St Marco

well the official video shows that in pretty much every possesion, guy gets ball, runs with ball, passes 1 guy, the ball then gets magically stuck to the opponents foot and so on, that is in that video. And i have played the demo. If you go to the PES community forum your see even the most biased of Pro Evo fans agree that the gameplay is all wrong. By saying it is good for the sake of it just hurts the franchise more. We want Konami to get back to the days of 4&5. This is nowhere near it. And Saints For Life. Pro Evo 09 has a near 7 year old games engine. The graphics are miles behind Fifa. Don't believe me? Well gametrailers did a comparison of the two games graphics wise and fifa killed it. Pro Evo however imo has slightly better player faces. http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/273461.html Notice not only the player animations on fifa are better but look how tacky the grass,stadium,shadows etc.. is in pro evo 09. As i said above saying the game is better simply because you want it to be doesn't help the game at all. Konami fooked up. Again.

nah as far as im aware it is still a Sony game, just gone multiplatform i think

Still maintain it's poor and graphics wise has nothing on Fifa which actually got better graphics wise this year. The crowd in PES09 is pitiful, PES09 remains structured around getting the ball then trying to run with the ball past people. It is tottally voidless of passing. And then when you do try to pass it uses a 1980's rail system where you pass it and the ball becomes automatic, the really annoying thing is you do a through ball or a pass into the path of someone running and the player just stops before he gets the ball and the ball runs out of play. Just watch the first 2 mins of this official video http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LfohbZdzOao It is nothing at all like real football and im with the PES community on this one, Konami need to go back to the drawing board and stop making an annual game because since then the games have been awful and 09 is no different. Fifa has got a metascore of 89% this year and i would expect PES09 to get around 70% scores. A game that some will like and some won't. It is now compeating with games like Super Mario Soccer then Fifa.

Thought Norwich Union paid for the stadium? Or i must have been pretty drunk that day!

Well not really sure any of you will give a **** but this week is The Tokyo Game Show. Sort of the Japanese version of E3. I have been there twice in the past and is always a fun event. This year seems no different. Few notes/announcements Tekken 6 has gone to 360. That is a mega shock. Nintey Nine Nights 2 announced as a 360 exclusive Halo 3:Recon Announced (a cross between ghost recon and halo...) No More Heroes 2 coming for the Wii Super Punch Out Wii coming out, awesome! Resistance: Retribution coming to PSP in spring 2009 Last Remnant coming out 20th November Rock Band 2 coming November in Europe Guitar Hero World Tour 360 download content exclusive (somehow i doubt that so must be specific i.e a bands cd or something) Star Ocean: Last Hope 360 exclusive (massive japanese franchise) out in may 2009. New R-Type coming (for the oldies out there) Not 100% official but would appear a Blu-Ray player addon has been made by Toshiba and Samsung for the 360. Priced at $100 (£50) if true that is cool. New 360 dashboard changes happen on 17th november Fallout 3 gone gold Yakazua 3 coming to PS3 Linger in Shadows coming to PSN And thats it. Noy much to show from Nintendo or Sony yet. Will update it as news comes in. Thats if anyone actually cares of course

I was actually informed that he was not even offered a contract nor was one discussed with him. As far as i was told he was informed he would not be getting the job then went on holiday. The person who told me that no longer works at the club as they were removed due to the cost cutting procedure with so many others. Now i was told that before he was fired so i believe it. If it was after then obviously you would expect some bitterness. Pearson himself has been asked that directly to his face and someone said he was also asked on radio? But both times he said "It is not important, what is important is they have appointed a new man and i must move on" Now from that i see the personality of Pearson as we had when he was in charge. Someone who hates whining and complaining or looking to shift blame etc.. Someone who just gets on with it. The whole he was demanding lots of money is just pure spin, no truth to it at all. There is no way on earth we could be paying Burley xyz then be paying Pearson more then that. As nice a guy as he is, he is a new manager and has only taken on caretaker style roles at that point. If he was saying he was worth 20p then Lowe would say he was worth 10p. So i strongley believe from what i have been told he was not offered the job nor was it planned to. Lowe already had in mind to bring in JP as he had tried before to do that.

The problem is though Pearson had a 0.009 points difference to him and didn't spend £12m on achiving it. It's things like that which highlight how bad Burley had actually done. We appointed Burley to get promoted back to the main league, he failed. We appointed Pearson to stop us being relegated, he succeeded. Those are the only facts which matter to me.

The one critical flaw in this argument. Other then Pearson and Burley the others were in the Premiership. Could you see Jan getting 11 points in that league with this squad? If Rotheram,QPR and Coventry can turn us over how would we do against say the european champions? It would be a massacre.

