15 years now, and I think the format is definitely stale and in need of reinvigoration.

So where do you think PES should go?  Should the game delve into management modes more, or concentrate on individual player abilities?

Or do you have other ideas of where the game should be?  How many people liked the new Master League format?

Most people these days can pick up PES or FIFA and find they acclimatise to the control systems in relatively short time spans.  It’s a very familiar format, and hasn’t seen much in the way of change over the years.  If you could redesign the control system, what would you do?

I’m looking for ideas for redesigning the whole control system using the PS3/360 controllers.  Let’s see what sort of ideas you guys can come up with for how to control play.  For example, what if PES ditched the d pad control system altogether – how many people would be outraged at this?

I know there are a lot of players who still prefer the old school dpad for control – would they be willing to give it up, and learn to use the analogue sticks?  Would this be a problem for people?

Finally, there are still a couple more weeks left of my PES2010 PS2 competition left, and I’ve only had a handful of entrants, so if you are thinking of going for it, then please hurry!  The chances of winning one of the three available copies is very high, so get in there.

Thanks for reading

Dougiedonut

(dougiedonut@pesgaming.com)

Konamis iPES – The Fan App

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Wed 25 Nov 2009

Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH today announced its iPES – The Fan App is now available for free on the App Store. The app has been specifically designed to appeal to PES fans with an iPhone or iPod touch.

iPES – The Fan App allows users to collect credits in different sections and features four news channels plus a host of sub-games, each of which allows users to collect fresh points each day. Accessing the PES News, PES Blog, PES League and sports news streams will reward the user with 50 credits each day. There is also a daily quiz which offers users 50 credits if the Question of the Day is answered correctly first time, or 25 if they get it on the second attempt.

The app also includes videos of some of the greatest scored goals on PES 2010. Each month, three of the best goals scored will be uploaded and users encouraged to select what they consider the best goal in return for 750 points. There is also a ‘What Happens Next?’ sub-game where users watch footage from PES 2010 and pick from one of three possible outcomes. Getting it right first time will earn them 500 points, with 250 gained if it is guessed second time round.

Point credits from the app can be used to collect special PES 2010 cards. A pack of five collectors cards costs 250 points, and contains a mixture of tips and tricks skill advice, team cards, club badges, or stadia. Purchased cards are stored within the user’s All-Star Album and they can also swap, or trade, cards with other iPES – The Fan App users over Wi-Fi.

The iPES – The Fan App is a great way to keep in touch with the PES series and it has a strong social element as it can be set to download all new elements automatically and link with friends via Facebook.

iPES – The Fan App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at http://www.itunes.com/appstore/. iPES – The Fan App was developed by Clanmo GmbH, Mobile Interactive Agency, Munich. For more information or assets, please contact Steve Merrett at Voltage PR on 020 7903 5122, or email steve@voltagepr.com.

All copyrights or trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used under license.

iPES – The Fan App

General

iPES is the iPhone App for PES fans.

Collect credits (points) with everything you do in the App and exchange the credits directly in the App for digital PES 2010 collector cards in a range of categories. You can browse through all the cards you have already collected in your album and see which ones you already have or how many collector cards you are still missing.

PES 2010 Collector cards

You need 250 credits for a pack of PES 2010 collector cards. Each pack contains 5 random collector cards.

The counter on the top right corner of the App shows you how many credits you currently have. The counter turns green when you have enough credits for a new pack. You can then open a new pack of PES 2010 collector cards in the “All-Star Album” area.

Each pack contains a random selection of cards.

There are cards from the following categories:

- Tips & Tricks (various tips and tricks to do with PES 2010)

- Teams (various club and national teams from PES 2010)

- Team Badges (emblems or flags of the club and national teams from PES 2010) and

- Stadiums (football stadiums included in PES 2010)

Collecting credits (points) / Features

You can collect credits by using all the features of the iPES App. A different number of credits are allocated for each feature.

News

iPES contains 4 news channels. PES News, PES Blog, PES League and UEFA News. You will get 50 credits each time you access a news channel, however only once a day!

Quiz

A new question is activated every day in the quiz. If you answer correctly first time around you get 50 credits, at the second attempt you only get 25 credits and there are unfortunately no points for the third attempt.

Videos

iPES has 2 video categories

Goal of the Month

This section contains videos of 3 PES 2010 goals each month. Simply select your favourite and you get 750 credits. You can find all previous goals of the month as well as the voting results in the archive.

What Happens Next?

