Gaming eFootball (formerly PES)

[Yagami]

PES’ gameplay is never really the issue as it will always be miles ahead of FIfA in that regard. But no master league means it’s a nothing game now for non multiplayer gamers like me

I'm in the same boat as you. I don't really do online gaming so a master league is a must!

I still play PES on the ps2

Every PS2 I had broke

One of the best things about the PS2 was that it allowed you to play your PS1 games on it, too. If only the PS4 allowed this.

If you are on PC: Play "Football Life 2023"
If you are on PS4: Play PES 2021
If you are on PS5: Play PES 2021 or eFootball if you don't mind playing a game as alongside it being built.

I have thought about switching to a PC because the modding community makes every game so much more fun. Not just football ones but every game I like I see YouTube videos of all these mods PC gamers have and I get so jealous

Yeah I have a chipped Taiwanese PS2 I dig out occasionally to do the same. It's still heaps of fun.

I could do with one of those that unlocks regions. I have a couple of Dragon Ball Z games I've never been able to play because I'm in the PAL region and they were never released in the UK.

I remember buying and trying one of those discs where you put it in the PS2 first as it was supposed to unlock all regions and then you put your game in and play, but it never worked for me

 

[DevilRed]

We've just won the eFootball Championship. Beat bayern.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Dirty Schwein]

We've just won the eFootball Championship. Beat bayern.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Looks like Irwin & Sancho left and middle

 

[Stobzilla]

We've just won the eFootball Championship. Beat bayern.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

I'm catching up now, I have played some of these guys in D1 recently, the first Roma guy I played and it wasn't even that good a game, he was doing exactly what he was doing all game in this tournament as well, just hoofs up to the front man. I might have a late life calling to be an eFootball pro !

 

[Stobzilla]

So version 2.6 has been very good, the finesse dribbling has improved loads and feathering the left stick and slight presses of the R2 trigger now give you controlled bursts into space that you can slow down quickly. Really helps to get away from people who just use the X and R1 buttons to let the AI do their defending for them. You can legit play a number of different ways and find success, some can use the overpowering physical players as per FIFA and find a bit of success but the game has started rewarding players who want to slow the game down and use technical attributes, much in the same way the PS2 PES games did if you put enough time into them.

Really having a lot of fun with the actual game now, I think this will be it for big updates over the summer and hopefully 3.0 can retain this gameplay with some more modes. I would sink untold amounts of hours in Master League if it were attached to this build.

Co-Op was a fun addition as well, the beta went well and should be in the game full time after next weeks server maintenance.

 

[ArjenIsM3]

So I just discovered that this is free and installed it. Played a few games vs AI (the starting stuff), built a basic team in dream team and thought well let's give this a go. What an utter fecking shambles this is. Once you get past the AI tier and into tier 9 (which apparently contains over 60% of players...) everyone has all the best players in the world maxed out. Literally every player well above 90 rating, many maxed out or legends. What the actual feck? There's no way I'm winning anything with this team so I've basically got the choice to either spend a ton of money to get a team that's anywhere near what the rest have or play AI games or something. It's just stupid and even worse than Ultimate Team in this regard. /rant

 

[V.O.]

So I just discovered that this is free and installed it. Played a few games vs AI (the starting stuff), built a basic team in dream team and thought well let's give this a go. What an utter fecking shambles this is. Once you get past the AI tier and into tier 9 (which apparently contains over 60% of players...) everyone has all the best players in the world maxed out. Literally every player well above 90 rating, many maxed out or legends. What the actual feck? There's no way I'm winning anything with this team so I've basically got the choice to either spend a ton of money to get a team that's anywhere near what the rest have or play AI games or something. It's just stupid and even worse than Ultimate Team in this regard. /rant

Nah, it's very, very easy to get a free team that can compete with the best. You can get a full team with mid-high 90s overall in a week or two without spending a penny. That's why everybody else you see has a team like that.

Levelled up base cards (buyable with GP) of the best players are very close to as good as the legends a lot of people are running around with, they give away a free spin of a 90+ overall 'player of the week' cards every week, and usually have some promotion going for 'highlight' versions of players from partner clubs (United, Arsenal, Barca, Bayern etc) or that have sponsor deals directly with Konami. There are also 'nominating contracts' that you earn as you play that you can use to buy specific players that you want out of packs of highlight versions of current guys such as a the Immobile, Kim and Rice cards below.

Everybody who just logs on occasionally will have been given about 5 different competitively viable versions of Messi, Neymar, Bruno etc. They do free spins of epic/legend cards once in a while too, if you've been playing a while you can easily have 4-5 epic cards in your team without having spent anything, to go with the full team of 95+ current players who are already great.

