Welcome to my annual attempt to play FIFA. I wasn’t going to start FIFA13 in today’s post, but I am now. Place your bets on how soon I’ll be back playing PES. Two weeks has been my average over the past four years.
I really do do this every year. Have done since FIFA09, my last true dalliance with football gaming’s ‘other game’.
I think there’s still a heck of a lot of the PES-playing fanbase that titters behind their hands at the thought of FIFA. Well, lads, it’s not 2002 any more. I’m completely over the whole ‘tabloid’ PES-versus-FIFA thing, and this is the last time I’ll mention it. I do remain interested in it as a psycho-sociological phenomenon. The way it ties into personal identity and group dynamics fascinates me. But I’ll be keeping all that to myself. Promise.
This year, I decided to get FIFA for the PS3. It’s the same console I play PES on—and thus, my reasoning goes, if I’ve got the FIFA13 disc in the PS3, I can’t have the PES2013 disc in there at the same time, and so I’ll be more likely to give FIFA13 a fair crack of the whip.
FIFA13 has a chance. I made myself thoroughly sick of PES2013 by the end there, a bit like Augustus Gloop as he vanished up the pipe.
FIFA13… It’s probably to the game’s benefit that I’m really not too sure about this one.
FIFA12 had sparkle and pazzazz from the outset. But I get more than a little bit of a FIFA11 vibe from FIFA13. FIFA11 was my least-favourite next-gen FIFA of them all, so that feeling doesn’t bode well.
I played some FIFA13 during my Christmas and New Year break from PES2013. I wasn’t impressed overmuch. The game is often far too fast, even on the supposedly Slow setting. And it felt to me that there is something ‘off’ about the gameplay—a relative emptiness compared to FIFA12.
But just as with PES, there’s always the hope that FIFA13 can be more than the sum of its parts. We shall see. As ever, it’s what I do with the game that’ll count.
I’ll doubtless take a look at Career Mode at some point. But I’m most curious about Ultimate Team. This mode has finally got itself an offline component—Seasons—that interests me. I’ve always felt that in Ultimate Team, EA have been criminally squandering the opportunity to create a FIFA version of Master League-style fantasy football.
Before starting Ultimate Team, a few warmup matches—played late last night (Thursday).
For my first match, I played a friendly. As ever, England versus Scotland, the world’s oldest and greatest International football fixture.
I can remember a time when England and Scotland played every year, alternating between Wembley and Hampden. They were always great occasions, and sometimes great matches too. Couldn’t be done now. Society would completely collapse. Rugby manages to stage the fixture every year without any fuss, but football is different, sadly.
I have to content myself with recreating the fixture in my football games.
I changed all the controller settings to my favourites—all semi-assisted, with manual crossing—and played two 10-minute matches on Professional difficulty. I drew the first 0-0, enjoying the game a lot. I won the second 1-0. And here is that goal—my first of this new phase of FIFA. Everybody’s favourite football player, Wayne Rooney, bags the goal:
Monday: Ultimate Team. It’s coming.
What i liked about the Career mode was how it allowed you to be an international manager, my first job was with Switzerland, I got them to the quarter finals of the world cup. You go through qualification to get there. I found this component of the career mode more exciting than the club aspect of it.
NG – Hows the speed treating ya?..WAY too much pour moi. Even though I gave up on Fifa 12 for feeling too sterile it played a more measured game..13 feels arcadey by comparison..Also the weird feeling you get going back to PES from Fifa…eueugh!!!PES then feels sluggish, that is of course if you go back to PES.
All change. Hope you come to enjoy FIFA, its always good to have two good, enjoyable footy games to choose from.
First thing that struck me about that video was the animations, and difference in quality vs PES, immediately noticeable.
Really do hope the new engine gives PES14 a proper animation upgrade, its much needed.
Neil Dickinson—that’s a great tip, if/when I head Career Mode’s way I will start at International level. Constantly holding the example of ML in mind when trying to play CM with a club doesn’t help with settling in.
Werd Llitrah—I’ve started getting used to the speed, but I still don’t like it. FIFA12′s Slow setting was much, well, slower. If/when I go back to PES2013, even if it’s tomorrow, I think I’ll be shocked.
