Ah, the age old question. FIFA vs PES. For some of us, it really does feel like an age that we’ve comparing and contrasting the two games. As an avid fan and follower of the sport both in its real and virtual iterations, I have personally stuck with and purchased every FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer instalment for more than a decade. Before Pro Evolution Soccer was even known as Pro Evolution Soccer. Throughout EA’s drought between the years 2000 to 2006, and through Konami’s between 2007 and 2010 equally. It hasn’t always been an easy ride to look at both games objectively or impartially, either. Try comparing the mighty PES 5 to the lacklustre FIFA 05, or the current title holder FIFA 10 to the whimpering efforts from Konami last year. There is no comparison.
This however is 2011, at least in video game release terms, and things have changed. Take a look at Metacritic and you’ll see a clear winner; an almost unified agreement of who is this years king. But I don’t agree that things are quite that straight forward. Rather than review both games separately or try and justify a score with a quick “X is just better than X” quote at the bottom of a clichéd summary, I’m going to try and look at the two games in direct competition. It’s a bit of a departure from how games are normally reviewed on Tap, but I’ll give it a go anyway. Either way, there are a lot of other soccer video games out there that I love, including Football Manager, I recently discovered that in order to score lots of goals in FM24 you’ll need a wonderkid striker.
Ping Pong Passing
Pro Evolution Soccer is a wounded beast. As former champion of the genre and following on from 6 solid years of unanimous, untouched and unprecedented supremacy on PlayStation 2, Konami has struggled with the step up to next-gen systems. Their initial PES 6 in HD for the Xbox 360 fooled nobody and the series has stagnated ever since. Compared to its glorious past, recent PES games have offered a shallow and pale imitation of a glittering past. By contrast, FIFA has continued to push from strength to strength. FIFA 08 set the wheels in motion, 09 turned out to be a revolution and last year’s model seemed to steal the crown for good. Konami is several years over due a return to their best. PES 2011 certainly isn’t quite up to that standard, but it’s much closer than it’s been for half a decade.
First impressions are important and as a seasoned veteran of both franchises, I found PES 11 creating by far the better of the two. My expectations were low, but were soon blown away by a game which felt fresh, new and exciting. Rather than feeling like a strained effort to recapture former glories, PES 11 feels like a new experience. Series producer Shingo Takatsuka – affectionately known as “Seabass” – and his team have clearly gone back to the drawing board to give the series a much needed re-boot. Although some of the fundamental mechanics are retained from previous entries into the series, entire sections of the old experience have been canned and re-built from the ground up. The result is a game that looks and in many ways plays like the Pro Evolution Soccer we once knew and loved, but there are enough changes to the formula (and a long enough gap in time since the last genuinely good PES game) for the latest build to seem new and interesting. It feels like the return of an old friend, albeit one you’ll need to spend a little time re-acquainting yourself with before you’re fully comfortable in their company.
FIFA 11 is significantly less exciting at first glance. In terms of visual and audio quality the game is no less impressive than you’d expect from an EA Sports release, building on the high standards set by its forbearers, but it will be a familiar experience to anyone who has played an EA published football game in the last 3 or 4 years. This sense of familiarity also stretches to the game play itself, which without a list of bullet point alterations and features within arms reach can be difficult to assess what’s new. It’s very much the FIFA experience you already know and either love or don’t.
So, about those bullet points? EA loves them. “Game Changers.” Stuff to put in blurbs on the back of a box. This year, the headline features are a new passing system, which rids the series of Ping Pong Passing, a new Career mode which fuses together the previous Manager Mode and Be A Pro modes into one integrated system, player personalities and Be A Goalkeeper, which, funnily enough, allows you to be a Goalkeeper in the game. Marvelous.