Here you will regularly find interesting PES 2010 videos and you have to guess how each video ends.

Look at the scene and then decide on one of three possibilities. All possibilities depict a possible outcome. If your first guess is right you get 500 credits. If you don’t guess the correct solution until your second try you only get 250 credits. You unfortunately won’t get any credits if you don’t guess correctly until your third try.

You can find all past “What Happens Next?” videos under the menu option Archive if you want to play them again. There are however no credits in this case.

The All-Star Album

Here you can exchange your credits for PES 2010 collector cards and browse through the cards you have already collected. As soon as the collector card pack has a folded corner, this means that you can open a new pack (also indicated by the green-coloured credit counter). You can rip open a pack by swiping your finger from left to right quickly over the pack.

If you tap on the pictures display in turn at the bottom of the display, this takes you to the gallery containing the cards you have already collected.

Trading

You can trade collector cards with your friends via the Wi-Fi function of your iPhone or iPod touch. You must of course be within Wi-Fi range to do this.

Click on the Trade icon >picture< in the menu of the All-Star Album in order to start trading.
Then connect up with the telephone or iPod touch of your exchange partner. Now you can both select the picture that you want to trade. You can finally confirm the trade on the screen and the two pictures selected will be swapped between the two devices.

Settings

You can decide in the Settings whether you want to share your successes in the App with your friends on Facebook. You will however still be asked before every publication on your Facebook profile whether you consent to the publication.

You can also decide here whether the application should automatically search for new content such as videos, quiz questions etc. so that you don’t have to reactivate the application every time you start up.

PES 2010: New DLC Confirmed

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Mon 23 Nov 2009

PES 2010: New DLC Confirmed which updates team rosters, UEFA Champions League elements and kits Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH has released details of the first free DLC content for the PLAYSTATION®3, Xbox 360 and PC-DVD versions of PES 2010. A primer update is available to download now, and will ready the relevant hardware for the full DLC update which will be released on November 24th. The initial download will ensure that any PES 2010 Edit data the user has stored on their hardware will not be affected by future Konami DLC, while the November 24th data enhances a number of elements in the full game and also revises the club team rosters in line with those of all current transfers, all major transfers made after the game was completed will be rectified. Furthermore, four new teams will also be added to PES 2010’s UEFA Champions League mode, with Atletico Madrid, Olympiacos, Lyon and Fiorentina all added to the competition in their official Champions League kits. Similarly, the DLC will also update the home kit of the Japanese national team, which was recently changed. Konami is committed to releasing further updates for PES 2010 via DLC in the coming year, and is continuing to work with the PES community to see ways that the game can be improved via future content

PES Matters 21st November 2009

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Sat 21 Nov 2009

Once again someone has got up my nose with their comments left last week.  This time it is the turn of a certain Deadweather.  He clearly has issues with the online side of the game, but seems to deem it acceptable to have a pop at me and Dan.  Normally I just get rid of comments when they are rude/offensive, but yet again he has a genuine concern, but lacks the manners and decency to raise his issue respectfully.  So on that basis I’m not going to address his problem.

That would be the sensible thing to do, given the respect he has shown us guys, but we’re more than capable of conducting ourselves in a mature manner.  Just because you have the freedom to express yourself however you see fit, does not mean you should get offensive.  We don’t ask for recognition or praise, but at the same time we won’t tolerate abuse.  You’re one more dodgy comment away from a straight ban from this site mate.

Anyway, on to the issue of online play.  I would be interested in knowing just how widespread this issue actually is.

Basically I would say that online issues seem to be sporadic with people.  We don’t have the widespread online problems as associated with PES2009, but there still are areas where people are not getting decent games.

We would like to know the types of issues you are getting, along with the country you are from which may help to build a better picture.  I believe the lag issues of old (teleporting players, juttery action, ball all over the place) are not seen as much, but response lag is the main culprit.  Please do leave comments describing the nature of the issues, so that we can attempt to get some feedback from Konami on what they intend to do to address our issues.

It’s fair to say that we have no such general issues with online play with most others games, so this is something that konami need to pay more attention to.  There was plenty of noise  being made pre-launch about online play being sorted, so let’s get across the extent of the problems to Konmai.  It will be interesting to hear the common types of complaints you guys have out there.

Personally speaking, I have yet to fully explore the online game, but will be very shortly launching our very first online tournament via www.pesrankings.com.  This tournament will be on the PS3 only initially whilst we get used to running online competitions, so expect many more events moving forward should this turn out to be a success.