Paul—a few matches this morning, a bit of a look around in Ultimate Team… Let’s just say I only really had time this morning for maybe one match and a fiddle around with the menus, but I ended up playing 5 matches and having a good look around, and I installed the iOS Ultimate Team app to keep track of my bids and sales in the online marketplace… More on Monday about it all.
As ever with a football game, we will always tend to live with wrinkles in gameplay if the surrounding context is compelling enough. Master League always is, even when it’s stripped down and pretty shite (like last year and this year). Will Ultimate Team make the grade? I think it’s got a chance you know, even if it might not be a long-term thing.
What struck me about that Rooney goal was how you just waltzed right across the pitch without any kind of challenge coming in and Shrek had half an hour to turn and shoot as the defender was so far away. Was that on easy peasy or the like?
Uncle Turf—yeah… *embarrassed shuffle* I ‘forgot’ to mention in the post that after a few 0-0 games on Professional, I’d bumped it down to Semi-Pro for that match. I think that’s the FIFA equivalent of Amateur. And I still only scored that one goal. FIFA does what PES does when you get near goal: blocks everything up by any means necessary. Your favourite player and person, Wayne Rooney, got that extra yard with some judicious right-stick flicking.
This is going to be interesting. I like the idea of Ultimate Team but the online trading bit scared me off almost as much as certain aspects of the gameplay – speed being one.
I’ll follow your Fifa progress with interest NG and may well be tempted to give the game another go should you find that mode compelling.
Fifa 13′s career mode also looks great but for some reason the mode never seems to feel a part of the actual action on the pitch. I got bored in Fifa12 playing match after match in a way I never have with any PES.
And no, I am not a PES Vs Fifa man. I desperately want both games to be great.
John—what bothered you about the online trading? All it is is that instead of getting your players and items from an in-mode transfer market or items shop, you get them from Cuntyfuckbollocks_2001 or somebody like that. And when you want rid of yours, you get to be Cuntyfuckbollocks_2001 to somebody else! I don’t know enough yet to get a feel for what the economy is like as a whole, but certainly you can get the lower-end items and players with no problems at all. Oh, you don’t have to bid for things—there’s a Buy It Now option.
I can see now that this year’s ML innovations were a typical half-arsed Konami attempt to do a bit of Ultimate Team in PES.
LMAO@ Cuntyfuckbollocks_2001
To buy players you use coins right? you have to earn coins through matches? whats the ratio like for offline UT, ie whats the typical amount of coins you’d get for a win and how many coins would an average rated player cost?
Paul—I’m in the UT equivalent of early season 1 with the Defaults, remember, so I imagine this scaling up as time passes:
‘Coins’ is(are?) the currency, and I get about 400 for a win, with bonuses for things like corners, goals scored, assists, and many other categories (minus points for yellow and red cards), multiplying up to 500, 600, something like that. That’s roughly the price of an entire player at the Bronze level where I am now (Defaults equivalent). Thing is, that player’s contract will only last for X number of games, and then you can’t play him without applying a contract card, which also costs Coins… There’s a system in place that bottlenecks your growth, I can see already.
Somewhere there’s a room full of arthritic Romanians churning a living playing Fifa 23 hours a day to get imaginary coins to sell to people for real coins…
So its not plausible to be able to buy a player after every match?
I have played UT before, quite extensively in FIFA10, but didnt know if the offline seasons mode works differently.
Uncle Turf—there’s real money involved at the higher levels and online, so yes, I’m sure things like that do go on. Are you trying to smuggle a ‘plucky honest PES’ versus ‘nasty commercial FIFA’ thing in here?!
You don’t have to disguise it if you want to bring it up. I only said I wouldn’t be going on about the PES versus FIFA thing in the posts. I’m quite happy to talk about it in comments.
Paul—maybe every 1.5 games you could get a new player, but only at the same level as your existing ones. You’d be getting another (rubbish) Castolo to go with your existing Castolo. No point. The mechanics of needing contracts, boosting morale etc means it’s not feasible anyway.
NG – God, no, I’ve often smiled at your ‘what do you mean poor Konami trying to earn an honest crust up against filthy conglomerate EA!’ rages. I just find the whole selling of pretend money for real money nuts. Money itself is an odd enough concept without another layer of fantasy. I’m no Earth Mother but whenever I hear about the economy going up or down on the news I think but all this is invented, it’s not real stuff, we could actually live without it. (He says downloading an app for his completely essential ipad…ahem)
I would probably play Fifa if I could… But my brother is always on it. And he stole the online pass. And I prefer PES anyway so its very rare you will see me playing Fifa.