So how do the headline grabbing additions translate into the previous FIFA experience? It’s largely a mixed bag. Just like last year’s 360 degree motion, which is thankfully elaborated on in this years game, player personalities is a great idea that probably needs a year or two in the oven to really develop. The long and short of the idea is that lumbering defenders will no longer be able to sprint up the field, beating half the other team in the process before looping a shot into the top corner of the goal from 25 yards out, and likewise, forward players won’t be able to dive into match saving tackles with the same accuracy or precision as lumbering defenders. As far as that simple definition is concerned, the system generally works, although it’s currently done so in a way that tends to stifle the game play rather than encourage you to use the players at your disposal in the way the game wants you to. Maybe it’s just me, but storming up field with Sol Campbell is still too tempting.
Stifle is also a word that could be used to describe the new passing system. The simple tap of the X or A button of old is now gone, replaced by a system that asks you to keep an eye on your power, placement and direction before moving the ball onto a team mate. Much like player personalities, the system generally works as advertised, but not without drawbacks. Conceding possession in the middle of the park is now a much more regular occurrence, and fighting against the system when playing as the game’s lesser rated teams – such as my own largely inept Sheffield Wednesday – can be a frustrating process. When the system works though, it works well. Knowing that splitting a defence wide open with an acutely timed pass that was your own doing, and more than a simple tap of a single button, is instantly gratifying, and stringing together a succession of passes with a team like Barcelona in full flow is beautiful to watch. The only problem I have with the new system is that it’s brought with it the introduction of the term Ping Pong Passing, a rather cringe worthy phrase used to describe the old, single button press formula. It’s a term that is now casually dropped into coverage of football games, as if to deride the old system as a complete failure in the process. Nobody seemed to notice or care about Ping Pong Passing when FIFA 10 was receiving perfect or near perfect scores left right and centre, but alas, I guess that’s the way things just work.
For the most part though, FIFA is FIFA. There are other subtle changes to the tried, tested and almost universally successful formula, such as an improved heading system that actually makes crossing the ball into the box half way to being worthwhile, but generally if you’ve played a FIFA game in the last couple of years you’ll already get the gist of it. Resting on such laurels isn’t a luxury afforded as easily to Konami. It can’t be, because if it did, then this year would be another sub par entry into a series which is desperately trying to reach out to its lost flock of fans. Rather than sell the new game in a neatly compiled package of headline features, Konami have simply opted for the tag line Engineered for Freedom, which does a far better job of explaining what PES 11 is about than your average cynic may suspect.
Engineered for Freedom
It sounds nice, for sure. It even sounds like something that once upon a time EA themselves might well have used to describe their own franchise, back when the respective roles of these two sporting powerhouses were reversed. What it isn’t though is just a catchy quip to sell copies of a game. It really does mean something, and it provides an umbrella for a whole host of game play tweaks and additions that help refine the PES experience . A new passing model finds itself tucked into PES 11 with just as much efficiency as in FIFA 11, but unlike its rival, PES 11 doesn’t feel the need to shout about it. It’s just a small cog in a larger and altogether more effective machine. 360 degree movement, quietly slipped into PES last year to keep up with the marauding FIFA 10, has also been tweaked and adjusted to offer much wider scope for movement. There’s a new, smarter and wittier AI, along with new animations and a greatly improved graphics engine which in certain lights and scenario’s arguably trumps FIFA’s rather glossy exterior. Whatever you thought you knew about Pro Evolution Soccer on next-gen systems now requires something of a re-think. Unless you still know the commentary team of John Champion and Jim Beglin, which yes, is still crap.
The end result is something which as stated earlier, is probably the first PES on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 that is genuinely worth playing. Engineered for Freedom also works in context of the game play itself. Make no mistake, the days of charging up field with the ball glued to your toes are long gone, but PES 11 still feels like a more expansive an open game of football than FIFA 11. Getting into the right positions requires time and patience, but the results generally feel more rewarding and are easier to come by than the opposition.