In fact, I’ve just thought that if there are people who are willing to play me on the PS3 just to see how we get on, then I’d very up for that.  I’m in London, and so would appreciate people getting in touch from around the UK, Europe and beyond.  This will be a very good test of seeing how well the game performs, and I will be making a note of the status of games to report back.  So if you’re interested in partaking, please email me at my usual address, and we’ll try to arrange some mutual times to play.

I should also state that the primary reason I haven’t played online all that much is because I am going nuts on the Master League mode, which I am finding all consuming!  The game’s depth is just amazing, and I’m loving it!

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading.

Dougiedonut

(dougiedonut@pesgaming.com)

PES Matters 14 November 2009

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Sat 14 Nov 2009

Just when I thought I would change the day I post my articles to space them out a bit more from Dan’s IWP articles, I clash with his article earlier today again!  I think i will change to either Fridays or Saturdays to give IWP more prime space before I kick in.

At the moment I am still going crazy on the Master League and with essentially players with poor skills relatively, so the game is very challenging and not as rewarding as it will be when I sign better players and train up talented youngsters.  Once I get to a stage where I am playing with decent players, I will take time out to spend some time playing the latest FIFA game to once again devote some time to comparing these two giants of footballing games.

I know I courted controversy the last time I compared PES and FIFA, and it is a difficult and emotional subject to broach, but I intend to try to be as tactful as well as honest as I can.  I am aware of the fact that this is a PES site, and my allegiances truly do lie with PES, but I believe that in my capacity on this site, I should be challenging Konami to produce bigger and better.  Anyway, the actual comparison won’t be for at least another six to eight weeks, since it’s only fair to play FIFA for a fair while to be able to guage it’s good and bad points, as I am currently doing so with PES.

In the meantime, I am pleased to announce that we have been given three copies of PES2010 on the PS2 by Konami, which I will be giving away in a competition.  I was thinking about running another “Beat the Blogger” type competition, but have decided to run this one a little differently.

If you fancy a copy of it on the PS2, all you have to do is to tell me in no more than 200 words why PES is the game for you.

It’s that simple.  The best three entries will bag a copy of the PS2 game.  Email me at my usual address below.  The competition end date is the 14th of December 2009.  The sooner I get three winners the sooner the games go out, so get sending your entries.

This talk of competitions leads me nicely to my next topic of regular online competitions.  We are going to be teaming up with www.pesrankings.com with lots of exciting prizes.  We are looking to establish a permanent presence on pesrankings.com, so this should be an exciting time for everyone involved with our site.  We will be looking to create a trial competition on the PS3 very soon to see how we fair.  Hopefully we can get pretty efficient with running them, and have regular competitions for everyone to join in on.

That’s all I have for you guys this week, so I look forward to getting some entries in soon for the PS2 copies we have available.

Thanks for reading

Dougiedonut

(dougiedonut@pesgaming.com)

PS2 and PSP versions of PES 2010 today

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Fri 06 Nov 2009

Sound progress for PES 2010 Konami unleashes PSP® and PlayStation 2 versions of acclaimed football series As Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH releases the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) and PlayStation 2 versions of its popular PES 2010 title, it has released full details of the game’s fully licenced soundtrack.

PES 2010 is released for PSP® and PlayStation 2 on November 6th, and shares many of the attributes of its next generation cousins. Both games enjoy much improved player and team AI, while the visuals have also been significantly enhanced. Every aspect of the game – from close control, through to commentary and presentation – has been thoroughly reworked, and follows a year of feedback and discussion with the PES community.

The use of licensed tracks was just one of the many requests asked by the PES fan base, and the Tokyo-based WEP team has incorporated over 25 well-known and specially selected tracks that suit the game perfectly. Tracks include ‘Dakota’ and ‘A Thousand Trees’ by the Stereophonics, ‘Again and Again’ by Keane, and Paul Weller’s anthemic ‘Come On/Let’s Go.’ PES 2010 is already available for PLAYSTATIONR3, Xbox 360 and PC-DVD, and as Konami releases its new iterations, the publisher is already discussing future plans with the PES community for ways to take the series forward.

PES 2010 will be released for PSP(R) (PlayStation(R)Portable) and PlayStation 2 on November 6th. For more information, please contact Steve Merrett at Voltage PR on 020 7903 5122 or email steve@voltagepr.com. All copyrights or trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used under license.

PES Matters 5th November 2009

Posted by dougiedonut in PES 2009 News on Thu 05 Nov 2009