Also, Athletico Reganio are now a Brazillian Premier League team!
Soon after I got promoted, offers have been flying in for my captain, including the highest bidder, Real Madrid….
I dont know what to do ;(
I just watched some in depth game vids of FIFA 13 on youtube, really not sure i could hack that uber-fast, agrressively pressuring game play.
If I manage a ‘Not-Greg’ and attain a treble on Superstar, I think I’ll then do a ‘Shane’ and start a new ML career in spain or Brazil, something a little different, plus with either of those you get licensed authentic stadia, bonus!
Anyone know if you can edit the brazilian ML default players before starting a ML? would quite like to stick all the lads from our real footy teams names in and play a campaign ‘with my mates’ as it were.
Uncle Turf—if I had somehow forgotten that the blog was a PES-oriented one frequented by PES-oriented people, I would remember now… So far we’ve had John worrying that if he played Ultimate Team, Cuntyfuckbollocks_2001 would stalk him and rape him and eat him. Then Paul theorised that it is possible to get a new player in UT by thinking about it. And then yourself suggesting that FIFA13 is made from babies’ tears and dolphin blood. I knew this would happen, but for it to happen so quickly….
Shane—I’ll add you to the list of ‘yeah, good luck with FIFA and stuff, but get back to PES soon will ya?’ list of well-wishers
Paul—the speed depends who’s playing and in what mode. I find that I can play a slow game with the Ultimate Team ‘Defaults’ and I found myself relaxing into the games more and more this morning. Playing last night with international players it did seem too fast. It’s probably FIFA13′s least appealing feature so far. Last night I had a cheeky game of PES2010 straight after (just because I felt like it), and PES2010 is a whole lot faster. So we have got used to this slower speed in recent years, and FIFA13 goes against the grain of that.
Fast football isn’t to my taste any more. PES2013 has this absolutely spot-on, with the default 0 speed being just about perfect.
So…from what I gather here…if you play FIFA for long enough, you become Cuntyfuckbollocks_2001 and start stalking, raping and eating people?! EVIL FIFA! Save us all divine PES of righteousness!
End of S2 ML2. Largely as expected. 10th on 11/10/13 GF44 GA56. Everton won the title by 11 points – a huge PES margin. West Ham were second by 11 points – a huge…etc. Glad to see the back of them. Minandinho league top scorer again on 20. I’m not worried about this seeming reliance as Wroughllen, Aaokbjerg and my youthie Rocchi just haven’t developed an edge yet (unlike Min’s power). With no transfers I have to look at the long term and that means keeping someone like Wroughllen who is a bit of a passenger at the moment otherwise I end up with lots of 80ish youth regens rather than season 1 recruit 100+s. Unfortunately this means I don’t raise much in funds and my 5 star coach might get the bullet.
Biggest difference so far with ML1? Absolutely no question – Augustin in goal stays in goal. He hasn’t done a single walkabout which cost me so many goals in the first few seasons of Nomkis. As it is entirely AI controlled (ie. not pressing triangle) I can only assume it is a player trait as I play exactly the same formation and leave the same gaping holes for through balls. Those of you with a Nomkis who don’t do this however blow a hole in my theory…
NG – You do have the PES League? When you return to PES, GET ANTBERK! He’s now an 87OVR and ‘scores when he wants’. 10 goals in 6 PES League games already.
FIFA can aggravate. You have been warned
Filbert—as a general rule, the PES player’s attitude goes:
Master League and PES: will look for reasons to like, and focus upon them and allow them to shape things.
Ultimate Team/Career Mode and FIFA: will look for reasons to dislike, and focus upon them and allow them to shape things.
I swear, a hundred years from now the PES-FIFA thing will be in sociology textbooks.
Uncle Turf—or it was a random roll factor for your and your Nomkis? They’re all different stats-wise at the beginning, possibly traits-wise too? PES is that subtle, we all know.