By comparison, FIFA 11 can sometimes feel unbalanced. The quality and speed of the animation means FIFA 11 is an incredibly smooth and free flowing game to play, which when spreading the ball around midfield looks and feels fantastic, but for all that gloss the game seems to lose it’s way in both attack and defence. Even playing on modest difficulty settings, the AI defence can feel unnecessarily brutal, blocking your attackers with relative ease and with little more than an outstretched arm or foot. Combined with the fact that the new passing system means even more of your attempts to play the ball around defenders will go astray, working your way into goalscoring opportunities can often feel like a thankless process. I’m glad that the ability to just run through defences at will has long been eradicated from football games – both of them – but FIFA 11 often feels far too heavily weighted to stopping you from even attempting to do so; even with top players like Messi or Ronaldo. The introduction of Player Personalities has also failed to address the pace issue between some defenders and attackers, and as a result the likes of John Terry still find it far too easy to keep up with the aforementioned speed demons for comfort.
Thankfully though, the emphasis on defending does mean that you can use similar bullying tactics to your own advantage. When facing an opposition attack, simply holding the X or A button will mean your nearest defender will hone in on the attacker and disposes them as soon as they get near. It’s useful for sure, and the slide tackling has also been improved tenfold for the times when you will need it, but it does mean some matches will feel like a long and rather dull war of attrition. FIFA 11 plays great in the middle of the park, but watching the ball change possession between an AI attack that is too easy to defend against and an AI defence that is too difficult to break down will frustrate some. Prepare for plenty of 0-0 or narrow 1-0 scorelines early on in your FIFA 11 career.
During my early experiences with FIFA 11, I also found it far too easy to settle into a rhythm or exploit certain loopholes to score the same types of goals. Getting into the same old positions was the tricky part, thanks to the over zealous AI defending, but once I found the space scoring became a little too predictable. Cut inside the box at an angle, tap the finesse shot trigger and give the shoot button a light tap, and regardless of the quality of your team, more often than not the ball will casually roll into the bottom corner of the net and beyond the reaching fingertips of the goalkeeper. It’s not a guaranteed solution, but I found the majority of my goals against the AI (and most of them in said narrow 1-0 wins) coming from this or similar avenues. I just couldn’t seem to find the sweet spot from many other options. Not for the want of trying, either.
This is perhaps where I get my most enjoyment out of PES 11. Although the shooting is far from perfect and having to work the ball into the right conditions can make scoring just as much of a pain as in FIFA, there’s far more variety to the types of goals both you and the AI will score. You’ll attempt (if not always convert) volleys and overhead kicks, attacking players are more likely to throw themselves at an aerial ball and it’s much easier (but importantly, not easy) to score from outside the box. Not every goal will be as audacious as this may sound, but there’s a constant sense of possibility when attacking in PES that I think is lost or compromised in FIFA 11. Most of the time, that 25 yard volley you attempt after a cleared defensive header will sail over the goal, but once every so often it’ll crack off the underside of the bar and settle in the netting; at which point you’ll leap up into the air screaming and spend the next 5 minutes surveying your handy work from every possible angle in the replay. It feels great and it always feels possible, even if in the majority of cases it probably isn’t. Generally in football games, if the angle or opportunities work against you and you don’t think you can score, then you almost certainly cant. But where PES 11 and FIFA 11 differ is that in the former, you’ll still want to try. It’s a priceless balance.
West Midlands Village vs West Midlands Stripes
For all PES 11’s improvements however, which can’t be over stated enough compared to anything you’ll have played since PES 6 on PlayStation 2, the areas where Seabass and his team still need to improve are just as obvious as they always have been. Although the animations have been rebuilt, players still have a habit of looking incredibly mechanical and robotic. Watching your players come to an awkward looking stop after a run, or stutter after a change of direction or pace undermines some of the improvements to the games overall pacing and flow, and provides too much of a stark reminder of the PES we all know and frankly, would rather forget. The ball physics also don’t look or feel quite as natural as in FIFA 11, and the ball and is prone to behaving a little more erratically than you might expect, which can be off putting. For those who watched the worlds best teams and players struggle to control the Jabulani at this summers World Cup in South Africa however, you may barely notice.
