Interfering With Play 25/03/08
Posted by Dan Bolas in Interfering With Play on Tue 25 Mar 2008
Welcome to this week’s Interfering With Play. Due to a very hectic schedule, this week’s column will be slightly briefer than previous ones, with me having to miss out a number of issues that I would really like to address. I plan to cover them over the next few weeks, so if you feel that I have missed out on a major talking point, please bear in mind I will probably have something stored on them, in order for a quieter period in my schedule. With that said, let’s get cracking.
War Is Over
So, Blu Ray discs have finally won the much talked about HD war, meaning that for the next number of years, all big movies will be released on standard DVD and Blu Ray Disc. Personally, owning a PS3, this means I am already in place for the ‘big change’ and I am sure it will cause many people to follow suit, and maybe prod the neutral in the direction of Sony’s console. Microsoft, a company who offered a HD-DVD drive as an add on to the X Box 360, have come out saying that this is totally irrelevant, because in two years time, everything will be done via Digital Download. Whether this is sour grapes, or they have strong market research supporting these facts, only time will tell. But with Sony’s victory in this war, does it mean they are now going to focus on creating a top quality gaming system, in the same way they have done with PS one and PS2? As a gamer, a huge selling point of the PS3 was the fact that Blu Ray discs could store so much information, which when coupled with the power of the machine, meant for a top of the range gaming experience. On this front, I have not been disappointed. Many PS3 gamers, for all their grumblings and complaints, must appreciate that for the first 12-18 months of a consoles initiation, PS3 has provided a wide range and variety of games, with one or two real top included in that number, The hefty price tag is starting to lower and there is going to be a new war very soon, which will see a more direct head to head of Sony vs. Microsoft, a war which is good news for every gaming fan worldwide. But back to my original point, the war was Blu Ray vs. HD DVD, and now that is over, what difference will it truly make? I own one Blu Ray Movie, and despite the high quality and extra features, I could not justify paying four to five times more for a film on Blu Ray as opposed to getting it on DVD. Yes, I am sure some people, big movie fans, might want a huge collection of HD quality movies, and if this is the case, Blu Ray is the way forward, but as a gamer, and addressing the PESGaming.com public, how many of you will be shelling out the amounts to get your favourite films on Blu Ray?Your views, as always are very welcome.
Games In Hand
A point that has been raised by many people in various forms over the last few weeks, and a feature that has only featured briefly on PES is handballs. When brought in on PES3, the handball option was more luck than judgement, with seemingly endless scrappy handballs given in the centre of midfield, and then blatant goal stopping opportunities going unpunished. As a result of this, it drove many gamers to frustration, with most asking that it be removed from the next version. The handball feature was greatly reduced over the next few releases, and seems to have gone all together on PES2008, especially in the next gen versions. Like everything with PES, I feel the handball mode was the right idea, but needed consistency in order to be successful. There is nothing more annoying than having a stonewall penalty claim turned down, only for exactly the same thing to happen against you two minutes later, and the spot kick given. A number of ideas have been banded about on how the game could use handballs whilst still maintaining its realism. One suggestion was when chesting, the ball, one of the shoulder buttons had to be pressed in order for it to be done successfully. Mistiming this would result in your player sticking out an arm in order to bring the ball down. Another suggestion would be that handballs could only be given during or following a slide tackle. This is a seemingly simple one to implement, as when players slide or go to ground, they are committing themselves to that particular challenge or block. If a shot is going in, only to be deflected by an outstretched are, the player responsible for the slide must appreciate it was there choice to try the block, and a free kick or penalty could be awarded as appropriate. Taken further, shots that were going on goal but blocked with a hand could receive a yellow or red card, totally depending on whether it would be blocked by the keeper or not. Again, this may not be everybody’s choice, but as a avid football fan, I want realism, and if following a 20 pass move, my deft lob is blocked by a players arm, I want the full Monty as regards to punishment. It would also means blocks and tackles have to be timed better, and as long as its consistent, there would be no room for moaning from any gamers. Your views greatly appreciated.
