The Retro-PES Corner

@Chris Davies: You might be onto something when you speak of the "retro-coolness" of a game like ISS Pro Evo: maybe you also value it more because it provides you a radically different experience than modern-PES. Later PS2 PES games are more graphically realistic, so the "shock" is not as profound as it is when going from PES19 to a 20-year-old game.

I've got to tell you, when I decided to replay ISS Pro Evo I feared I'd end up not liking the gameplay, realizing my fascination for it was nostalgia speaking louder than anything else. It all went away after the first match. The game is bloody fantastic. I might still be biased, but at this point...I really can't find a way to not enjoy it.

And about that "culture shock" you speak of, a while ago - elsewhere - I half-jokingly recommended people to do a "cleansing of the gaming palate" :DD. Abstain from playing any modern football game for a while, then try out a PS2 PES, for example. Things like the 8-directional dribbling are bound to be much more of a nuisance if you're playing modern-PES simultaneously, but if you're not, it won't bother at all. I know this from experience: when you don't feel the urge to compare the old with the modern games, you're free-er to actually enjoy the retro-PES game as it comes.

@MafiaMurderBag: I'm very much interested to know how you get on with it, and see whether ISS Pro Evo is still able to attract "newcomers"or just "nostalgia-freaks" like me :PINKS:
 
2013 is not quite retro enough, but what do you guys think of it? It still appears to me as the version with the best player individuality. Teams play differently, huge variation between players. Also, here in Vietnam a lot are still playing 2013 + roster updates.
 
While posting about tough old games, i recalled this. Does any of you remember in International Superstar Soccer (snes), the World Series game mode, where you had to play in a League with every national team participating. It was so difficult, cause there was not any save method and the only two ways to keep playing the tournament were:
1) Never switch off the console
2) Continue with some akward passwords the game used to give you, which i was keeping written in a physical notepad. Those passwords had the problem, that they were extremelly big, more than 20 characters, and that either cause of the strange characters font or cause of KONAMI!, most times the password didn't work, especially after 5-10 matches you played succesfully, so you couldnt load your progress.
 
So i gave ISS on PS1 a go last night, I went into it expecting it to be very primitive and very floaty football game, the only point of reference i have for PS1 football games is FIFA 98 which isn't exactly very deep is it.

I was pleasantly surprised by how sophisticated a football game from 1999 was. This definately felt like PES before PES, both visually and mechanically. I was impressed with how smooth and intuitive it is too. I can't imagine how playing this in '99 must've felt, i bet it was mind-blowing when footy titles at the time just had the very casual turn-pass-turn-shoot mindset and it's all harmless fun and yet this comes along and takes a more balanced simulation approach.

There surely was a contingent of gamers and football fans who wished it could be more realistic and not so on the nose, on a plate for the user and this would've been it. I even tried things that i take for granted in later PES and thought "Surely they hadn't incorporated this, this early" Like shot feints and back-heels and switching the play with long balls but they thought of it!

I wasn't a football fan when this was released but was a big gamer and i do remember ISS 2 had a strong marketing campaign in gaming magazines at the time talking about it like it was the second coming of Jesus so again in 2000, I imagine Football fans finally getting their hands on a polished representation of football and how anticipated it must've been. Was ISS 1 & 2 considered commercial successes? I'm sure they were critically at least or else we wouldn't have got PES 1 on PS2.

@du0 If we were to have classifications of "retro", I'm not sure how it would be considered as it's technically from a different generation of consoles but not a different generation of society, It's an old game by current standards, still feels like it came out yesterday to me though. I play it every now and again and as with all RetroPES games, It's a unique experience. It's PES, but it's not PES if you know what i mean?

I think it's one of the best PES's and one of the best football games ever made. On a Professional, Content & presentation standpoint, It's probably the PES overall PES package, then it all started going into drastically inconsistent territory with the Fox Engine games. PES 2014 really should've been the last version on the old engine.
 
MafiaMurderBag said:
Was ISS 1 & 2 considered commercial successes? I'm sure they were critically at least or else we wouldn't have got PES 1 on PS2.
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It's hard to describe how different the (football gaming) world was, back then.

People at school, at work etc. who spoke about gaming wouldn't be talking about FIFA - they'd talk about PES, and play PES together. IIRC, those early PES titles outsold FIFA before they went in heavy on the licensing front. Sometimes Championship Manager would be talked about too.

