Pro Evolution Soccer 5

I suspect that Emma's little brother will get his ass whupped though if he played me on this rather than 4 - he'd got to the point where he could beat me if I was drunk, but he doens't play with anywhere near enough sensitivity to cope with the tweaks on this one. I reckon I'd pummell him.

then man u v arsenal, would you believe it, man u were dominating, it was a draw and then went to penalties. and the arsenal scums won it.

last one i can't even remember. was drunk.

It feels like cheating, but I like being able to assemble a masters league team.

I can win most of the time on 5 star now, which is good. Challenge Training is addictive too.

they still haven't properlyl done the advantage play, and because it's so easy to get fouled now without getting cards, you can just foul people everytime they have possession on the halfway line (just a nudge from behind) and all play is broken up.

I thought about watching a tournament with people playing ISS Pro, and when a friend asked me to help out with an idea he'd had for a football film festival, I suggested he widen it out and have a new media section. The result is here...

I picked this (PS2) game up a few weeks ago for a fiver. I've never played any Pro Evolution games before, and I'm finding it very difficult. I scored my first goal yesterday, after realising that you can't just hammer balls at the goal at hope for the best, as was the case with the last football game I played which was probably FIFA 95 on the Megadrive. But the main difficulty I'm finding with the game is actually getting the ball off the other team. The possession in my last game was something like 58%-42% in the other team's favour. The just pass the ball between themselves, my players actually seem to be running away from the ball. Pretty much every sliding tackle results in a foul.

So basically my problem is this: how do I intercept passed balls, and if one of my players is next to an opposing player with the ball, how do I get it off him?

Any other advice is gratefully received!

the computer is really hard to play against in this game.

is it pes5 you have, not 6?

either way, the key is to not commit yourself to tackles too much. often you can win the ball simply by blocking all the options that the computer has and forcing them to do a bad pass. you don't necessarily need to tackle them with X or O to do so. But as a general rule I suppose I'd use X when you're sort of stationary and or moving slowly and the other player is too, and O when they're running and you're coming from the side or occasionally, if you feel you're going to time it right, you can clatter them head on.

tap X gently and try to time it at the moment when the ball is loose from the player you're trying to tackle.

another tip that you should perhaps put on the shelf until you get your head around the above, is that if you press R2 and R1 together (and a direction) while the ball is in the air, you can move the man you're controlling more freely. this is quite difficult, at first you'll move him way out of the way and probably concede if you do it in defence.

but try it when high balls are travelling towards your attackers, just hold those two buttons and a direction. do it quite deftly and don't hold for too long and use it to ease your player towards the ball. or use it to pressure a defender physically (it's also useful for crosses)

and remember, the computer wants to beat you. he doesn't care about you or anyone you know. when you press that "start game" button he will be ready. he will ruthlessly seek to destroy you.

YOU MUST DESTROY HIM FIRST.

To be fair, he will probably ruthlessly string together a load of counterintuitive passes, accidentally run the ball out of play on the touchline a lot and then score a suspiciously pre-ordained pinball-machine like set piece in stoppage time

sacrilege

Ronan otm though. The fouls in this game are notoriously frequent, it's best to just hold down X until the defending player's tight with the guy with the ball then just sort of intermittently tap it when they show you any of the ball to try and jockey them. You will probably develop an instinct for this but it is mostly about pressuring them to give it away.

I recall it being quite easy to skin players in PES5 with the change direction faint, whereby if you are facing left you would tap diagonally down left and then diagonally up left when in possession, leaving various chumps for dust.

Adapting to Pro Evolution Soccer 5 is one of the most stressful experiences in life other than death and moving house and that

But by god, when you scramble that 67th minute winner away to Bolton in the league you know you've fuckin earned it son

Yes, it is PES5 that I've got, not 6.

Thanks for the advice, I'll try it out later. I've been pressing X to pressure the opposing player, but all that seems to do is make my player run towards the ball, but by the time he's got there it's been passed to another player so my men just run around like headless chickens. The training exercises are great for every other aspect of the game, but not for defending.