It probably goes without saying, but such issues have long since become irrelevant for the FIFA series, which once again looks and sounds fantastic. The game is a visual treat and generally runs like clockwork with a fast, smooth and fluid pace that is currently unrivalled in the genre. As always, the game also has more licenses than you can shake a stick at, with more than 25 fully licensed leagues and thousands of players all portrayed realistically. There are some snags to this such as iffy looking Goalkeeper kits and the occasional licensing blunder, but these are few and far between. By comparison, PES 11 remains limited to just 5 major leagues; including the again unlicensed English Premier League, so West Midlands Village, London FC and Merseyside Reds make another inglorious return. PES 11 is however taking steps forward. The addition of the Copa Libertadores is a great feature that adds some welcome Latin American flavour to the game, working well as a stand alone mode and allowing you to play as teams such as Corinthians, who roll back the years to feature Brazillian legends Roberto Carlos and the real Ronaldo. Full Champions League licensing is this year also boosted by the additions of the Europa League and European Super Cup. It’s not ideal, but in Konami’s defence, all the licensing they do have is utilised with particular care and attention.
Such issues however can be forgiven because of how easy PES makes it for users to customise their game to their own desires. PES 11 once again features a comprehensive edit mode, which even adds a limited but surprisingly effective stadium editor to the mix this year, leaving users to craft the teams and players as they so wish. This level of customisation is also backed up by a keen and ever loyal community of PES fans who year in year out create a variety of different Option Files, which when transferred to your console via a USB stick, fix many of the licensing issues and add all the relevant kits, player names and teams to your game within days of release. It’s not an ideal situation, and those who prefer being able to play as their favorite team from the off without waiting for a fix will doubtlessly prefer FIFA’s instantaneous licensing, but such user support provides a fair alternative. It’s a level of community based customisation that is rarely seen on consoles, forming part of the heart and soul which makes the series such a popular one even when not at the very top of it’s game.
Also crucial to PES 11’s heartbeat is Master League, the mammoth time sink that acts as the games central single player core. Like every good Master League mode from the PlayStation 2 glory days, this years edition allows you to pick a team and set out on a career with either the real squads of the team you select, or the now legendary group of Master League misfits such as Ximelez, Miranda and Huylens; who long term fans of the series will be oh so familiar with by now and who will be just as inept whether you start a career with Blackpool or Barcelona. The basic premise is to guide your team to glory in as many competitions as you possibly can, buying new players along the way to improve your side as well as developing and bringing through youth players. It’s a simple formula that doesn’t sound all that unique in principle, but particularly if you start out with the default Master League players, building your own team from the ground up and watching them develop (and hopefully, succeed) provides an enticing hook.
This more than any other has been the one area where even during the lean years, fans of PES have been able to hold their heads high and say they had a genuine reason to still appreciate the series. As much as I’ve tried to love FIFA’s Manager Mode, given that it allows me to take charge of my home team from the off without the need for editing, it just doesn’t stack up. FIFA 11 unfortunately offers no exception to this. As far as a feature set is concerned, there’s nothing particularly wrong with the now re-branded Career – which now encompasses Be A Pro alongside the traditional Manager Mode – but the whole experience feels shallow, soul less and, well, dull. News items stretch to little more than vague injury or fitness updates and the transfer market still seems totally out of sync with reality. Developing new players also never feels as important as it should be and playing your way through a season can sometimes feel like little more than a grind from one match to the next. Factor in some familiar bugs from last year (seriously, EA?) and the fact that failing even secondary challenges during a season can get you sacked regardless of your performance in other areas, and Career mode once again shoots wide of the mark. I don’t expect Football Manager levels of authenticity or realism, but Career mode should be starting to offer more. Once again, that “spark” is disappointingly absent.
Conclusion?
Having read back through this review, I’ve noticed that there’s something of an air of balance towards PES at the expense of FIFA. That’s partly through intention and partly just subconsciously based on my thoughts and experiences with both games. Have a casual gaze across an aggregate site like Metacritic, and if you’re looking for a score to tell you which of this years games to buy, there’s a clear winner. FIFA 11 is once again this years darling in the eyes of the masses, and even for a sceptic, it’s not hard to see why. Technically speaking, there’s nothing wrong with FIFA 11. Sure it has some bugs, probably more than such a high profile and highly funded release should have, but other than that it’s a game that both looks and plays exceptionally well. It’s got all the licensing, all the game modes and all the glitz and glamour to appease anyone, whether that be your hardcore football fan or the casual players who will probably buy nothing but FIFA and Call of Duty all year.