Adam—I will try to overcome your power of suggestion (look into my eyes… FIFA can aggravate…) and get on with rather enjoying my offline Seasons-based Ultimate Team, which I am. The add-ons are a welcome bonus. I.e. the phone app. It’s very novel to sit on the bus and get all your transfers sorted out.
NG – hmm, random traits, could be. What I found hardest to take about Grobbelaar Nomkis was my lack of input. He charged of his own accord.
I renogiated some contracts down but I’m still -900k for the new season. Looks like my coach is toast which would be a major blow to my inhouse plans. Desperate for a Gazoil type sponsorship.
True story:
Last winter not-Greg gave FIFA12 a spin & blogged about it. Around the same time I’d become disheartened with PES12 – AND a colleague at my workplace brought in a copy of FIFA12 for an enjoyable office tournament.
These random events prompted me to shortly thereafter purchase FIFA12, and in the autumn I went for FIFA13 instead of PES13 – thus breaking my PES year-on-year streak since 1998!
I hope PES bounces back with the Fox engine etc, but as of now I’m a FIFA gamer & thoroughly enjoying Ultimate Team.
not-Greg, I look forward to reading the blog during your FIFA phase..
Uncle Turf—your runabout Nomkis might have been part of the theoretical glitch that produced your bloated-scoreline ML—? Possible? I favour the ‘random trait fluctuation’ school of thought.
diego—it looks at the moment as if this spell of FIFA might be a bit more substantive than last year’s at least. I’m really enjoying Ultimate Team. The only cloud at the moment is the very unrealiable in-game auction system—the bugger’s been unavailable enough of the time to seriously spoil a few attempted play-sessions. I actually get more reliable service from the phone app. I bought and sold a few players and items from my phone on the bus on the way to work today. It felt weird, and good (I can just imagine the PES faithful *sniff*ing at the whole idea, though, hehe). I’m also liking the gameplay a lot more because the mode is interesting. But anyway, I’ll save it all for Monday’s post. Might be a long one.
NG – I also got that ‘I hope you’re not suggesting..’ cutscene again. I’m wondering if it’s linked with all those who were getting unhappy players they believed they had to sell whereas I never got a single moan. I got my big sponsors anyway and sold Houleig…(?), the third choice LMF anyway so I’m back on 500k in the kitty.
All the mentions of Fifa are not making me want to get 13 but I am cosnidering 12 – sounds like a cheap copy of that might be a nice diversion when ML2 ends.
Uncle Turf—I’m going well with FIFA13 right now, but at the moment I would still say FIFA12′s gameplay was better. For what it would likely cost now, and to satisfy any curiosity, FIFA12 would be a good bet. Getting to know and appreciate any football game really does depend what you do with it. Something you can get invested in.
£2.49 from ebay. Worth a punt.
Starting to think I’ve bitten off a bit more… lost opening 3 games of S3 and being dealt a sh1tty hand with injuries, iffy goals against and cards. I remember in 2012 that season 3 was the point I felt if not now then never as the opposition teams were improving with all the regens.
Oh my. Someone agrees with me.
I enjoyed Fifa 12 much more than 13. Anything other than 12 I dont like at all.
And I played PES10 yesterday and it seemed really really fast….
I play on -1 speed on PES13 by the way.
Shane – You haven’t approved my comment on your blog or something of that sort. Your blog is very nice but I’m pretty keen to see the famous kits of Reganio
Uncle Turf—Superstar from the outset is always going to be a qualitatively different from the first time around. I bet you’ll push through this, although it is intriguing to hear that it’s an abbeyhill-type experience at the moment.
Shane—I did have huge admiration for FIFA12, and the only reason it didn’t get more play was PES2012. FIFA13 is growing on me but not yet toppled FIFA12 in esteem.
NG – and push through I sort of have. I have always felt the opening games of the season almost define your season so losing 3 in a row was a big worry (especially as everton won the league with only 3 losses). But I won my next 2 and got a couple of draws to leave me mid table. Unfortunately I’ve lost Minandinho for 9 weeks. Wroughllen isn’t even close to a replacement so Aaokbjerg and Castolis are plugging the gap. One player I feel plays ‘worse than his stats’ is Siegenkude – on paper he’s a potential star but it doesn’t quite work like that does it?
Adam – You read my blog? :O
Aye Aye Cap’n! Will get some sort of way to show you the kits…