I played things like FIFA 97 and enjoyed the novelty of the indoor mode, and World Cup 98 was presented beautifully for the time, but even at a young age (when you'd think licenses would be all that mattered), it was just blatantly obvious how much better PES was. More fun and more representative of real football.

Gameplay was what mattered, so it's what we all played - and we dreamt of PES and FIFA coming together to make a game with PES's gameplay and FIFA's licenses. (20+ years later and nothing's changed.)

My local game shop (RIP "Game Zone II") would break street dates on Pro Evo games and when it was about one month until release, I would phone the guy who ran the place literally every day, to see if it was in yet. But I wasn't the only one. It was a big deal.

He ran PES tournaments, too - he had a massive rear-projection TV that took up about half of the floor-space of the shop, and if you paid a fiver, you could register. You'd all turn up on a Saturday morning and play each other in a knock-out tournament to win the money.

None of this was done for FIFA - because nobody cared about FIFA. We'd all buy it every year hoping it had changed, but usually when it was a bit cheaper, and we'd be trading it in within a couple of months.

I don't remember this really changing until some time after FIFA 08 - which was the start of FIFA's rebirth, and let's be honest, it all happened thanks to them trying to rip off PES as much as possible (starting by employing a producer, David Rutter, who freely admitted from day one that he played PES and not FIFA because PES was better - and that's how progress happens).
 
miguelfcp said:
@mattmid

Another thing that makes the PS2-PES era so great is that you have a title for any "brand" of football you prefer playing. Want more fast-paced action, borderline arcade at times? PES4. Want a more grounded, scrappy experience? PES5. Want a game which balances fun and realism like few ever achieved? PES3. And this is just 3 years of gaming releases, how amazing is that?

About PES5, we can only dream what it'd have been if Konami decided to build upon that game. PES5 is the demo of the football game we never got: it has the foundations for a legendary, one-of-a-kind sports game, but things like the referee logic when reacting to the - quite active - fouling game and the CPU attacking AI brought it "down to earth".

And as always, great video, the commentary is superb! Now, USA to win the tournament? I'm betting on the dark horse...

@WhoAteMeDinner: I don't think I've ever played Pro Evo Soccer, the oldest PS2 PES game I have is PES2. How would you say it compares to PES2?
(by the way, long time no see man, hope you're doing fine!)[/B]

@Chris Davies: I did a review of ISS3 on RSC. Back when I was sampling it to write about the game, I remember posting a few videos here on the Corner showing the long pass player animations, which absolutely blew me away. It looks goddamn real. Shooting, particularly long-rangers, just feels so amazing. But overall...it's miles behind what PES used to offer.
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Thanks miggy, I am a bit like those cheap footballs me and @mattmid, remember fondly, up and down and blown about in the wind. But am still here and will post as often as I have the chance.
:shiver::shiver::shiver:

To your question, and just to be clear. I was talking about ISS Pro Evolution Soccer on the Playstation 1 (1999) not the Playstation 2 era Pro Evolution Soccer (2001). ISS Pro Evolution Soccer is very basic and the master league player lists and ability stats are just getting started and they don't really show up much in actual on the pitch gameplay. As for PES 1 on the Playstation 2, it was widely reviewed as a very limited improvement on the Playstation 1 era games and by the look of the youtube videos of it, it looks good but plays bad.
 
mattmid said:
Ah, I remember them Doing Banana shots on them by hitting it with the outside of your foot and it would go this way and that in the slightest breeze!


Only Konami could have the idea to produce two different football games. Shame as now they can't even make one properly!
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@mattmid, you are telling me mate. I can recall like it was yesterday sending one of those light garage footballs ballooning into the air and breaking our home's kitchen window (at first floor level) some forty or fifty yards away, totally by accident. My angry Mum somehow was not interested in cheap football ball physics and just gave me such a belt on the arm, I can still feel it.

:BLINK::BLINK::BLINK:
 
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Chris Davies said:
There was something about those ISS games, though - I always wondered if a collaboration would have been good. Players moved around much more freely - even though that meant there were too many variables for the AI to cope with it really and it couldn't produce realistic football.