To be fair if Burley or Dodd and Gorman had been in charge of the game they would of been slated for the tactics in the first half. I do agree he does need to take some of the blame. It is easy to change the set up when your 3-0 down and the other team have gone to sleep. He should of changed it at half time when we were 2-0 down and not looking like getting back into it. I like Jan the guy but like with managers before him i wonder if he has an ego and would rather lose 4,5,6 to nill then change their beliefs. Not really sure we can afford to have someone like that right now. Who knows though with a few signings things could just click and we start taking our chances. Too early to be asking for his head, give him till the new year then lets have a look at it.

I disagree and think we would be doing better both on and off the pitch if he remained. He was only in the job from December and he made a few mess ups but in comparison to what Lowe and Wilde have done since their return it is nothing. Crouch was doing what Lowe and Wilde will never do and that was looking for investment. If you don't have money you will suffer. However if your results on the pitch are ok you will make more money from having fans at the games and more likely to have better deals for sponsorship/players etc.. When we look back through history at this year i think the main failure will be appointing an unknown, unproved manager,again. I like Jan and i understand in what he is trying to do. It is not an easy job. But it isn't a job you can come into with no knowledge and expect to do well. A few of our results have been down to our negative attitude. Playing 1 up front is not a tactic that has done us well. If Leon had remained i am 100% sure Pearson would of stayed and he would of built a team on the cheap with frees and loans. His record is not amazing but i think as this season progresses people will appreciate his efforts a lot more. Losing only 3 games at the pressure end of the season where you lose 1 more game and your down is emense. He had the support of the majority of the fans and was respected by everyone. I have no doubt if he remained he would of used his connections to get in better players then what we currently have. I don't think we would of been promoted this season under him but i think we would not be anywhere near the relegation battle we will probably find ourselves in this year. At the end of last season i think with Crouch we would of been sold and probably moved forwards. Where as now we are going backwards again and have another season of fighting for our lives. However you look at it you can't say Crouch is bad for what he did last year and Lowe is good for what he has done this year. As others have said before Davies being sold for just over £1m could return to haunt us.

Indeed. People are so used to us playing crap that they think because we can pass around the half way line = amazing. I expect every player at this level to be able to do that at a minimum. Our problem is our strikers are poor and our defence is poor. Meaning 2/3 of our team is not working right. The midfield have done ok and Kelvin has done superb. I understand why JP keeps bringing in strikers but i wonder if the wages we are paying to Gasmi/Pullis/Peckhart/Smith etc.. add up to what we were paying Rasiak? If you gave Rasiak the chances DMG has had in the past few games he would of taken a lot of them. That is what we need someone who has the ability to score goals when the team is playing crap. Both John and Rasiak have shown that they can do that. The only difference now is were playing crap and not scoring.

If your playing against random people in 10vs10 and they play like jerks on purpose just remember the persons tag and hit avoid player option, never play against that person again. You will find idiots in every walk of life especially online. After awhile these idiots will get bored and be on so many peoples avoid lists they won't play much, leaving the normal people who want to play.

As i said last week to those saying we were awesome because we had some major luck and beat a ****e Doncaster and Norwich, luck will only get you so far. This game was just the same game i have seen all season. Start off the game poor with some dodgy tactic by JP to play 1 up front in a defensive formation. Only problem is we can't defend....Wotten again showed he is not up to this level anymore. He was at fault for so many of their chances just like in the previous games. We had 20 shots, that sounds great doesn't it? 14 of those were long shots from beyond 25 yards that were not anywhere near the goal. This shoot from long range policy does not work. I would rather we kept the ball and looked for an opening. When we got to half time we were lucky to be only 2-0 down i felt, we were poor. The second half we changed to a more positive formation and looked much better. Sure Coventry had fallen asleep by then but we looked better playing that way then the first half. JP needs to accept some of the blame for that result. Dodd and Gorman or even Burley/Pearson would of been slated for that. As i said in the prediction thread we have to start taking the chances we have rather then rely on luck and to stop giving the other team the chances they have been getting. Our defence is probably the worst i have seen it. If you give teams with good attackers 4-5 clear shots on goal you will lose. There is a long long way to go and if we could get in a few defenders who can stop the clear chances we will do so much better. Why is it always our defence that is the problem

Coventry are in a bit of freefall at the moment only winning once in their previous 8 games. I think they are there for the taking and now is the best possible time to play them. If the boys go in with the confidence they should have from the last 2 games i can see us winning it. It wont be easy but as long as KD stays in great form and our defence do ok i can see it being 1-2 to Saints. However as we know for some reason teams who are doing bad seem to do well against us and i have a feeling this could be one of those games. I worry a lot about our defence and the last 2 games i know if it was majority of the teams in this league they would of taken many of them. If you Give Eastwood or Morrison those chances they will bury them most of the time. So i think the Sky curse will continue and we could let in a few, i think it will be 3-1 Coventry. Hope they proove me wrong and don't buckle on TV.

