The 'football game' war!

Well, this was one thing I've always wanted to write about for a very long time (in fact, it's been over two years now). For the uninitiated, this is regarding the ongoing *virtual* feud between two established football game series - Pro Evolution Soccer (or winning eleven) and the more famous Fifa series from the house of EA. This post basically quick-reviews both and draws logical conclusions(which, I am sure, some people would like to refute to show me that they can appreciate computer games).



Before I begin, let me give you some credentials of mine. Firstly, I have reason to belive that I have received decent education all my life. For those of you who don't really get it, I'm sorry, further explanations would make me out to be a regionalist or an anti-gult - that's a tag I can definitely live without. Secondly, I played my first version of FIFA in 1998 - Road to World Cup '98 by EA Sports. I have ever since played EVERY version of Fifa released, including a couple of Champions League and Fifa world Cup games that EA sports releases every two years( These have exactly the same features and stuff, except for a fancy licence). That makes it 10 FIFA games alone (including the recent FIFA 07 as well), and 14 in all.



I first saw Pro Evolution Soccer(or PES for short) in 2004/05 and fell in love instantly. I played the XBox 360 version of PES4, and was floored in an hour. It just mopped the floor with (the then recent) FIFA 2004 which I used to play for hours on end. The gameplay just flowed and was really intuitive. Agreed, the graphics department could have used a bit of a revamp, but it really did amaze me. I played PES5 and PES6 on the PC after that, and frankly my opinion didn't really change much. I started worshipping the series. Period.



Well, let me not give you the impression that I'm biased one way or another. Just take a closer look at the "development" of the FIFA series. Way back in 2001, it was an arcade-style enjoyable football game. But when the folks at EA saw the growing popularity of the PES series, they wanted to emulate some of that success. SO they set out on a long and unfulfilled journey of drawing inspiration from Konami(the makers of PES). Fifa 2002 saw the inclusion of the "off-the-ball run" feature. Then, with FIFA 2005, they added the much-hyped first touch feature, again inspired somewhat by PES4. Soon, the keys started changing as well, and (coincidentally?) they resembled the PES key-scheme rather too closely.

With FIFA 06, they just broke the barrier- they implemented the "fade" effect. This is seen in cutscenes (for goal celebrations or refree decisions) when there is a sort of depth-of-field effect. Again, PES had it one version earlier. And with FIFA 07, EA Games has just lost it. They've gone a long way to beef-up the eye-candy for the game, and somewhere down that road, their AI department had an identity crisis. They probably thought they were in charge of graphics too. You need to play the game to see it - the game AI is ridiculous at times - the goal keepers might as well have not been there at all, and some players behave so randomly at times. The controls don't do any good either. In fact, I may go so far as to say that on more than one occassion, I have felt the comp manipulate my position to make sure I lose the ball. This is so frustrating, especially when you are on the verge of scoring a rather straight-forward goal.

Well, on the other hand, the PES series offers exactly what a footbal fan would. It's realistic physics, amazing AI, and brilliant controls overcome the void left behind by Konami's graphics department (most of them must have moved to EA, I presume). Sure, on the surface, there really hasn't been much of an improvement over the past couple of titles in the series. Once you dive a little deeper, the whole world transforms. It's like another universe in there ... okay, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration... but there certainly are differences that the experienced PES player will identify as being significant.

Take it from me folks, Pro Evolution Soccer just sweeps the floor with FIFA. The only area where I could see FIFA scoring over PES is graphics, and with good reason. If EA Games couldn't get FIFA to be better even in that regard, I think they should consider running a beedi shop instead.

P.S: At my place of residence, I know there will always be those who'd refute this decision of mine. But atleast my concience is clear, mate - I haven't spent two years of my life in dark caverns preparing for the most dreaded Engineering Entrance Examination in the country....I was gathering experience for this review... ;)