It was clearly a worse game, but it had novel ideas. The first PS2 version really shook me because, after the DualShock 2 was released (with fully-analogue buttons), the controls were all pressure-sensitive.

I'll never forget the feeling of trying to get the pressure right to hit a decent shot, without just swinging at it and smashing the ball into the stands (and I seem to remember it would differ depending on the player's ability). I still think it's a great idea - but DualShock buttons aren't analogue any more...

Does anyone else remember that? Looking up reviews etc. nobody talks about it, yet it seems absolutely revolutionary to me!
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@Chris Davies , I think I can remember that I found it impossible to control, the analogue buttons were much more suited to pass controls, shooting was always too delicate a function to perform with them.

Agree that the ISS games player movement and game speed was always light and fun and much faster than most PES games (except the mighty PES 3 :WORSHIP:).
 
MafiaMurderBag said:
I think it's one of the best PES's and one of the best football games ever made. On a Professional, Content & presentation standpoint, It's probably the PES overall PES package, then it all started going into drastically inconsistent territory with the Fox Engine games. PES 2014 really should've been the last version on the old engine.
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Skipped 2014 and 2015. A couple of years ago I obtained 2014 through "shady channels" to try it out and see for myself why people hated this game so much. It wasn't that bad to me but the crazy input lag just killed any hope of making 2014 acceptable.
 
Hey guys.
Dunno what's the policy here about nostalgia, but I'm experiencing heavy case of one atm so gonna share a story.
It could be a long read for some of you, so you can stop now :)

I've loved this game ever since ISS days on PS1. Probably still have first memory card around in the boxes, fulfilled with great goals. Some of them stayed in vivid memory even after 20 years. Often remembering days when I was 9-10 yr old kid that didn't wanna fall asleep before winning League or Konami Cup. Each of those had Queen song playing in the end. "We will rock you" and "We are the champions" (correct me if I'm wrong). Those 2 were my lullabies back in the day :)

After that period, around neighborhood some weird CD started cruising around, and 2 of my childhood buddies somehow managed to get a copy. It was ISS Club Edition. Imagine the joy! :) After months, or even years playing with only few countries, we got the chance to experience something never seen before! (probably was available in fifa, but.. fuck fifa)
Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but in that game goalkeeper's net was painted differently.. Green/yellow!?
Ah, not important.

During (pre)adolescent period had some fun with PES4 and PES5 on PC, but nothing noticable. It was great, it was fun, but didn't even get remotely close to a feeling of that ISS nights infront of small CRT monitor with console heating up and begging for shutdown.

We're slowly getting towards highschool days and real era of PES and PS2. Some new buddies, some new joys.. But love for the game didn't fade, might as well grew even more. From PES 6 towards "hacked" PES2016 we had countless of hours put in this game. Countless of hours trying to humiliate each others, exploiting every glitch and learning every trick game had to offer. After 2010, we got a bit too old and activity dropped, as expected.. But we religiously continued to search for "illegal" new titles for ps2 (some arabic ppl still doing those player transfers and releasing iso files, as i saw recently. Props to them!) and playing the most we could even in post school days, cause none of the new consoles or new generation of pes games were really our jam.


So, to conclude this whole charade of heavy case nostalgia, I want any of you good souls to show me where to find some old and quality PES title for PC (speaking of '04-'06) that have patches for this year's transfers. Wanna play it against buddies online. Hoping it will be possible to play over hamachi/game ranger or whatever.. I strongly believe there's lots of fanatics out there which loves those old game mechanics from start of '00s over any of the newer titles. And last, but not least - ISS2 for PS1 is one of the best games ever made. Pes08 for PS2 (yeah, dunno why but I loved this one) came closest but.. not really!


Kind regards.
 
@bevandur Welcome to the Retro Corner mate, thanks for sharing your tale with us, you'll fit right in here. As far as patches on the PC covering the current season, check out the PES 6 Patch forum, most importantly, check out Sany's thread as it covers lots of patches for PES 5/6/WE9LE all covering various seasons & era's. They're all stand alone versions so all you've got to do is download the installers. The full games are included with each so you can install as many as you want independently.

https://www.evo-web.co.uk/threads/pes-6-global-patches-full-installers-by-sany.67651/

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Second Semi Final of my World Cup is up!

