FIFA 10 steals Pro Evolution Soccer's crown from under its nose
OK, the dust has settled, the hype is over and the fun begins.
I am talking about the eagerly awaited FIFA 10. Now computer games are not my area of expertise but, and you'll see why, I feel I am in as good a position as anyone to put EA's latest offering of the beautiful game under the microscope.
THE EARLY YEARS
Here's a little aboout me: my earliest recollection of playing a football game was round at a mate's house. I remember it being a green-screen affair which, as it turns out, was a forefather to the likes of Championship Manager - which ruined many an undergraduate in my day.
Anyhow, I was hooked. I spent hours 'playing' this game. It was essentially a Teletext experience. I have a vague recollection of being able to transfer players in and out, and a 1-10 player rating, but the fact that it was absolutely rubbish in comparison with today's games didn't matter.
From the moment I returned home I would badger my old dad for a computer from dawn 'til dusk, and I got one. An Amiga 500, PLUS the whopping HALF-MEG upgrade. I was the king of the kids because it cost almost 700 in total. Bear in mind a few years previous my parents paid 7,000 for their HOUSE!
After much disc swapping in the playground, dodgy game copying programmes and general game trading we stumbled across a gem in 1989 by Anco called Kick-Off.
It was a bird's eye view of 22 Lego-cum-Subbuteo men which required simply a joystick and a button to play - none of this: 'hold L2 press X three times and swivel right joystic' nonesense. This as far as I am concerned was the birth of the football game. Strangely to today's football-sim lover, the action was played on a vertical plane and not the left-to-right perspective we get today.
A year later, and in the year England reached the World Cup semi finals, came Kick-Off 2 and I'm sure anyone of my 29 years or thereabouts who enjoys FIFA 10 will know what I mean when I say KO2 was absolutely immense.
A friend of mine set down roots in my Desperate Dan decorated bedroom in order to play this game. He spent so much time at my house that he genuinely began to believe my parents were also his. He had his own seat and we kept score of the games with a fierce precision.
This was a game that required skill. Players varied in pace and strength and ability. Tackles required timing. Shots required exacting methods and shock of shocks you could swerve and curl the ball with something called 'aftertouch'. To this day we still recite names like Shaw and Dyer, and recall our love for England and Holland, and I had nightmares about the card-happy refs who could ruin your game on a whim with a Draconian red card.
I can remember that a quick flick backwards of the joystick and a well-timed button-push at the halfway line would result in a David Beckham-esque 35-yard attempt on goal. I can also remember that by running at the goalkeeper and simply pulling backwards (without hitting the shoot button) would lob the keeper from 18 yards.
If the keeper had the audacity to save it you could assault him with a flying headbutt and it was a goal. There was a practice mode, a 'save your Golden Goals' mode - all things I recognise in the latest super simulators. We genuinely loved this game and still reserve a special fondness for it in our hearts. We did dabble with forthcoming developments such as GOAL!, Striker and God forbid Kick-Off 3 (which ditched the bird's-eye perspective), but none of them matched our old friend for sheer playability.
KICK OFF 2 v SENSIBLE SOCCER
And even back then - two whole decades - there was a rivalry. I will come on to Pro Evolution Soccer's horn-locking with the FIFA franchise, but even back then there was a war.
Dino Dini's Kick-Off 2 or the new kid on the block - Sensible Soccer.
For many years 'ProEvo' occupied the Kick-Off 2 territory. It was the connoiSseur's game of choice. Glitz and glamour, fancy menus and attention to detail in terms of names, stats, kits, attributes - none of this mattered.
It didn't matter because gameplay was the key. Geeks who couldn't actually play the game for their local Colts side loved Sensi Soccer because they had no idea how to actually play, but loved the periphery of the game and all that comes with it. If you like, Sensi Soccer fans were the pundits. The know-it-alls who longed to be picked for the local team, but would only ever get to run the line and make the tea.
Kick-Off 2 fans however were Top Guns on the field. The gameplay was all that mattered. The feel of it. Its tactile nature. They were the first to be picked in the playground. They and the football game they so loved were organically as one. They were the ones with the footballing brains - not the head for stats and figures.