EDIT: played around with my squad to build an example of a completely free XI (apart from that version of Kimmich, imagine it's his base card with is probably 95-96 rated instead):

Spoiler

 

[Oranges038]

So I just discovered that this is free and installed it. Played a few games vs AI (the starting stuff), built a basic team in dream team and thought well let's give this a go. What an utter fecking shambles this is. Once you get past the AI tier and into tier 9 (which apparently contains over 60% of players...) everyone has all the best players in the world maxed out. Literally every player well above 90 rating, many maxed out or legends. What the actual feck? There's no way I'm winning anything with this team so I've basically got the choice to either spend a ton of money to get a team that's anywhere near what the rest have or play AI games or something. It's just stupid and even worse than Ultimate Team in this regard. /rant

I haven't really played the new one much, but last year I got up to div 6 mostly with the bag of shite they give you at the start. I'd probably get higher if I had the time.

Most of the players are just kids with too much time on their hands who use all the assisted controls, pack their team and smash the sprint button. None of them can actually play any sort of decent football. Been playing these games for over 20 years and I use all manual controls, there should be an online option where you have to use all manual controls.

Maybe try changing up the defensive controls for tackling /standing tackle or whatever that shoulder barge option is, it does make defending easier.

I'd also suggest playing a 442 narrow diamond if your team is weak, play your defensive midfielder as a deep line player so he drops into the backline and 2 box to box players on the right and left. Set your fullbacks on offensive tactic for width and use crosses and cross field balls to create space and get balls into the box.

Also use manual shooting and play with a shoot on sight policy.

 

[GueRed]

I miss PES.

Sorry but I still can't get into this mobile game shite

 

[FrankDrebin]

Does PES2021 work on the ps5 ?

 

[Pirlo'sBeard]

Does PES2021 work on the ps5 ?

Yeah.

 

[FrankDrebin]

Yeah.

And can you edit it much the same way as you could on the ps4 with option files ?

 

[Amar__]

I miss PES.

Sorry but I still can't get into this mobile game shite

Yeah, I still play 2021 from time to time, this efootball crap is pure shit.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Thinking about modern day PES makes me sad.

 

[Ish]

Thinking about modern day PES makes me sad.

 

[FrankDrebin]

I know this doesn't happen with sports games but I'd love to see a HD Pes6 edition for the PS5.

 

[matherto]

I know this doesn't happen with sports games but I'd love to see a HD Pes6 edition for the PS5.

I know it's not exactly like for like but some of the graphical overhauls and upscaled textures in PC mods for PES6 make it look fantastic in this day and age. Granted they'll never look like a current-gen release but certainly better than 480p PS2 graphics/textures.

I love the old games but I do find them feeling a little 'stuck in the mud' now with regards to movement of the players. Can often feel when playing PES6 that the player you're controlling never gets the ball out from under his feet.

There's a thread in the editing section of Evo-web that has installers for basically every patch ever made and continuing to be made for all of the PS2 generation games (albeit the PC ports from PES3/WE7 onwards) and they give me so much joy returning to them occasionally. PES3 is still my favourite.

PES3 > PES5 =/= PES6 > PES2 > PES4 > PES - never got into 2008-2014 on the PS2 but I believe they're more polished PES6 variants and still great to play.

I've still got my original Playstation copies of ISS Pro, Pro '98, Evolution and Evolution 2 as well.

 

[Oranges038]

Yeah, I still play 2021 from time to time, this efootball crap is pure shit.

I don't like the setup of it. But the gameplay is quite good.

I'd much prefer a master league setup than having to play online and unlock achievements to get players, but it's free, so to get a real good you have to play loads of games or spend real money on the chance that the game might give you something good that you need.

Give me the original master league lineup and let me build up my own team my own way any day over that shite.

 

[Amar__]

I don't like the setup of it. But the gameplay is quite good.

I'd much prefer a master league setup than having to play online and unlock achievements to get players, but it's free, so to get a real good you have to play loads of games or spend real money on the chance that the game might give you something good that you need.

Give me the original master league lineup and let me build up my own team my own way any day over that shite.

I am sorry, but gameplay is total crap for me.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Thinking about modern day PES makes me sad.

Same

 

[Oranges038]

I am sorry, but gameplay is total crap for me.

I find a lot of people still think PES6 was the pinnacle, it was awesome for it's time, but the game has moved on so much since then. I loved it and I still have them all on the PS2. Muscle memory and nostalgia kicks in so much playing that one.

The new one has it's downsides, but overall it's much better than some of the older versions especially from 2010-2020. They were for the most part horrible games. 2021 was a good game.

I always find that the use of assisted controls etc ruins a lot of the stuff, ai plays passes short and through balls never really go where you want them too. It's also harder to use skills and tricks, unless you've memorized every move every player has and the specific flick of the analogue stick required to execute it. The old shot feint trick is about the height of the skills I use.

It can be frustrating, especially when you play the ai, every team just pings the ball about and it's hard to knock them off the ball, one of my biggest gripes with it is the set up on restarts, goal kicks, throw ins etc in the opposition half, your players just all fall back too far away from the play. If you switch and try to move a player into position then another one just wanders off.
And you can absolutely batter the ai, they will get 1 half chance and score.

Aside from all that. It does take a bit of getting use to. I will say that playing 2 player mode with someone you know, even online or in person, is always the best way to play this game. There are some gloriously shit teams from Asia and America that are so much fun to play with.