My biggest problem with FIFA 11 however is something purely subjective. I find it inherently boring to play. The game looks fantastic in full motion, but some of the tweaks to the game play, the overly aggressive AI and the predictable patterns and methods of scoring goals can sometimes leave the game feeling clinical and lacking in soul. The newly formed Career mode is a genuine step forward from FIFA 10 but still feels hollow and lifeless, and in my opinion leaves FIFA 11 without a genuinely compelling single player component to drive the main thrust of the game. For those who mainly play online, FIFA 11 remains streets ahead of the competition, with head to head matches, online clubs and 11 vs 11 matches offering plenty to get your teeth into, but it’s largely what fans will already know and expect from the series. In truth, there’s not an awful lot new in FIFA 11 for fans to get too excited about, and I’d perhaps even argue that some of the features can make this years efforts feel like a strained, tired and more frustrating clone of FIFA 10.
With it’s lack of licensing, continually awful commentary and familiarly dodgy animations, Pro Evolution Soccer is still the ugly sister of the two. For me however, there are far too many critics out there who have been too quick to knock PES 11 simply for failing to match up to the slick fluidity of FIFA. I’ve read (but won’t name and shame. This isn’t a trolling exercise) countless reviews that read like the reviewer actually enjoyed their time with PES 11 more and appreciated it’s fresh take on the genre, before closing their article with a brief comment about it’s lack of polish and awarding a lower score than FIFA. Is that really what we’ve come down to?
PES 11 is far from perfect and isn’t particularly pretty to look at through the eyes of the football purist, but in my view the experience it delivers is simply more entertaining. It doesn’t match FIFA for realism (although I’d argue all day long with anyone who claimed any football game could ever be genuinely realistic), but it successfully captures the essence and soul of what makes the real sport so exciting. There’s a charm, unpredictability and natural excitement about the way PES 11 feels to play that I personally believe is missing from FIFA 11, perhaps more so this year than in the last two. Individual moments of brilliance or once in a life time goals won’t happen every time you pick up the controller, but PES 11 at least instills the sense of possibility that encourages you to try. Whether it be the game itself, the rags to riches story of Master League or the sense of community that builds and adapts around the game each year, PES 11 is a game with a personality. It helps that this year, for the first time in quite a while, it also plays a pretty good game of football.
By now of course, most football gamers will have already decided and more than likely already own their game of choice this year. There are countless reasons why any one gamer would choose to play either of the two, and perhaps even more reasons why they’d choose not to, but in a world that seems dominated by praise and full of superlatives for one, I appreciate the opportunity to air my thoughts in favour of the other. Welcome back, Pro Evolution Soccer. Let battle re-commence in a years time.
This article was based on the PAL retail copies of both FIFA 11 from EA Sports and PES 11 from Konami. As I have chosen to do a comparison between the two games more than a “review” of sorts, no direct individual scores have been awarded. For the sake of conformity though, and if anybody really feels the need to ask, let’s just give them both.. oh, I don’t know, 4 out of 5 or something..
Email the author of this post at matc@tap-repeatedly.com
Great, great article. i totally agree with everything
Epic work, Mat, and a great comparison. I know little about either franchise, but you did a fine job educating me. Thanks for the review!
great article….. I love pes2011 and I deleted fifa11 on my PC… pes2011 returns!
Mat, I think that’s actually one of the best “reviews” I’ve read in a long, long time!
Good stuff, now bring it round on the 12th and I’ll give you a good’idin! 🙂
Substance over style then, eh? Who knew! A great, thorough review, Mat.
