PES Chronicles

You know how it goes.

Towards the end of every year, a certain kind of article starts to pop up in games magazines and online. Mostly, they start something like this:

“Since time immemorial, workplaces and playgrounds across the footie-lovin’ world have reverberated to the sound of fierce arguments as the age-old question is debated: Which one is better, PES or FIFA?”

Et cetera.

And they don’t stop there. The ruling conceit of a proper PES vs FIFA article is a football-oriented conceit. Let’s pretend the two games are, you know, playing a game of football against one another!

For example, if a PES vs FIFA article wants to talk about Passing, it will conclude its brief overview with a comment like: PES just scores – in off the post!

On Presentation: FIFA belts one into the top corner from 40 yards…

On Graphics: PES is sent off for a vicious tackle from behind…

This year, most of the PES vs FIFA articles have been thrown into disarray by the appearance of a disturbingly arcadey PES2008 and an equally disturbingly sim-like FIFA08. So when the topic veers towards overall gameplay, the match has suddenly gone into extra time and/or to penalties….

And then, in most cases, the notional winner’s trophy is awarded to PES2008. Is this wrong? Possibly.

I’m about to launch a full-on, fully-featured, balls-and-all FIFA08 week right here on peschronicles. Today is Day 1 of the week. It’ll run for the full 7 days, oh yes.

It begs the question: why the hell am I doing a week about FIFA08 on a blog that’s supposed to be about PES?

That’s a very good question.

Next-gen PES2008 is not the game I expected it to be. Next-gen FIFA08 is not the game I expected it to be either. In the case of PES2008, this is a bad thing. In the case of FIFA08, this is a very good thing.

There is a lot to like in PES2008. PES gameplay has never before been presented to us in such a white-hot, purified form. The trouble is that the game’s faults overshadow its many positive qualities. (I’ve spoken about most of these before. I’ll touch on them again during FIFA08 week.)

There is a lot to dislike about FIFA08. At times it suffers from an unacceptable delay in player response times. Also, despite its much-vaunted official licenses and attention to detail, there are no promotion playoff matches in the lower English leagues (seriously). And there are no nighttime matches in manager mode. And when I signed Michael Owen for Coventry City he said in a press conference that he had supported the club since he was a boy. And… lots more niggling little things like that.

But – and this is the crux of the matter – when it comes to football games, it’s gameplay that matters above all else. FIFA08’s faults are overshadowed by its many positive qualities.

FIFA08 is one very large cat amongst the PES2008 pigeons.

It’s the elephant in the room that simply won’t go away.

PESfan, that online bastion of all things PES, has been rocked in recent months by the growing number of people who are declaring that they actually prefer FIFA08 to PES2008. Have a look at this unprecedented thread if it seems far-fetched. And this one. And this one.

I’m not quite there yet. I’m still a PES man, in my heart, in my soul, in my blood. A few squeezes of some young floozy’s ample thighs aren’t going to tempt me away from the warm fires of home.

Are they…?

———–

FIFA08 week starts in earnest on Monday. We’re going to jump right into my manager mode career. Things are quite interesting. Tomorrow (Sunday), I’ll relate some of my typical PES fan’s history with the FIFA franchise , and how I took to FIFA08. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight. It still isn’t love, really. Not as such.