‘Twas the night before FIFA09
Well, ’twas the day before the demo of FIFA09, at least…
I had planned to post today about a little experiment that I’ve been running. The other day I got the much-reviled next-gen PES2008 out of mothballs and put it back in my PS3. I played it for the first time since January. Back then, I swore never to play this dismal excuse for a PES game again. But never say never, as they say. Whoever they are.
Pre-PES2009, I wanted to give last year’s infamous rush-job one last go. Just for completeness’ sake—to round off the football game year, and deliver one more, probably devastating verdict on the game that nearly killed PES for good (In my opinion.)
I was going to make that post today. I was anticipating that the PES2009 demo would appear for download tomorrow, as heavily rumoured in various places. Alas, it seems now that the rumours were false. The demo likely won’t be out until the end of the month. So I’ll postpone my little epilogue to next-gen PES2008 until closer to the actual release of the PES2009 demo. For now, I’ll just say that PES2008 does have some surface playability—last year I did think it was a good game for the first month, after all. But overall, it just feels more unfinished than ever. It feels even less like a true PES game, after my several months of playing the PS2/PSP version. I’m angrier than ever that it was published in that state. Curse you, Seabass.
For today, I’m very excited about getting my hands on the FIFA09 demo tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll appear on the Xbox Marketplace in the early morning. I expect the PSN version will pop up around late afternoon. (Although, casting my mind back a whole year, I think I recall FIFA08 appearing on PSN around the 10 a.m. mark, which was as unusual then as it would be now. So we’ll see.)
My expectations for FIFA09 have actually dipped slightly. Oh, expectations are still high; but until the last week or so, they were mega-high. That’s not a healthy state to be in. There has never yet been a perfect football game and there never will be one. Seeing a few lukewarm previews and reviews of FIFA09 has helped to dampen the fire somewhat. A consensus seems to have emerged that those of us who skipped UEFA2008 should find FIFA09 to be genuinely revolutionary, fresh, and compelling; those who have played UEFA2008, on the other hand, might be relatively underwhelmed. I’m in the former camp. I’ve only ever played the UEFA2008 demo. I refused to purchase a game that only features international teams and game modes.
Of course, all that UEFA2008-related chitter-chatter might just be this year’s ‘thing to say’ for the anti-FIFA lobby. They’ll doubtless be as prominent this year as last. My favourite ‘thing to say’ from last year, which still crops up from time to time, is that the loading time one-on-one sequences in the Arena are more enjoyable than the game itself. It was interesting to see that one appear and spread like a virus. It’s one of the memes of the new FIFA, from a PES point of view at least. It will be back in new colours this season, oh yes. It’ll be just one facet of a mighty backlash against FIFA09, I predict. Within an hour of the demo’s appearance, there’ll also be posters on FIFA forums declaring they’re going back to FIFA08 and staying there. It’s all part of the annual fun.
My wishlist for FIFA09 contains surprisingly few items. I would love the shooting to be better than FIFA08′s—more intuitive and less fussy, especially from distance. Yes, I’ll say it: I’d actually love the shooting mechanic in FIFA09 to be similar to PES’s shooting mechanic. Oh, I know now how arcadey that is, but I could always switch to semi-assisted or manual settings if it proved too easy. The rest of my wishlist is mainly stocked with things that I won’t be able to check up on until the full game comes out: the transfer market in Manager Mode, and things like that.
Tomorrow will be all about checking out the most important thing in FIFA09. The gameplay.
I’ll post a quick ‘First impressions’ post tomorrow evening after I’ve (hopefully) played the FIFA09 demo for an hour or two. I’ll then follow up with a more considered reaction on Saturday or Sunday.