And so the war rages on.
The Playstation Network and Xbox Live currently play host to both the FIFA 10 and the Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 demos, allowing us to sample the two heavyweights of the beautiful game in the virtual world. So, which game is better?
The FIFPro licence possessed by FIFA has given it the polish Pro Evo has always been lacking. After all, who wants to simulate a mouth-watering World Cup final between England and Germany only to find out that the German stars won’t be attending this crucial fixture, instead, each player will be replaced by their respective doppelganger. All of this does not bode well for the escapism aspect of the football simulation game. English fans want to fire goals past Germany and make Ballack cry, we don’t care about Botanaski, whoever he is, or isn’t.
Despite Konami promising that ‘PES [2010] will offer drastic improvements in license content’, FIFA 10 easily trumps Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 on the licensing front, but none of us expected any different did we?
The Japanese developers have been true to their word though; PES 2010 boasts the licence for the UEFA Europa League to complement that of the UEFA Champions League. But, because Konami failed to use the Champions League licence to any great effect in 2009 – it was not even woven into either the Master League or Become a Legend modes – we are more than entitled to be sceptical of the Europa League making a huge difference to the value of PES 2010.
The commentary of FIFA is bound to be better than Pro Evo too. There is no commentary on the Pro Evo demo, but the chances of the badly timed, repetitive ramblings of idiots on the final version being anything but that are slim to none. Whereas the FIFA demo already offers the familiar voices of Messrs Tyler and Gray, who benefit from being allowed the luxury of discussing the characteristics and histories of clubs while not being forced to use pronouns in place of team names.
Graphics have also been another element of FIFA constantly thrown in the face of PES fans when the two are compared. But, as Bob Dylan once said, ‘the times they are a-changing’. The graphics of Pro Evo 2010 are far superior to those of FIFA 10. The players’ faces are almost picture perfect and the stadium atmosphere looks and, with the vastly improved responsiveness of the crowd, sounds like the real thing. Moreover, although it is funny to see, FIFA’s desire to make Frank Lampard look even fatter and Wayne Rooney even uglier does not help with that escapism thing mentioned above.
Other features of appearance have usually favoured FIFA too. The menu systems that you must manoeuvre around in order to get to the good stuff are characteristically sophisticated on FIFA 10, but PES has revamped the childish display from last season’s instalment.
Still, graphics aside, all of these superficial elements of the game are fairly insignificant. Isn’t it the football that really matters in a football game? So then, should it not be okay to have a game that forsakes official licenses, popular music, and shiny menu systems for the good of the game? That is what lead to PES being crowned as the king of the football sim in the first place, so a return to form would be welcomed by all genuine football lovers.
And when it comes to gameplay, after a Heskey-esque dip in form, Pro Evo is back among the goals. The physics of the players in PES are superior to those in FIFA, who seem to be made of thin air at times. When you play Pro Evo you actually feel like you are guiding real men about the pitch, they feel sturdy, sometimes to the point of sluggishness, but nevertheless, their movement is realistic. The ball physics of FIFA are also inferior. The shooting and crossing are unpredictable at best, a problem made more noticeable by the way that spherical thing moving about on the pitch has the feel of an air-flow you buy for a quid at the beach.
This is not to say that FIFA is poor though, it is definitely the more immediately likable out of the two games. The 360° dribbling is the game's best feature. This system strays away from only affording players with up, down, left, right, and the diagonals as their directions of movement, giving you the chance to turn in a more fluid motion. This not only creates a dribbling system that is less linear than the one found on Pro Evo, it advances the types of tricks you are able to pull off, which, when mastered, arms you with an arsenal of weapons commonly used by the world's top flair players.
It is when this arcade trickery style of FIFA (or the lack of it in PES) is mentioned that the row between the fans of FIFA and those of Pro Evo transcends the boundaries of computer games and enters into an argument about the fundamentals of football. FIFA is all about sexy football, football as a celebrity – buying success, using the big names to help your own, being a brand. Pro Evo represents the nitty-gritty, ruggedness of the game we all love so much – struggling to overcome the competition, slumps in form, grinding out results.
Although it is far from perfect, Pro Evo just about manages to come closer to perfection than FIFA. It is the football game that shows it to be more than just a game. Using the new tactics system you can turn it into a science, something that is actually a requisite for players hoping to conquer the game on the toughest setting. The AI has been cranked up to near impenetrable sensibilities, so advance your tactical nous or perish.
But, there is a huge clause attached to Pro Evo retaining its title, one that can not be judged according to the demo... the online mode. It has dogged the last two editions of PES, with its laughably lag-heavy gameplay creating an unplayable environment. Konami have assured us that these difficulties have been sorted once and for all, having swallowed their pride and opted for Sony’s and Microsoft’s own servers to host Pro Evolution Soccer 2010’s online gaming on the PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively. But, given that the last instalment of the series came with a similar promise stamped on its box, this should definitely be taken with a pinch of salt.
Pro Evo 2010 is Konami’s last shot at ensuring the most loyal fans of their series do not go over to the dark side. Judging by the online demo, that shot could easily have been launched from the boot of Stephen Gerrard, for only he could produce such a magnificent effort at such a crucial time. But there is a chance that this attempt has been sent sailing towards the wrong net, potentially resulting in an own-goal Frank Sinclair would be ashamed of, such is the embarrassment Konami face if that online mode is not right.