So Mat, to put this question into perspective, the last FIFA I played was 2001 picked up in a bargain bin in 2007 or so. I kinda like the idea of EA sports games. I’d like to have around a good football game, a good football (US) game, etc. In FIFA 2001, once you got across the half, your teammates would show arrows on the field indicating a run and if you managed to get the ball to them they’d have enhanced shot capabilities. The shooting with a gamepad controller of the day (with its 12 way hat) didn’t have enough resolution to make scoring a subtle thing and the game often devolved into a goal-kick-arama (incidentally somewhat similar to NBA 2001 where the advantage to the offense over defense in hurling the ball the full length of the court was obvious to the bassist of player) with the odd well put together goal.
My question is: do either these games offer a real surprise in either gameplay or scoring opportunities for the player or the AI? From the text, it sounds like PES-11 is the way to go.
FIFA 2001 landed during a period where EA seemed intent on adding 1 headline feature per year. I remember the visible run markings just as much as I remember the long ball system from a year or two later, which panned out the camera and gave you two or three button options to press to launch the ball onto your attacker. Neither worked particularly well.
Such headline grabbing features have long since been eradicated and now off the ball movement and playing a decent long ball are just built into both games’ AI. In my experience with both games, if the ability to score a variety of goals is important to you, PES is probably the way to go. Like I said in the piece, it’s not as pretty to look at or perhaps not as accessible as FIFA to the casual football player, but I find it more rewarding to actually sit and play.
I really tried to like PES 2011 (I even bought it before FIFA 11) but it has just too many problems to offer a great footy experience. The pass system only works when it feels like it, there is a slight delay in the response of the players (a failed attempt from Konami to emulate realistic player reflexes), the keepers’ behavior ranges from super human to plain retarded, in 2vs2 games the game takes without a reason the control of a player I move and gives it to my teammate… I can go forever. The only excitement you can really get from the game is from it’s unpredictability but this comes from the games faults rather from anything else. The players lose easy shots far too easy even when you control players like Ronaldo or Rooney, defenders need almost a couple of seconds to kick the ball away, and sometimes they need 5-6 meters just to respond to your commands.
In the end PES 2011 in my honest opinion still doesn’t give you enough control over your players, something which in my opinion is enough to ruin the game. I want my players to move when I tell them to, to be able to control the ball even right on the line and be able to shoot towards when they are one on one with the keeper. Do I ask too much?
I think this is the most balanced and well written review/comparison of the 2 games and its rare to find something that isn’t written in such as way as to infuriate readers and begin a war in the comments section.
My view echoes that of the author to a point. Essentially, PES does in my opinion have the capacity to excite more than FIFA, whether through a 40 yard effort crashing back off the cross bar or a goal mouth scramble.
However, for me there are too many reminders in PES that we are playing a very dated game. As mentioned by TxCForever, “it’s unpredictability comes from the games faults rather from anything else”. I too bought PES before FIFA, and initially I was very pleased with my choice. But after cramming 2 seasons of Master League into a weekend, I began think “I did all this in 2001 – I’ve done master league so many times before”. As much as PES2011 is improved over 2010, its not really any more enjoyable than PES 4 or 5.
Sure, on one hand its good to have a playable and engaging PES on next gen consoles, but in terms of technical flare, FIFA feels more the modern game (albeit with some nasty bugs).
Thanks for your feedback, guys.
Bigmouth, I very much agree with you to a certain extent with regards to Master League. It took me a little longer than a weekend to get 2 seasons of Master League done, but I’ve loved every second of it so far. What I’ve enjoyed about the game so far is that I’ve not found it easy. I didn’t qualify from Division 2 in my first season and had to cope with a few retirements and contract expiries to rebuild for the second campaign. I’m not blowing my trumpet, because despite playing football games for so long I’m really not that good at them, but I’ve always found it too easy to progress on FIFA. Getting my team back out of the lower leagues with successive promotions has never proven difficult for me in FIFA, including this year, which may contribute to it feeling a little stale for me.
What I hope is conveyed in the article more than anything is that this is all just one mans opinion. Even during PES’ domination on PS2, FIFA still had it’s die hard fans. These things are always so subjective.
Thorough review, however i believe you were too charitable to PES. I have some thoughts on the subject myself. PES is flawed. Yes, less so than in previous years, but still flawed. And the main reason why is it’s gameplay (the only thing that should matter in a review of a football game IMO), which is still put simply, *unrealistic*.
