Strange Days
I don’t know about anybody else, but it feels like a peculiar time to be playing either PES or FIFA. Both games’ season 2009 instalments are just around the figurative corner.
I’ve recently changed my posting habits for the blog. I’ve posted at least one post every day for most of the past year. Currently, I’m posting three or four times per week. It’s inevitable, really. I’ve always experienced a personal slowdown on the football gaming front at this time of year. And the current lighter posting commitment is kind of a little holiday for me. It’s very much the calm before the storm…
As we move towards this year’s releases, I’ll gradually start posting more often again. After the FIFA09 demo hits, I’ll probably go back to posting every day. I also have a few other plans for the site, a few ways of doing things differently from season 2008.
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My expectations for FIFA09 are soaring sky-high. If anything, they’re higher than my expectations were for PES2008 last year. There’s a danger here. The buzz leading up to FIFA09 is so intense that anything less than a perfect football game might be an anti-climax. I predict a sizeable backlash from the still mighty anti-FIFA ideologues against the game’s (inevitable) many little flaws after release. I’m happy for my expectations of FIFA09 to be high, but I’m trying to keep them in proportion. FIFA09 won’t be a perfect football game. But it’s going to be damn good, and if I turn out to be wrong about that then I’ll never, ever look forward to any game ever again.
My personal expectations for PES2009 are still relatively low. This is probably for the best. I won’t be disappointed (or actually heartbroken) by the game this year. PES2008 was so disappointing on so many levels that I’ve probably been left scarred for life. No exaggeration.
It’s far too early to break out the black armbands for Pro Evolution Soccer on the new generation of consoles. I for one am willing to wait and see what PES2009 is like. It’s looking like the Cinderella of the football games this year. Which is not a bad position for it to be in, when you think about it. I’m looking forward to all the playtest news that should start hitting over the next few weeks. Fingers are well and truly crossed.
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FIFA08 and I are having a curious new relationship lately. I’ve started playing it almost every day again. I haven’t played FIFA08 so much since around the turn of the year, before ‘last-gen’ PES2008 popped into my life.
Recently I started playing my current Manager Mode career on World Class. I’ve spent most of my time on the game playing on Professional. But I didn’t enjoy the game as much on World Class. All the matches seemed to be dour, grim battles. Quite often I had almost no possession, ever. Goals were a rarity. It was mainly due to my continued playing of PES2008 (the last-gen version) which by comparison really is a 1000mph arcade game—which does not necessarily connote ‘bad”, of course. Everything is relative. Until FIFA08 came along we didn’t know that PES gameplay was arcadey. It’s a funny old world.
After a terrible season playing on World Class I decided to borrow an idea from my fellow football game blogger, Heraldo of pes-fanatic. His blog’s name is a bit of a misnomer, as he has switched full-time to FIFA. I suspect he would only be tempted back to the PES fold by a truly great effort this year from Seabass & co. That might still happen. I still believe that the 2009 footy game season will see us landed with two great games. Inevitably, one will be better than the other—the question is, which one? If I had to put money on it right now, I’d put my shirt and everything else on it being FIFA09. But we’ll see.
Heraldo’s idea, back when he was moving up the difficulty levels in FIFA08, was to play home fixtures on Professional difficulty and away fixtures on World Class difficulty. This is a great idea because it effectively creates a new difficulty level midway between Professional and World Class. It’s perfect if, like me, you find Professional quite easy, but you’re not really ready for World Class.
It changed the feel of the game for me. What had been a pretty dreary, unattractive struggle became a fascinating, compelling exercise in rediscovering the intricate gameplay of FIFA08. Of course, without fully knowing it (I knew it, but not fully) I had indeed been trying to play FIFA08 on World Class level in the way I play PES2008 on Top Player… I can just get away with trying to play fast, attacking football all the time on Professional, but on World Class and upward? No chance.
I finished the season well. Naturally I won all my home games on Professional pretty easily. I conquered that difficulty level a long time ago. I played three away games on World Class and drew two of them 0-0. I won the other 1-0 with a scrappy, scrambled goal from a corner.
A common critique of the new FIFA is that despite its gameplay advances—ditching the arcade approach in favour of simulation—it still reproduces one of the great sins of past FIFAs: all the teams and players feel much the same. It’s not entirely true, of course. But there is truth in it. While there are differences between players and teams, the differences between them all is not really quite enough in comparison, yes, to PES. I have high hopes that this will have been rectified for FIFA09. Certainly if EA has built upon UEFA2008, which did feature increased player differentiation (from what I could tell through just playing the demo a dozen times or so), I’ll be happy.
I bought a couple of new strikers in the pre-season. One of them was Eduardo, whom I bought for £10m from Arsenal, Yes, it’s totally unrealistic that he would come to play for Dagenham & Redbridge in the Championship, but there you go. Anyway. Eduardo has been fantastic and I can tell the difference between him and all of my other strikers straightaway. My opening 5 games of the new season—3 away and played on World Class, 2 at home and played on Professional—have gone very well. Eduardo has been the star player. He’s scored in every game. He scored two away from home against Wolves, securing a precious 2-1 victory for me.
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My plan for the remainder of this football game year—all seven weeks of it!— was to continue posting about my PES2008 ML career 3 times a week, and post about FIFA08 once a week on Sunday as usual. However, if I continue playing FIFA08 Manager Mode career as I have been doing lately I might mix it up some more and post about that—without warning. We live in strange times indeed.
When I moved back to Kansas and started supporting the Wizards (Kansas...
Greg
Still recovering from my all day session yesterday with my mates after the game.
I am glad you are enjoying your MM more with the difficulty settings. It helped me and as you know all my games are played on WC. Good luck.
After the latest FSB podcast and clips from the i34 event, FIFA is sounding the real deal. I am glad Adam gave his view and he was very complimentary towards EA and the Developers. I am also glad that he gave his constructive criticisms towards the game. His take “If you liked FIFA 08 you will love 09″ I can’t wait for the demo.
Oh I have been posted to Liverpool on the 6th September, my Mrs has orders to download the demo on the 9th and drive down to Liverpool with my XBOX
heraldo – I am indeed enjoying my MM career on FIFA08. After several solid months of (last-gen) PES2008, it’s like ‘playing it again for the first time’, really.
I was a little peeved withthe FSB podcast. Adam seemed determined to counterbalance Suff’s enthusiasm from the previous week. And there was far too much referring to PES for my liking. I thought it was wildly unbalanced—they’d never have put out a WENB podcast like it, with constant reference to FIFA. Still, it was very informative, and as you have said elsewhere, the response times issue is actually a non-issue for lovers of the simulation-style aspect of the new FIFA.
And it’s the 11th that the demo comes out – isn’t it? Have you heard differently?
Getting your missus to drive down with your 360 with the demo on it is pretty hardcore. Make sure she brings you your dinner while she’s at it. Respec’! (Imagine some suitably masculine fist-bumping here.)
Greg
I heard the demo was being released on the 9th. I will have to go and check now.
The Mrs is spot on, she offered to drive down. I think the dinner will be on me.
I thought the FSB podcast he started off praising to the hilt saying that no other game can match it technically. Then had to get his little or big digs in about the response times. Maybe FSB has to go along the lines of Suff being the main man along with a FIFA guy like Placebo from Evo-WEB.
I think Adam contradicts himself on many occasions saying he plays FIFA then goes on about response times. If he thinks it’s that bad don’t play it. Stick to his 100 mph arcade fest with immaculate response times.