Have to remember the biased levels. Right now i can't name many if any reserve players from the other CCC teams who are now playing first team this year. Statisticly we are 3 points from the drop zone and have lost what 5 of our games? All the players are un-proven and more importantly unknown. If they told you to rate the players at the end of last season chances are you would not have rated them that high or maybe not knew them at all. I had never heard of Schneiderlin then, nor Pekhart etc.. can only rate on what you see and majority of the games they have been poor. Lallana has done well but he still has missed a lot of shots and not scored many etc.. seeing as most good prem players are rated around 80 i think 50+ is about right. We are a world away from that quality. So far away we got beat 1-3 by Rotheram

Well it is semi back to normal now with the Wii selling more then hot cakes once more. However the 360 is still outselling the PS3 in Japan which is a tad crazy as that makes it 5 weeks in a row now. So crazy that it made front page news on Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE49218520081003?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews Someone should go and tell the worlds biggest news website they are a bunch of geeks and need to get girlfriends!

Lowe Out!

Well i would say play the demo first. It is a lot different to 08 but has a lot of the same attributes i.e hard to score,frustratingly annoying when you mess up (it is not like PES where you press shoot and the ball goes toward the goal automatically so you make a lot of human errors) etc.. Some people will hate the fact it is not easy, you can't get the ball and make a 100yrd mazzy run from your box to the other without getting tackled. It is more like real football in that it is about bursts of play. You could play **** for 89mins but in that 90th min you could put together a few good passes and get the space to get a clear shot on goal. This is i think a big reason on why people used to prefer Pro Evo is that you would have like 15+ shots on goal in a match. In Fifa 09 unless your very good your be lucky to have 10 shots the whole game. Which means it is important you take those chances when they come, which again is more like real football. So i like the game but i could easily see why some would dislike it as it has a steep learning curve, it takes time to learn it, some prefer the jump straight in and be a god straight away games, this is not one of those. Try the demo for each. If you like that buy it

Also another thing i have noticed is we have weather effects now. Playing be a pro in the snow is a bit odd. Eurogamer have their reveiw up now too, they gave it an 8/10 and pretty much say it is the best football game they have played. Too many magazines/websites hand out 10/10 scores these days so it is good at least one place tells it like it is.

Can't say i have heard of him.

Well reason i can play it for hours is some clever fella created a hack so you can play for as long as you want http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/41899/Pro-Evolution-Soccer-2009-PC-Demo-Hack Plus i always think some games need a bit of time to play. Many games i have played and hated it after the first 1hr or so but then started to like it. Like Force Unleashed

Been playing the Be a pro single player game. Really enjoying it. You start off playing reserve games. In these games your given targets i.e get a 7 rating, score a goal, help the team win etc.. if you meet these targets or generally play well you get given experience. With this you train your skills which makes you better. I chose to be a CM player so naturally i see the ball quite a bit. It is good because it shows you your stats i.e passes completed etc.. and you can see where you rank in the match against the other players. If you get sent off you have to miss games so dont get sent off! I now see why they chose the season to be 4 years. At the end of the 4 years if you have done well and been picked to the national squad you play in the world cup. Think that is a nice edition. Playing Be A Pro season is soooo hard though. I guess it will get easier as you get better. Lots of fun though. One slightly annoying thing i have found though is that you can get yellow cards quite easy now. Sometimes it feels that every tackle gets a card. Hopefully they patch a fix for that as i can imagine in 10 vs 10 it could be a lot of cards which will ruin it. And they seem to have used a lot of the comentary from last year. It isn't as bad as PES comentary but if you played 08 alot your be familliar with it.

Had an hour or so on it now, love it! Got into an exhibition game to try it out, get a bit of practice. Played Skates and got mashed 0-4 it is very very hard to score this year. A few other things i noticed. When you do a nasty tackle on someone and the ref says play on, you now can get a yellow card/red card when the play stops. Used to get away with some harsh tackles in 08 because of that so i guess that is a good thing. You can play with 3 other people in a multi-player season mode. Had a brief go at it and made a char etc.. is quite cool as you can choose your name and the commentators will say it. Unless it is a wierd name that nobody has heard before. You see the difference in the players a lot now. If someone is crap (take Lancashire for example) he will get murderd against fast forwards. However the physics collisions/jostling is much better now. Will take awhile to get used to. A cool thing is when you boot up for the first time it will go through your achivements in 08 and recomend what level you should play as etc.. i got intermediate and i thought i was good at 08 All in all much better then 08 and they have improved on the annoying things i think. Playing 10 vs 10 will be chaos to begin with i bet

Mine arrived from game today will have a look at it later tonight!

I Played it for a few hours and thought it was poor. I just don't understand Konami. They spend so much time trying to get a few official teams in the game when they should be trying to actually make a decent game worthy of the licence. They have turned into the fifa of old where they just change the game name and re-release it every year. If only they could take it away and stop making a yearly game, work on it until it is done and is like PES4 and 5. Those games were awesome. Konami have struggled to make the game this generation and that is kind of strange. Last year they said "were sorry for the game we will go back and start again, a new engine a new game". Well they lied then.