But despite my frustrations I'm still loving the game, my goal last night was incredibly satisfying. I love all the little touches, like the way my men hold their arms out when they've been pulled up on a foul, kicking the air in frustration when they miss a goal, those kinds of things.

it can be somewhat humbling to put your controller down when on defense and see how well your team actually manages to do without you

and let "the force" win the game for you

OTM. I switched over to letting the computer control my team, to see if maybe I'd just chosen a shit team, and they were incredible.

PES6 is much better, especially re. fouls.

I have this for both my PS2 and PSP so I'm never without it. PSP has some issues though - NO replays at the end of the game (boo!) and only ONE line of commentary - "And it's a goal!".

i'm still playing this with my master league team, i just can't let it go.

i've never had a problem with tackles or getting possession from computer, but the first touch of my players is usually quite weak. also, just before you change to a player he'll sprint in another direction just so he's in a crap position.

nonetheless, a game that ate my life.

sometimes i REALLY wish i could replay some moment from the game just after it happens - is it really impossible to do this???

In your head only I believe.

I've been playing ProEvo2 on the original playstation for much of this past year and then last week my housemate bought a PS2 with ProEvo4. I am utterly addicted. I'm away for the weekend and miss it already. Had an amazing game last night where between us my other housemate and I had five players sent off (me being on the soggy end of that one) and I still beat him.

In another game I was two-nil down on 44 minutes and won 5-2.

It's amazing the way this game gets more intuitive the more you play it. I just beat Sweden 2-0, playing as Wales. A stunning goal from Giggs and a header from a corner from Earnshaw. Only a ** game, admittedly, but an amazing feeling of satisfaction.

i've started playing PE6 on "normal" and have identified a huge flaw in the game - playing on "amateur" ingrains VERY BAD HABITS which will get you creamed at the higher difficulty levels; shouldn't easier levels be easier but also be training you up the right way so that you might stand a chance once you decide to move up?? france just got killed by the czech republic and i'm still smarting from the humiliation

I wish I could play you all. I have no humans to play against =(

Neither have I. If anybody's got a network connection for their PS2 I can play them. Perhaps we could set up a few online games?

i just got my netplay disc! will not have access to ps2 for another two weeks tho :/

How do stupid people like me do network play? Do I just need a ps2 and a modem/router? ILX league? I am rubbish but I will set it up!

LAWRO will be commentating in the new Pro Evo whenever it comes out.

If you've got a new PS2 - the smaller ones with the flip-up lid - you don't need a network adapter - it's built-in.

I've discovered you don't need a network disc from Sony either. There's a certain amount of PS2 games that have a network setup built in, you can google for a list, or just try out a few games until you get lucky. I used a game called Battlefield Combat 2.

All I did was to plug my PS2 into my BT Home Hub, load up Battlefield Combat 2, go to online play, and just mess around with the settings til you're online. It's fairly self explanatory and there's not even that many settings to mess around with. If I can do it, and I've got practically no knowledge of network settings, routers, IP addresses, etc, then anyone can do it.

ok i'm ready people. who will play me?? PHJEAR MY SKILLZ0R etc etc

you have pro evo 5 now?

no, i have the latest! 6, or 7 or whatever it is

Apparently Lawro's commentary on PES2008 is a low for the series, and presumably humanity, but Jon Champion is surprisingly good

my favorite thing about the commentary on [the latest PES, now probably a year old] is when they sound as if they're sniping at each other.. i.e. "yes, that's fairly obvious"

the halftime and post-match commentary when i began playing was my barometer for how well i'd done; now i realize that it depends entirely on whether or not you've scored a goal in that half

Pro Evo 5's commentary is a feast of unintentional homoerotic single entendres, if i remember correctly.

was it PE5 that had that guttural trevor brooking sexual moan which appeared at random times

most impt q: who will play me????

i'm not very good, if that helps

ronan: yes, along with much partridge-esque mis-speak, all of which is escaping me at the moment.

"that's a bitter blow for them to swallow"

btw tracer, i will hammer you, but don't live in London.

NET PLAY

it's this thing

i need that crazy expensive wire for the ps2 to do net play

all mine needs is a network cable? it's got a jack built right into the back

really? I'll take a look.