FIFA v PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER
Now for some time (up until FIFA 09 I'd say) ProEvo gamers were the Kick-Off kids and FIFA enthusiasts were spawned from Sensible Soccer statto types. ProEvo stuck two fingers up to FIFA because Konami's baby was as ugly as sin, but people wanted to cuddle it.
Meanwhile, FIFA was handsome, well behaved, glossy, glitzy, glam - but nobody loved it. ProEvo, which began life under the guise of ISS, was the game of choice. On the PS2 I would never have dreamed of buying FIFA. It was for pretty boys and try hards. Those in the know were siding with the underdog but not merely because it was the long-shot, but because it was bloody brilliant.
In 2009 all that changed. The days of building up a team on ProEvo in the career mode (Master League) in order to pop it on a memory card and then take to your mate's for a good thrash were gone in an instant.
FIFA 09 was born and how the tables turned. The glamourpuss airhead was given a brain and a personality. She was suddenly likeable and not only was FIFA playable - it knocked PES into a cocked hat!
Now FIFA 10 is here and it is universally acclaimed as the benchmark in its sector, and here's why:
FIFA 10 has ironed out a few of FIFA 09's issues. You can no longer score from the halfway line straight from kick off. You can no longer take three passes from a goal kick, hit the sprint button and bang in a 30-yarder. Holding the pressure button and rushing the game is now punished rather than rewarded. The sprint and shoot merchants have been weeded out and the game is more akin to what you might see on your Sky HD on a Sunday afternoon.
FIFA10 demands that the player thinks ahead. Gung-ho buccaneering will not do against pensive precision. You can now move 360degrees, rather than simply in eight directions. You are now a surgeon with a scalpel in your hand rather than a blacksmith with a big hammer.
You can now nutmeg your opponent if he stands with the jockey button pressed like a labotomised moron. It's a game of nuances, not a game for chancers. I was at the top level of 'Legendary' on FIFA 09, however on 'World Class' FIFA 10 Manager Mode I was sacked as Manchester City's boss after half a dozen games, and I thought I was doing OK.
FIFA 10 is not FIFA 09 with extra seasoning to taste - it is a completely new game that should be approached as such. That same friend I used to play Kick-Off 2 with into the early hours put it quite nicely when he said, 'it is full of nice touches'.
We noticed that when you first boot the game up, it analyses your ability from your career in FIFA 09 and sets you away accordingly. If you get the sack and your management reputation is one-star, you will only be approached by such teams. If you're on a bad run, Andy Gray and Martin Tyler will discuss the pressures upon you in commentary and the crowd will boo, hiss and whistle. The opposite is true if you're in good form. All nice touches.
In order to fashion a chance you will now have to ping a cross-field pass, move forward as a team and work the opposition players out of position - even if that means going back to square one, literally.
Once you've done that a gap will appear. You might see your player point and dart into that space and if your sound system is up to it, you will hear him bellow for possession - he will demand you give it him and if you get the throughball just right, you will score.
If you ping the ball at the referee he will do his utmost to get out of the way now, whereas before it would thump him in the chest. If it does hit him, the crowd will let out an ironic cheer and the commentators will have a good laugh about it. More nice touches.
All of these are tiny pieces which serve to make up the whole. The practice mode in Kick-Off 2 has been evolved to the point where you can now create and devise bespoke set-pieces, save them to the hard drive and deploy them in-game. Come up with a good free-kick and it's a secret weapon that might just give you the edge in a tight game.
The online mode also now runs like a dream. Finding a human opponent seems even quicker and the lag experienced by so many in FIFA 09 appears to have been banished.
FIFA 10 has stolen my heart. I have reams of ProEvo games on my bookshelf adorned with the likes of Pierluigi Collina frowning back at me in disgust, but I'm afraid EA has stolen the thorny crown in this deep-entrenched rivalry.
What warms my cockles is the thought that Konami will be hurt, and they will want people like me back on their side. But they don't half have it all to do.
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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