Call The Red Cross
Great to hear from so many of you regarding injuries on the game and the frustration the lack of animation causes. I will address this again in a few weeks time, but just wanted to let comment leavers and e-mailers know I have read the opinions. It does make me smile when a player who has just been crunched goes off hobbling and holding their hamstring. Anyone who knows about the human body, or has ever injured their hamstring knows the most common cause is not an impact injury, but instead over stretching or in some cases not warming up properly. Things like this are not difficult to implement, but would help bring a level of authenticity to injuries, be they muscle pulls, blood injuries or even head wounds.
Video Killed The Radio Star
Finally tonight, I was surprised as many of you to see a first on PESGaming.com, a video compilation package entitled “What Football Means to me”. Whilst some people have given it some criticism, I highly welcome things like this, as it can show the quality of PES in a format that is being used more and more on TV and the Internet. I personally thoroughly enjoy making video montages like this, but am currently unable to capture images of PES onto my PC. If anyone has the ability to do so, and wishes to pair up to make a video package like this, please be in touch via my e-mail address and we can try and sort something out. All credit will be given where appropriate. With that said, I would like to point you all in the direction of something I found on the Console Goals website about 8 months ago. I am not sure as to whether as it has been posted on the forums of PESGaming.com, or how many of you will have seen it, I personally believe it to be the best piece of PES Video editing around. The footage is taken from PES6 on the PC, and features fully edited kits. It is a compilation piece showing the different playing styles of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. I have included it on the column, but more videos like this are available at ConsoleGoals.com. I would once again like to point out I did not create this video, and all credit goes to FCB_87. Enjoy!
That’s your lot for this week’s Interfering With Play. You can get in contact via danbolas@hotmail.com, or simply leave a comment at the bottom of the article. As I said, a slightly shorter column this week due to a very busy few days previously, and over the next few weeks, I will hopefully be able to cover all features raised by the PESGaming.com community.
Thanks for Reading
FIFA detects handballs only when the ball hits the player’s arm/hand, and I’m 80% sure that it is only sanctioned when the player is holding out the arm in question.
I see no reason why it should be hard to implement such a system of collision detection…
i would like to say thank you..as i was the one responcible for making this…it was hard but enjoyable…hope 2 see more ppl doin what i do:D
I know its a bit ridiculous to ask such a question but may i know roughly when pes2009 contents will be revealed to the public? coz pes2008 was sort of a disappointment… i hope we will still be as excited and amazed as previous years had shown…
whohoooo , thanks for mentioning my vid . i appreciate that
Hey guys, just wandering…
Back in 1998, i brought a copy of iss 98 for the N64. The gameplay was great, but one thing still strikes me to this very day -
The game was free flowing. You could commit a foul and the opposition would run to the ball and take the kick . NO BLACK SCREENS to separate it. this was the case with corners, free kicks, goal kicks, penalties..
so why can’t they do it on an xbox 360 or ps3 so that we can have a free flowing game of football? i for one get annoyed when the consoles full power is beaten by a nintendo 64 lol
end rant lol
I’ve been a gamer for 20yrs and have had practically all of the consoles apart from the 3do and I have to say that the PS3 has perhaps been one of the most dissapointing so far. Yes its got immense processor power and yes its got blu-ray but the difficulties producers have found when programming on it have resulted in very lazy ports over from games being actually programmed on the 360. Take PES2008. That was programmed on the 360 and ported to the PS3 and it shows. The 360 version is a much better game and online play is much better.
I think the HD DVD and Blu-ray war was a small subplot and when it comes to gaming there is no reason, at present, why developers should not keep developing on a 360 and porting over especially whilst Microsofts whole approach, as much as it pains me to say it, has been pretty sound.
As an aside to Asstache or whatever your name is, did you see Lawrenson and the others on match of the day discussing how football needs to take a leaf out of rugby with respect to respect shown to referees. Maybe they’re just naive too! ;)
Pro Evo 2008 on the PS2 seems like a lazy effort to me. The AI blatantly cheats on Top Player. Why is this?
How can PRO 6 play such a solid game of football, and then go completely downhill for PRO 2008.
I’ve played both 6 and 2008 recently and Pro Evo 6 is just so much more fun to play.
Oh well, it looks like Fifa is starting to take control now.
I totally disagree with most of the comments from mn9ajas. How can you even say that the ps3 is disappointing?? I just like yourself have played console games for over 20 yrs and have had the luck to have most of the machines. PS3 is by far the best console i have played on. A true super power. I think sony should be thanked for this super machine. The 360 is a “good” machine but not great.
