Anybody who has any interest in Football games will no doubt know of the age old debate about which game is better. EA Sports' FIFA or Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer. As a genuine player of both games I wanted to put my thoughts about both into words and give my opinion on which of the two impress in which specific area and what both can do to improve in the coming years. If you're here for a definitive answer on which is better you're probably going to be disappointed.
FIFA & PES: A (Friendly) RIVALRY
It's over 12 years since I first bought and played a Pro Evolution Soccer game, It was PES4. It was great, it was on the PC and it was an eye opener that there was another game to rival FIFA which I was already a huge player of again on PC. This was early 2005 and most of my free time was spent playing PC games, both FIFA and PES featured prominently in this exciting new world of make believe. I wasn't really aware of the rivalry between the players of FIFA and PES, to me they were both great, both had things wrong with them but as a 9 year old you don't really have that analytical eye to make those kind of judgement calls. Now however is a slightly different situation, the games have changed massively, the gaming world in general is light years away from where it was. What hasn't changed is the fact that every year I end up playing a lot of both FIFA and PES, I enjoy both, both have things about them that I like, both have things within them that make me want to give up and never play them again. There have been times where one has edged the other only for the other two do something which swings it back.
The Pros and Cons of FIFA:
Over recent years EA Sports' FIFA has been the flagship football game across all platforms, I don't think anybody would argue differently, the sales figures, the reviews, the fact people make a fair bit of cash from making YouTube videos about it. Most football fans who are also gamers get the new version every year without fail. I'm one of them, is it always worth the price? I'd argue it is. As a visual presentation it's fantastic, you have to give credit to the developers, they've come a long way since the days of players looking like they'd just stepped out of a plastics factory after an explosion. The most obvious advantage FIFA has over any other football game not just PES is that they have the exclusive Premier League licences as well as other leagues and clubs. It does feel as though you are watching a genuine Premier League game with the build up and visuals that come with it. Add to this all the stadiums that are in the game it's certainly adds to an impressive presentation. Another major advantage from a personal point of view is that career mode which is the mode I play the most on FIFA is at least fairly realistic. In comparison with PES' Master League it at least feels more true to life, for example the FA Cup for Premier League and Championship teams actually starting when it should and not in October as PES' does. Overall the feel of FIFA does in my opinion show that the people developing it do understand the sport despite some of the obvious issues which will be covered.
The first of those being the unrealistic situations they like to drop into a career mode, for example a player playing every week and one of the key parts of the team suddenly deciding he's deeply unhappy and must leave immediately or a foreign player who's spent most of his adult life in England all of a sudden having a problem with the language and again must leave only to end up at another club in the same country. I'm not saying these situations don't happen in real life but at such a high rate? I'm not so sure, it's obvious scripting which makes the game less fun and realistic. Another issue within career mode is the AI transfers and intelligence, for example why would Manchester City sign 7/8 central midfield players all of which would easily start for most Premier League teams and not have one left back at the club? or why would Chelsea have a 70 rated striker playing up front for most of the season who hasn't scored all season when they have 4 higher rated players in the reserves. Another very odd thing is if you're winning a game by the odd goal and the other side decided to chuck a defensive midfielder on and put him up front and a target man on the wing? You end up thinking to yourself "Is Roy Hodgson in charge of the opposition". Last criticism for now is that the flagship feature of this year's game The Journey, following the career of Alex Hunter was underwhelming, I could go into why I find the storyline fairly unrealistic and the fact that whatever happens in the game the same things happen but I'll save that for a future blog.
What needs to change?
All in all FIFA is a good game and has made a lot of improvements over the last few years. In terms of what they can do to make the game better in the coming editions is to simply cut the nonsense that was mentioned before, make the transfers and in game decisions better, programme the referees to actually referee properly rather than the pathetic attempt that has been in the last few versions.
The Pros and Cons of PES
After a few years without any major improvement, the last few versions of Pro Evolution Soccer have been very pleasing, as a football game it feels genuine, when you press pass the fella passes the ball, when you press shoot they shoot. Sounds simple but believe me it hasn't always been the case in either FIFA or PES. The in game options in terms of passing, shooting and crossing are much superior to those of FIFA, the early cross in particular has been something I have utilised and enjoyed. I imagine the main reason behind FIFA's decision to change the crossing in their own game is down to the major strides taken by Konami. Another major Pro of PES is the officially licensed UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League, just as FIFA does with their Premier League and Bundesliga realism PES makes you feel as though you are tuning in on a Tuesday/Wednesday evening to watch Europe's biggest club competition. As well as these licences the individual deals with the likes of Barcelona, Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund make playing with those teams and at their grounds very realistic. Borussia Dortmund's Westfalenstadion in particular looks beautiful within the PES graphics.
As for the cons the obvious licence issue will always be something PES will have to contend with, although it's not hard to find option files to edit the game and there are some excellent ones out there as well as some classic teams from years gone by. It can still be a time consuming thing to make the game just that bit more realistic. Another issue is the commentary, now this is nothing agains Peter Drury and Jim Beglin, they aren't the issue it's the way they have been programmed in so they sound so out of touch with the game. For example often there is a delay between a goal going in and Peter Drury acknowledging anything has happened. The other major issue I have is there is considerably less teams in PES than FIFA, it's only recently that they introduced the Sky Bet Championship into the game but it would be nice to have League's 1 and 2 in there as well. As well as a proper FA Cup scheduling in Master League and not the rather odd format there is already.
What needs to change?
The obvious thing we can all point to and say about PES is that without the licenses of the Premier League and various big clubs throughout Europe (Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus) it will be difficult for them to overthrow FIFA as the more popular game however what I'd say is simply keep on advancing the gameplay, keep striving to make the game the best football simulation out there. It's already a cleaner more fluid game than FIFA in my opinion and if they can keep improving in that regard maybe a few more will be tempted to overlook the fact Manchester City are Man Blue and Liverpool are Merseyside Red.
Thanks for reading,
Tom.