 

[Amar__]

I find a lot of people still think PES6 was the pinnacle, it was awesome for it's time, but the game has moved on so much since then. I loved it and I still have them all on the PS2. Muscle memory and nostalgia kicks in so much playing that one.

The new one has it's downsides, but overall it's much better than some of the older versions especially from 2010-2020. They were for the most part horrible games. 2021 was a good game.

I always find that the use of assisted controls etc ruins a lot of the stuff, ai plays passes short and through balls never really go where you want them too. It's also harder to use skills and tricks, unless you've memorized every move every player has and the specific flick of the analogue stick required to execute it. The old shot feint trick is about the height of the skills I use.

It can be frustrating, especially when you play the ai, every team just pings the ball about and it's hard to knock them off the ball, one of my biggest gripes with it is the set up on restarts, goal kicks, throw ins etc in the opposition half, your players just all fall back too far away from the play. If you switch and try to move a player into position then another one just wanders off.
And you can absolutely batter the ai, they will get 1 half chance and score.

Aside from all that. It does take a bit of getting use to. I will say that playing 2 player mode with someone you know, even online or in person, is always the best way to play this game. There are some gloriously shit teams from Asia and America that are so much fun to play with.

I am not the one for romanticism, PES6 and some older version were great for that time, but that time has passed and I don't enjoy playing those games after 10-15 years, even if I enjoyed them so much. I have tried 2022./2023., and watched gameplays of 2023./2024., and 2021 is simply still much better game at pretty much everything, even if 2021. had its flaws too. But it's still better game for what it is - modern football game.

Last two years even the graphics aren't better than 2021., and once they made it free, it was obvious they weren't spending much time on improving the game.

 

[Oranges038]

I am not the one for romanticism, PES6 and some older version were great for that time, but that time has passed and I don't enjoy playing those games after 10-15 years, even if I enjoyed them so much. I have tried 2022./2023., and watched gameplays of 2023./2024., and 2021 is simply still much better game at pretty much everything, even if 2021. had its flaws too. But it's still better game for what it is - modern football game.

Last two years even the graphics aren't better than 2021., and once they made it free, it was obvious they weren't spending much time on improving the game.

24 has it's flaws, but I think it is a better game than 21.

The lack of offline game modes and teams is the real sticking point, they really need to pull their finger out and stop trying to replicate FIFA ultimate team and bring back the offline modes.

 

[Lay]

I don’t know I still play them on the PS2 and think they’re miles better than the crap they produced since.

 

[infamous7]

Do they have master league yet?
I'm still playing pes2021

 

[WakeAndBeek]

Do they have master league yet?
I'm still playing pes2021

I’m in the same boat, waiting until master league. Shocking how it’s taken so long, it feels like both EA and Konami have gotten so lazy and out of touch in recent years.

 

[noodlehair]

They've left it too long now and I don't think I'd get bsck into it even if theyvdod bring master league and all the single player features back. I definitely wouldn't be paying very much at all for it.

It'd have Ben so little effort and cost to add it in as well. Such an idiotic way to lose the single player audience which is the only one they'd ever realistically lure away from EA

 

[FrankDrebin]

I last played this before Christmas and I heard there was a new update that had just been recently released, so I dived back in last night.
Crikey, the gameplay feels pretty dated now though graphically its fine but the menus and general layout design, not exactly a strong side of Konami's football series granted, is confusing, annoying and visually lacking ideas.
The team options are limited too.
Found it amusing that the game advertises Brazilian superstars, wearing various famous yellow jerseys of years gone by yet you can't actually play as Brazil in the game.

Honestly I don't know why Konami are even bothering at this point.
Just end it.

 

[V.O.]

I last played this before Christmas and I heard there was a new update that had just been recently released, so I dived back in last night.
Crikey, the gameplay feels pretty dated now though graphically its fine but the menus and general layout design, not exactly a strong side of Konami's football series granted, is confusing, annoying and visually lacking ideas.
The team options are limited too.
Found it amusing that the game advertises Brazilian superstars, wearing various famous yellow jerseys of years gone by yet you can't actually play as Brazil in the game.

Honestly I don't know why Konami are even bothering at this point.
Just end it.

Unfortunately, it's all built around the online "Dream Team" stuff, pretty much like FIFA and almost any other sports game these days. The Brazil event was mainly just for free highlight cards of their current players and new versions of Romario, Cafu, Denilson, Ronaldinho, prime Neymar etc in that mode.

They're just making so much money from people spinning for cards that they barely even bother with the single player modes. Which is a shame, as the actual on-pitch gameplay is probably now as good as it's ever been. The dominance of microtransactions/lootboxes etc is a problem for all of gaming. Just a shame it's anything but a problem for the actual companies.

 

[Reapersoul20]

FIFA has better gamplay now and all

 

[Stobzilla]

FIFA has better gamplay now and all

 

[Hoof the ball]

FIFA has better gamplay now and all