See, the problem with PES is it’s physics engine is broken (and by that i mean not accurate). *The ball simply does not move as it should*. When the ball is passed, it always moves a certain speed, always speeding up when it leaves the passer’s foot and slowing down when it reaches the receiver in the *exact same way). That is why the gameplay feels mechanical. It is certainly not *ahem* ping pong passing this year, but the ball still moves like it has a predetermined destination, it just looks so artificial.
Another thing (which is actually two things) is the space. There is simply too much space. Now this may not be the case exactly, but there is an *impression* of too much space. Why? Because the damn players running with the ball have PERFECT control. They push the ball a CERTAIN distance, it slows after a CERTAIN time, then they receive it. Almost like there is a force field around the player which the ball cannot go through. So even when running, the ball is stuck in this radius and as a result, running with the ball is absurdly easy. I can carry an ordinary player and RUN, right across the midfield, with such godlike perfect control that it’s ridiculous. If you tried that in FIFA you’d lose the ball almost immediately. Simply unrealistic.
Another issue? A subset or relative of the godlike control while running that i mention is the godlike control that players have PERIOD. Players can run down a flank, shadowed by a defender and suddenly TURN to face the opposite direction without a hassle, all the time the ball glued to their feet. Crazy. NO ONE does that! Lol, not even Messi. Once the ball is with the player, it is as though they become one entity. Now of course the physics engine of any game cannot be perfect but in PES it is so bad as to make the game unplayable.
You mention (as a drawback) that most games on the harder difficulty levels end in low scores? Um excuse me, but do you watch football often? Guess what, most football games *are* low scoring affairs, in most matches, it is difficult to string together passes- that is why Barcelona and Arsenal are so enjoyable to watch (and teams like them rare).
FIFA feels clinical? Well now i have heard everything. PES is the king of scripted play. It is so dull to know that you can hare down the flank, make a handbrake turn to lose the defender, square the ball to an onrushing player and (pressing shoot before i even see a player is there to receive the ball, so sure am i of his clockwork arrival) score. Well i guess that is the thing about personal anecdotes, everybody has one. My experience of FIFA is that the only way to score is pass and move the defence until a space opens up, just like in real life, pass quickly enough and someone will get out of position. I cannot believe how someone would find FIFA mechanical and think PES is not. PES (less so in 2010) is simply and on-rails, arcade approximation of football. I was so disappointed when i saw the passing and ball control physics, they improved things but simply did not go far enough. Not nearly so, if FIFA is who they want to beat.
For background, i have played PES since it was ISS pro evolution (and before that even if we count ISS and ISS 98). Still played 2010 because i am addicted to the ML. I have lived through the glorious years of PES dominance, but those times are over. You make a mistake when talking about subjectivity. What is subjective is of course, one’s enjoyment of the game. But enjoyment is not the yardstick of measure is it? In a genre called football simulation, the yardstick of measure is which game plays more like the living breathing sport we watch and play, not which is more *enjoyable*. Using that criterion, FIFA is a better game, objectively so.
Thanks for the response.
Quick question though; have you played PES 11? There are several references to PES 10 in your response and a number of the complaints you have about the game sound like complaints from last years model. As far as PES games have been concerned for the last 3-4 years, I agree with many of your points, but many of those issues have been improved upon or eradicated entirely with PES 11.
Also, I disagree with your assessment that football games are about the realism at the expense of the joy to play. To answer your question, yeah, I do watch alot of football. As a Sheffield Wednesday fan I’ve seen my team win a trophy, play in cup finals, Europe and come close to winning the league, and I’ve also watched us play at 3 different levels and finish a season just 3 points away from relegation to League Two. If you want a football game that offers an actual, totally accurate “simulation” of football then.. well, sorry, but you’re out of luck. Football games just don’t play like real football. Neither of them. They never have and they never will. FIFA has got the gloss and the polish to make it the more “realistic” of the two, but as a supposed simulation it’s still nothing like an actual game of football.
