This article on Pro Evo 6's Random Selection Match mode was originally written by Mikey Traynor in 2016.
There was a time when the latest football games were not built for online play.
Back in the day, the game developers knew that in order to make their game standout from the competition, they would have to offer something different, something entertaining, something special.
This month marks the 10 year anniversary of Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (in Japan, we had to wait until October), for many Konami's last true ruler of the European market. PES 2008 came out on PS3 and Xbox 360, and it just wasn't right. While the PS2 version was fine, soon the series became stale, and slowly but surely EA SPORTS FIFA took over, where they remain in power today.
In 2006, I was 17 years old, and I played the absolute shit out of Pro Evolution Soccer 6.
PES 6: Remembering the beauty of Random Selection Match mode
After sinking so much time into PES 4 and PES 5, to the point where all the fake team names were corrected and Premier League clubs had realistic looking kits with sponsors painstakingly added in Edit Mode, PES 6 was another step forward for football gaming as far as I was concerned, and that idea was certainly aided by Random Selection Match.
Also new to PES6 is the Random Selection Match. In this mode, the user can pick up to either four clubs/nations or one region/league. Once selected, the computer picks a random selection of players from the teams or region for the player's squad. The lineup is selected automatically, although players can choose to let the computer pick another random selection. This was not included in the Xbox 360 version, presumably because of time restrictions.
Konami decided that football games should have an element of fantasy. I want to sit beside my friend, pick four clubs or countries as a player pool, and randomly craft a team. Not having it with better graphics on Xbox 360 was bullshit, but I played enough of it on PS2 for it not to be that big of an issue.
Why football game developers have since decided that this incredibly enjoyable game mode no longer has a place in gaming, I have no idea, but I will remember you Random Selection Match, and I will tell your story.
It all started with an unfamiliar Main Menu option.
The instruction manual may as well not have existed, so you had no prior warning that there was something new on the first menu screen you see. "What's that there? Random Select? Will we give it a go?"
You took it in turns to pick a club or a country.
Very rarely would you be allowed to mix clubs and countries, and whether it was a coin flip or rock paper scissors, it was pretty much first pick gets Inter Milan and prays for Adriano.
Then came the players... Am I allowed a cheeky shuffle?
You didn't get Adriano, or Ibrahimovic, you got Julio Cruz and you want new players. This is absolutely fine if your pal also got crap players, or his best keeper was Tomasz Kuszczak because he wanted Paul Scholes. If both were underwhelmed, you went again.
However, if your opponent hit the jackpot, something had to be done. The 'One-Swap-Rule' was implemented by many, but it had to be agreed before the draw.
Finally, you got the draw you wanted, no more do-overs, I'm happy now and we can play. I'll just check the form...
Shite.
The kits were actually so bad that they were good.
On first glance, you laughed and pondered whether whoever had designed these monstrosities had ever watched a football match before. Then, 278 Random Selections later you wanted your own jersey with Riquelme's name and number on the back.
One time on a holiday in Portugal I thought I saw a guy wearing the yellow one, and in my inebriated state, I crossed the road to stop him and tell him how much I also loved Pro Evolution Soccer. But it was just a really shit t-shirt and I had to pretend to look at a menu for a restaurant that was closed.
And there was no such thing as "just one game". A rematch was a must.
Accepting a the suggestion of a Random Selection Match was accepting a best of three, or best of five ultra-competitive series. It was how it had to be. The random nature of the team selection meant that excuses were more prevalent than ever before.
But those days are gone now...
All football games now just want to create the next gimmick so you can continue to pay as you play. I have a good friend, or group of friends I should say, that have played the FIFA 16 Ultimate Team Draft mode over 170 times. In order to play FUT Draft, you must pay roughly €3 a pop. Think about that.
Fantasy Football is so popular, the game developers KNOW we want something like this in our games, but now that we've made it perfectly clear that we're willing to pay for it, we may never get it for free again.
Which is a shame, because if PES 2017 had the feature it may well outsell FIFA.
It blows my mind that 10 years after what I thought was just the beginning for the football gaming experience, we've gone backwards in terms of variety in play.
Still, at least we've got the memories.
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