International Allies become World Cup Enemies - It's Semi Final 02 as England take on USA! Will The Three Lions reach their first final since 1966 or will The United States edge one step closer to adding a Gold Star above those Stars & Stripes on their shirt?

 
bevandur said:
@MafiaMurderBag ty for warm welcoming and for the further links. Liked your take on commentary in these videos. You got yourself a new subscriber :)
I'm also broadcasting, but on Twitch. That was one of the reasons to go look for older PES games as well. Want to stream it while tryharding to beat couple of buddies.

Btw, this link to get it working online still legit?
https://pes6stars.us.to/forum/index.php?/topic/2-how-to-play-on-pes6stars-server/
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I've got no idea as i don't play PES 6 online, Someone else might be able to assist in that area, thanks for the kind words too.
 
@WhoAteMeDinner: I'm afraid so. Where's Stein where you need him? He's got no patience for primadonnas, either you behave like a man or you're out of the locker room with a trademark Stein Sliding Tackle :MAD:
 
Started ISS 2 last night, I can certainly understand why it was so adored towards the end of the PS1's life cycle. Echoing the sentiment i made a couple of days ago about ISS 1, To the average consumer/gamer, the potential of the PS2 and the next generation of gaming was still a mystery in 2000, How realistic would sports games get visually, mechanically and frame-rate wise in the next couple of years?

The average gamer probably wasn't soaking up every last screenshot or tech demo or trailer of PS2 games in the summer of 2000 because there was less media so there was still a sense of innocence and appreciation of what was achievable with ISS 2.

KCET really deserved every bit of recognition and acclaim they got for what they accomplished on the PS1. They've made a game which feels like PES as we know it in it's DNA. This series really must've been one of the first to give you the sense that nothing is guaranteed on the pitch, misplaced passes, early through balls getting intercepted and a decent collision detection system with sliding tackles. Even the animations are very impressive considering the tech. Crazy.

Must've been wonderful being a football gamer wanting something with more sophistication and not something that's just arbitrarily assisted like some of the smaller budget football games which really were that, games. In a way games like ISS and Gran Turismo kind of lent credence to the reputation the PlayStation garnered that it was the console for the mature gamer, who want's something more then a vapid distraction and something that encouraged stimulation.

Such a polished game and they introduced real player names this time round!
 
MafiaMurderBag said:
Such a polished game and they introduced real player names this time round!
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Ah, the world before licenses. I remember CM on the Amiga all with proper names and guess what? Nobody died, nobody got hurt, nobody got offended, nobody worried about it. Imagine. :ROLL:

And you can now play it in a browser (crazy isn't it!) https://archive.org/details/msdos_Championship_Manager_93-94_1993

Codes are here for question at the start. https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Championship_Manager_93/Codes
 
fmicablues7 said:
The CPU is a tad bit better at attacking, but still suck really :(
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Still catching up with all recent chat about PES 2 through PES 6 editions (WE 6 through WE 10) for our global elite membership :Y1.

PES 5 or Winning Eleven 9 ? Well does it matter if the Japanese edition of the game has a tiny bit better AI as from what I experienced playing PES 6 for twelve master league seasons, you could get a tonne of scoreless draws and gather at least a eight or nine snore draws in a season, even with just default and youth list players. @miguelfcp and @mattmid did the same, but even better. The tough part was scoring against the AI.

So, apart from the Nippon edition coming out six months earlier and having J-League teams, what is the big dog and pony show on here about the WE editions ?

:CONFUSE::CONFUSE::CONFUSE:
 
@WhoAteMeDinner: I haven't played enough of PvCPU matches on WE9LE to reach a definite conclusion, but from the little I played I found it to have a more intelligent attacking AI than PES5.
 
Guys, say a prayer for Big Mick and the boys in green this evening playing against the mighty Gibraltarians on their plastic pitch.

Please let's not do a Scotland....:PRAY::PRAY::PRAY:
 
@WhoAteMeDinner Surely not. If Scotland lose to San Marino in their next game they might as well just pack it in!

I haven't played a lot of WE9 either, it had a lot of the good bits of PES5 and PES6 in it, a kind of hybrid but the AI did fart about a bit too much when attacking I found.

Oh and PES6 AI can attack after all :SHOCK: ;)

Code: 
[img]https://i.imgur.com/OUpXPBW.jpg[/img]

Did you get a laptop in the end?
 
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