I scored 4 times. Henry and Juninho on Xbox360, twice van Hooidonk on PC version. Free kicks are nonsense. PES5 it was unrealistic easy, PES6 it is unrealistic hard. Dont shoot and make a pass if u dont want to waste your good position :-)).
As with most things in PES, I think it would be better if Konami changed the way Freekicks are taken.
As it is now, you select a direction, a general trajectory height (Up/Down, Y/X), and the power and curl direction.
I would prefer a much more "realistic" approach.
1. First of all, each player should have a number of different freekick styles to choose from, basic stances that favor longer or shorter ranges, like in real life. For example Juninho Pernambucano (the best freekicker in the game if you don't know), uses different approaches when shooting from close and long range.
2. With the L and R triggers, you should be able to change the approach (or run-up) angle of all stances. Basically, holding L should make Juninho (right-footed) walk to the left, so that he aproaches the ball in a more angled way (think Ronaldinho), whilst holding L wuld make him walk to the right until he has a completely straight runup. This change of angle would change the amount of power a player can give to the kick (straighter run-ups can deliver more power), height to a certain degree (since aproaching the ball from the side means that you need to use the side of the boot to get it on goal, and shots with the side of the boot generally are less high than shots taken more straight on (this does however very much depend on where on the foot you hit the ball (towards the heel of more towards the toe) and this is where point 4 below comes in when you want to finetune if the shot should be a broadside shot or more of a side-toe lift similar to long passes and such, and the way you configure point 4 has a huge impact on the ball and if it behaves more like a shot or like a lofted pass when considering how much foot you get under the ball).
Here it should also be noted that shots taken more or less straight on would also loose some height since it is almost impossible to get alot of height when running straight on and shooting with the top of your boot (as opposed to chipping/lobbing it with the toe, which might not be what you want at a freekick, and if so you can just use the long pass button).
3. The next thing that should exist is a Ball-icon similar to Golf games, wher, on a ball icon, you decide where on the soccerball you want the player to kick. This system can seem cheesy, but let me explain.
It really is the most realistic system. It mimics exactly how you would go about shooting in real-life. You choose what type of runup (or style) you want (longer runup with more steps for harder shots or the opposite). Then you choose what angle to the ball you want, incase you want to shoot more with the top of the boot (hard) or side of the boot (softer). And when you are going to shoot, you know, based on what type of curl and such you want, where on the ball you need to hit for it to fly the way you need.
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for this picture, imagine the golf putter being the boot)
4. Also, here there should be a simple system where you can fine-tune how close of far to the ball the player should come when he shoots, aswell as being able to more accurately position him to tell him for example to hit his broadside freekick more towards the heel or more towards the boot (basically changing the x and y positions for the player relative to the ball). These two things (changing slightly the position of the player and his kicking leg relative to the ball when he shoots) will help determine if the player will make contact with the ball when his leg just reaches the lowest point of the kick movement, or, if you move him away slightly from the ball, when the leg starts to move upwards again after coming closest to the ground.
Here is the crucial part. Where you decide to hit the ball will largely affect how high it will fly.
Think about it. If you want the ball to fly high (for example for a long soaring cross), you would in real life aim to hit the ball on your toe, and you would perhaps want to make sure that the ball is slightly ahead of you when you hit it so that the foot catches the ball when it is traveling in an upwards direction.
So, basically, changing where on the ball you hit it will change tremendously how high it can get, but also what curl it can get. As an example, it is hard to get a top-spin freekick to travel very high, since the top-spin itself requires you to hit the ball in a certain way. The higher on the ball you hit,the lower it will go, untill you basically just graze the top of the ball and it goes hardly anywhere.
5. Here you also need a shot power meter, which basically tells the player how hard he should swing his boot and leg. This has no affect on height whatsoever, heigh is solely changed by where on the boot and where on the ball you kick.
This setup is really quite simple and extremely intuitive for anyone who has played football.
1. Choose stance based on range (For Ronaldinho in close range, it is the standard Ronaldinho style, for Roberto Carlos long range it is the Carlos style. There should also be several different basic styles for all players, but ofcourse some players like mentioned would have signature ones).
2. Change angle of approach based on what power you need and also what curl you need. A straighter approach will give the ball more power, but (not counting certain exceptions like Juninho) a more angled approach will give you more curl and more dip. Also a more angled approach will make it impossible to curl with the outside of the boot for obvious reasons.
3. Aim just like you would in todays PES, for example aiming between the goalie and the post if you want the ball to curl in just next to the post, as in real-life).
4. Change, using the ball icon, where on the ball you want the player to shoot, and where relative to the ball you want the player to be. For close range if you want to curl it in over a wall, you will want to hit the ball fairly high up and to the side for side curl. Here lies the real challenge for freekick takers, since getting the point of contact just right is essential for getting just enough height. Also essential for the height is making sure you don't get too much toe on it, but also that you don't hit the ball too much towards the heel so that it will hit some guy in the crotch.
5. Once things are tweaked, apply shot power and hope for the best. If you have chosen the proper power in relation to where the player hits and also curls the ball, and how he hits it in terms of angle of aproach and where his kicking foot is in relation to the ball, you will score.
Obviously the players freekick ratings will make all freekicks vary by a certain degree, both in terms of power and curl amount, and direction and cleanness of hit.
You should also be able to adjust sights after you have given power (like in PES now) using R and L. And perhaps there should be a button that would, in conjunction with the L and R sight adjust, be able to give you very basic shots, like for example fooling the opponent that you will shoot a Ronaldinho freekick over the wall and instead telling him to instead shoot low and hard, so that you can anticipate the keeper moving and putting the ball low in the keepers corner.
Basically, with this system, you have the ability to shoot almost any type of shot and have it react as it would in real-life. In PES now, the freekicks always seem to have topspin to a certain degree. That means that it is impossible to strike a 40-metre freekick with backspin that just slowly climbs and climbs until it's wedged in the corner of the goal.
It is also currently impossible to replicate Juninho's amazing 40-metre freekick goal against Ajjacio (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt7XlPs1QXs) since the trajectory from that range in PES always will be such that it travels in a much higher arch than the video example. The video example shows the ball has no curl whatsoever, which means it will not have additional dip caused by ballrotation. It only moves down by the force of gravity.
Also, I hope by the power of Xbox360 and PS3, PES would be able to replicate rudimentary wind pressure on the ball in flight. That way a shot such as in the vid, which has no curl despite for a very slow rotation, would cause a similar erratic ball flightly caused by slowly changing drag patterns across the ball surface.
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