Also the comments re: match of the day, why should we not follow rugby??? CAPTAINS ONLY……………Have it!!!!!
I agree Gazza about the referees. It was the other guy that called me naive for mentioning it before!
Although I don’t understand how you can say the PS3 is the best console of all time. It has lazy ports, a slack online setup, lack of proper voice comms during games (due to having to purchase a Bluetooth headset). The six axis is a rip off of the 360 controller with the back trigger buttons and the Wii motion sensors (which was thrown in once Sony saw Nintendos plans and is hardly used to any great effect) To top it off the desktop display is poor compared to the 360’s display, there are hardly any downloads and one of the most annoying things about the PS3 is having to manually switch between the Hi Def output and the Scart output when using it on different TVs.
Don’t get me wrong, Sony are a great company and I much prefered the PS2 over the original Xbox and have always been a Sony guy since PS1 but I feel that they may have dropped the ball on this one given that it is likley that it will be superceded by new consoles in 2010, meaning it has realistically 12mths to start delivering!
@mn9ajas
Are you really pinning your opinion on the thoughts of ex footballers turned pundits? You are not naive, you are plain, good old fashioned, stupid! You really should have read more books in those twenty years! You have absolutely no grasp of the social structure you live in and obviously lack the intelligence to comprehend my previous comment to which you refer.
Ha Ha Ha! You make me laugh!
mn9ajas, great points, and i understand where you coming from now re: other consoles. However my own personal preference is the PS3.
Thanks for the comments
I have the american PS2 version and a lot has been taken out. There is no golden/silver goal, no dive, no changing of the amount of players on a wall… Why is this?
I’m pretty sure those features are not in the PS2 version anywhere in the world, not just America.
There is no particular reason.
On the PS3 360 thing (without fanboy stuff). I am currently thinking about getting a PS3, I currently have a 360. I am a little concerned with regard to the quality of cross platform games. Relating to the points made by mn9ajas, it worries me a little that all of the cross platform game reviews I read seem to plug for the 360 version. I am reading this on almost everything, the net, magazine reviews the lot. My question to people who already own a PS3 is; Does this appear to be improving or is this a technical difference in the way the two consoles process the information. I know the graphics engine in the 360 uses something called anti-aliasing which I think handles distortion when rendering high resolution graphics and the PS3 doesn’t as this is mentioned quite a bit, but, what I don’t seem to be reading is that any game developers have found a way around this.
The other thing that concerns me is the fact that Sony cannot appear to their minds up about the hard drive size & backward compatibility. I hear that there will most likely be a European release in the summer of an 80G machine with backward compatibility, that’s three different spec machines in less than a year. I hate to think that I am going to spend my cash and in a matter of three or four months see yet another version (probably be able to make a cup of tea) come out and I’m left thinking I’ve been short changed.
I know the prices have fallen and will fall further over the coming months and I accept that, but, for prices to fall and the spec of the machine to keep changing, well, that would just piss me off if I’d just paid out £300.
How will people with a 40G machine with no backward compatibility feel when I can go and buy an 80G with BC for the same price in June 2008! Personally, I would be pissed.
Hi Assache
I had a 60GB PS3 console, as mentioned. As far as I saw up until 11 days ago when I swapped back for a 360 there didn’t seem to be any marked improvement in graphics etc on PS3 versions of games. As mentioned, until developers decide to actually make the game using a PS3 dev kit rather than the 360 I can’t see this changing. Unless you are going to use the Blu-ray functionality I would probably hold tight until at least the summer as then big releases like GTA4 etc will be out on both platforms and you can see if there’s any difference. Also there might be another price drop!! ;)
Cheers, that was probably what I was expecting to hear, but, probably not what I wanted to hear!
I would love to be able to go out and buy a PS3, but, it just seems to be taking a bloody lifetime to settle down. As you mentioned, how long in it’s life cycle is this machine?
As someone who, as yourself, has been through with PS1 & PS2, to have to wait almost two years into PS3’s life cycle before feeling you can make a balanced purchase is just so frustrating and the fact that one of the reasons I had a rethink on buying one at all was because it had won the HD-DVD Blue-ray war is just a little bit sad.
P.S We got a deserved (I think) shout in the latest IWP. Good work!