As regular as clockwork, that time has come again where football fans the world over must make the call on which simulation of their favourite sport, FIFA or Pro Evolution Soccer, to invest in. For the better part of this decade, the choice has been quite easy with Konami’s PES providing a far superior gameplay experience. But this year EA and their FIFA game have made some great improvements to their title that has rattled the faith of even the most hardened PES fanatic.
Gameplayer’s Editor-in Chief Chris Stead, a PES veteran, still fancies Konami’s effort despite the inroads made by FIFA. Official PlayStation Magazine Deputy Editor Mark Serrels is also a long-time PES player, but this year has found FIFA to be the game of choice. Why? Read on…
Chris Stead: I really wanted to like FIFA this year. I’ll happily admit being a huge fan of Pro Evolution Soccer and would have easily played more of that game in the last decade than any other… times ten. But Konami has treated their fans like shit of late. Last year’s Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 is probably the worst in the series’ history. Yet I stuck with it. For all its glorious graphics, screens-worth of modes and licenses out the ying yang, FIFA’s gameplay speed just didn’t cut it. And in the end that’s all I truly want, to play soccer like the world’s best stars, not play like the world’s best star’s grandmothers. And while FIFA has again moved forward significantly from its 2008 iterations, it’s still second in the most important compartment - gameplay.
Mark Serrels: Any other year I would be agreeing with you, slapping you on the back with good grace, and inviting you for another ‘smashing old time on the Pro Evolution machine, old bean’. If this was 2007 you’d be right on the money – FIFA, despite looking like a million bucks dipped in honey and stuck over Scarlett Johansson’s buff naked body – didn’t really play to the same standard. This year, however, the worm has turned my friend – FIFA’s physics based animations, and awesome momentum system pushes it past Pro Evo into pole position, and without the gameplay edge, Pro Evo is lagging worse than it’s shitty online play…
Chris Stead: There is no doubt FIFA has tuned the animations nicely to provide a more free flowing experience than previous games. In particular I was impressed by the speed of the first-touch, and the physicality in the collisions. But PES has also sharpened its game sweetly. The frame-rate in particular – one of my biggest frustrations with last year’s iteration – is now far smoother which merely acts to enhance the already blistering pace of the gameplay. And characters look less like sprites, and have a more organic feel about them which gives the action an authentic feel, even if by comparison to FIFA it’s visually more like vegemite gunked on Sigourney Weaver’s gut than you’re prick-tickling imagery.
You can talk online and licking honey off Johansson’s nipples all you want, but that just sounds like you’re making up excuses for the gameplay: we know it looks good, that has never been a problem. FIFA is great, make no mistake, but PES is just better. When I want something to happen in PES, it happens. In FIFA it also happens, just a few ticks of the clock later and that’s enough to rob an attacking raid that spills suddenly from an intense midfield battle from being as truly rewarding. Plus the offensive A.I is lame.
Mark Serrels: Sigourney Weaver… gross. Alright beardy, the delay thing I’ll grant you – but even that’s just a feature of FIFA’s gameplay, and a perfect way to distinguish FIFA as a less arcadey and more in depth experience. It gives you a second to more precisely judge the strength of your pass/shot/whatever, whereas Pro Evo just assumes everything. As for the A.I, I think you’re wrong – just chuck on FIFA’s Be Pro mode, to get a real feel for how good FIFA’s A.I really is.
To be honest, I think it’s just a case of players being used to certain style of videogame football. Players have become accustomed to A.I making certain types of decisions in-game that don’t necessarily reflect soccer accurately – it’s just the way Pro Evo has always done it, and hence what people expect. So when gamers make the move across to FIFA and their players don’t make the runs expected of them, it’s not bad A.I – it’s just different A.I… if you get my meaning.
Chris Stead: That’s like saying that Manchester United and Middlesbrough are both good, just a different type of good… yeah not quite. When playing FIFA 09, I would always work a gap in the midfield, play a ball through to a running winger and then go to swing the ball into the box only to find it empty of my knucklehead forwards who were, presumably, off by the halfway line somewhere contemplating what they were going to do with all that licensing money EA gave them.
And often it becomes a hassle just to get out of the midfield, with players passing you the ball and then just standing there star-gazing – run, fatboy, run! I realise you can tweak the team’s strategies and the way individuals play if you’re dedicated enough to master such things but why bother when PES just delivers that intelligence out of the box. Not perfect mind you, just better.
You’re comment about being used to one game or the other is interesting, mostly because you admitted you were a PES player all along. This would seemingly contradict your statement. I think it is fair to say that if you had never played PES and had only played FIFA then you would love the latter blindly: it is an awesome game. However, jump from one to the other and back again a few times and the feel of PES in your hands – arcadey or not – is just better fun.
I also don’t see FIFA as being any more-or-less arcade than PES: its A.I lets it down too much. Not to mention that the styles of the real players have not been accurately mapped to their virtual counter-parts, turning diverse midfield rosters into one generic line of clones. In the end it’s a matter of perspective. For me the world’s best players can think, act and do on a dime. They don’t need to get the ball and then go on the Net to search forums for anyone who might have had the ball in that situation before to find out what they did, so they can go and make the same play. And let’s not forget that said delay rapes multiplayer.
Be A Pro mode, as distinct from the standard football game experience, I have a lot of respect for. I think the idea is great and I also think it is the mode to which EA sees not only the future of the series, but also the way to break out from under PES’s gameplay shadow. In fact, Konami’s Legend mode rips it off in this year’s PES. If you’re a single gamer, it may even be enough to persuade you to the dark side, but for me sport titles remain the last great domain of the two-mates-on-the-same-couch gaming that ruled the nineties and for that PES’s gameplay is irresistible.
Mark Serrels: Alright we’ll agree to disagree with the A.I, but if you want to talk game mechanics, let’s go there. Controls – I’ve spoken to you about this before, and you, plus a couple of other Pro Evo fans (mainly our James Ellis) have confessed to me that when busting out some matches on the PS3 you still used the bloody d-pad.
The bloody D-PAD!
This is the perfect example of how dated Pro Evo is – even ISS 64, released over 10 years ago, had a better grasp of how to utilise analogue controls, so in many ways Pro Evo has moved backwards. Here’s my real beef – when I’m playing FIFA I feel like I have proper control over my player, not the eight directional bull that should have been thrown out with the SNES. If I want to run at a gentle pace and survey my options like a virtual Riquelme I have to stop moving the analogue stick entirely…
What the hell is that? Is it 1993? Did we lose a war? The analogue stick is analogue for a reason – more precise controls. Oh, and another thing – Pro Evo’s new trick system is now mapped to the d-pad, which means that if you want to bust out some tricks you have to actually stop moving, or slow down to a pedestrian pace! In FIFA I can choose Ronaldo and flip flap to my hearts content at full speed, just like he does. I can play as C. Ronaldo, and do those pointless step overs he does (even though I would never choose C. Ronaldo cause he’s a crybaby bitch, but whatever).
You see my point – even if PES 2009 has better off-the-ball A.I than FIFA 09 (which I think it doesn’t) it sure as hell doesn’t control as well…
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