In my opinion, that actually works in both games’ favour. I’ve watched alot of football, and most of it has been frustrating, tedious rubbish. Ask any football fan who doesn’t support a top club and they’ll probably say similar. Why do I want to play some of the dreary games I’ve had to watch over the years, or have a “simulation” of your average Sunday afternoon game between Bolton and Fulham on Sky?
Football games have to be about the entertainment and how exciting they are to play, because the reality of a “simulation” (which doesn’t exist) would actually be pretty boring to sit and play from a gaming perspective.
@ Mat C, I do see your point. Master League is always an enjoyable mode and personally I have always loved building up my team from the original lineup of Minanda, Castolo et al. And yes, I have encountered some players retiring, or not wishing to renew contracts after a year, which does present some good challenges both on and off the pitch. I just think that perhaps its starting to wear a little thin for me. I managed to sign Michael Owen and Adam Johnson, shortly followed by Shawn Wright-Phillips and Joe Hart, but for some reason this year I wasnt as excited about securing new players as I have been in previous years. I now have Adriano up front though which ensures some incredible long-range efforts.
For me at the moment, I own both FIFA and PES. I dont really want 2 football games as time doesnt allow for me to get the best out of them. I just cant quite decide which one deserves my full attention. On the one hand, FIFA is enjoyable but at times feels rather insipid. On the other hand, my beloved PES is starting to show its age.
So, an update following my last comment, in case anyone is interested. I have never done so many u-turns between FIFA and PES. In previous years I have always tried both games and made a decision quite quickly. Incidentally, I have always chosen PES over FIFA, but noticed the year on year improvement that FIFA has been getting since about 08/09. Last year was the first time I went for FIFA (10) over PES, as I think PES 10 was quite poor. This year, based on the demo I was very pleased with PES, but after buying it on final release began to consider buying FIFA as PES just didnt feel up to scratch after extended play. I did just that and my first few days with FIFA were really solid. I played a few exhibitions on semi pro just to get used to the new passing and then started my career on professional difficulty. This is where the problems began. For me, semi pro was too easy, but as soon as you up things a notch the AI becomes overly aggressive – something that MatC noted in his review above. In fact, it ruins the whole experience for me. Most games quickly turn into a succession of tackles: The AI will force you off the ball, so you just jam in the x and circle buttons (PS3) until you win the ball back (which you nearly always do) or give away a free kick. After a while the game just gets so boring and frustrating. To compound the annoyances of the aggressive AI, the passing is too random and severely lacking in pace. Thus, you may string a few decent passes together if you manage to escape the clutches of the seemingly magnetic defence, only for the final ball to be lacking in any pass at all. Further, your team mates seem to like running into space directly in front of you, which means you either bump into them or they stray offside by the time you have released the pass. Its made even more annoying by the fact that shooting on FIFA is half decent this year, but chances to shoot are so infrequent it rarely shines.
Since buying FIFA, I have kept going back to PES (which in itself tells something) and in doing so have started to really appreciated the more nuanced approach to defending and the more penetrative passing system.
Its not perfect, but PES is definitely now providing more enjoyment. I have scored such a wide variety of goals, saved about 10 replays (10 more than on FIFA) and am continuing my master league.
Its not got the polish, the licences, the overall presentation, but for me, after yo-yoing between the 2 games for nearly a month, PES is the one for me.
I criticised it above for feeling rather dated. That still applies, but it also works in its favour: If it plays a good old game of PES, then for me that represents a level of playability yet to be matched by EA’s offering.
Fantastic review. I’ve always been of the opinion that PES has never had the graphical polish or detail of FIFA and I doubt that they ever will.
However, excluding the odd exception, PES has been the better game. Ok, you don’t get the team/player names, the graphics and sound are not quite up to scratch, the animation is dodgy at times and there isn’t the sheer number of online players to make the online experience great but it is simply more fun. It’s easier to pick up, it’s much more fluid and the master league is fantastic.
Every year I play both games and every year i go back to PES. The last two years I’ve not played much PES but this year will be different.