Right, well I've got a couple of things to say. Fetch a milky drink and a pillow.
Do you know how I could tell if this game was good, or bad? First thing - for the first ten minutes of playing this demo (with a proper gamepad for the first time ever), I was gutted, to be honest. The way the players moved, passed, the buttons being in different places than I'm used to... From playing with the keyboard I was given a totally different starting impression, and I was so disappointed. I was expecting a lot more; the gameplay wasn't the same as the previous FIFA, nowhere near, it was totally different, but still not a good game of football. I just couldn't get into it, the controls were all over the place and the players seemed to do whatever they wanted.
After those ten minutes, I didn't look back. I settled into the controls, the players started doing what I actually wanted them to do, and everything fell into place for me. Through balls, crosses, tackles, all started getting timed properly. It was starting to feel like a real game. Do you know the last game I had this experience with (hating it for the first few games, wondering what had gone wrong and wishing it had stayed exactly the same - although I hadn't wished the latter with FIFA obviously)?
That's right, a game by the name of Pro Evolution Soccer. That could only be a good sign.
I started noticing a few things. How silky-smooth is the passing in this game?! Christ alive, it's glorious. You can play a real (very real) passing game, you can ping it around and get your opponents totally wound up. You've got time, space - the space of a REAL football pitch, Konami! Are you listening to this?! The opponents can drop back, but if they start getting pissed off then they will come for you - sometimes straying out of position, sometimes realising their mistakes and not being fooled for a minute. You're not constantly HAVING to press pass because you don't have any choice, which is the way Winning Eleven is currently. The passing in this demo feels, and looks, JUST RIGHT, it's spectacular (at this point, please bear in mind that I don't say things like this lightly, as I hope the beginning of the next sentence illustrates). The guys who argue that Pro Evo's gameplay is better - well yeah, it probably is. But not in every department. People will disagree I'm sure, but as far as I'm concerned, the passing in this game is the most realistic passing I've seen in a football game. And I didn't think I'd ever say that since I discovered Winning Eleven 6: Final Evolution years ago; my first ever WE game.
So far most of the passes I've done have gone in the direction of their intended target, whereas 50% of the time in Pro Evo I find the ball gets sent to a TOTALLY different player than the one intended by as much as 90 degrees. I also love the shots, which again I think are more realistic than in Pro Evo currently - it takes so much getting into, but it's realistic. You can only do a decent, powerful shot depending on which way you're facing and how many degrees you're trying to skew the ball away - e.g. if you do a shot that's straight in the direction your player is facing, you'll hit a belter, if you're facing towards the crowd and you press shoot, swinging the stick left/right as you do it, the shot won't be very good 90% of the time. Again, it's realistic in a different kind of way to Winning Eleven entirely.
I've said this before and I'll say it again - I view WE and FIFA 07 as being peas in a pod now. Both have excellent gameplay, but in different ways (and both with flaws). FIFA 07 has passing to die for (seriously, I could just sit here, press the pass button and sigh for ages), Winning Eleven has better goalkeeper reactions (I've seen Van Der Saar make one or two mistakes he just would not do in real life). I should also say that the dribbling in WE is better, but then saying that, I've never, ever had the fucking chance to dribble against a CPU opponent due to not being able to move in the opposition's half (as I'm about to explain). But the fact is, from my personal perspective, I've had enough of the passing in Winning Eleven. You get the ball, there's a man breathing down your neck, shit, gotta pass, press the pass button in a panic - you get the ball, there's a man breathing down your neck, shit, etc... Sorry, but in a game that we all preach is realistic, that isn't. You see players pressing for the ball in real life, sure - but you don't see every single player pressing every single second of the game. Football in real life isn't a bunch of passes kicked in COMPLETE PANIC because there's someone sprinting towards you like a nutter - at least, not with every single frigging pass.
I don't think the "would you prefer a stunning babe who gives crap blowjobs or an ugly cow who fucks like a machine" argument is valid any more either, because the fact is that they both have a good engine under the bonnet now - just in different ways. Neither set of gameplay is worse, or better, than the other one. The passing in FIFA shows up Winning Eleven completely - but the dribbling in WE is better than in FIFA (sorry but the "trickstick" thing just doesn't work for me, maybe I'm too old thinking that it's gimmicky).
However, PES6 is no longer on my mind. As far as I'm concerned, this is now realistic enough to merit purchasing. Not only will this mean that I don't have to cope with the master league any more (for the ninth year in a row, how sad is that - come on Seabass, pull that tackle out of your mouth and get creative), but I'll also be treated to a sparkling presentation. Of course, that's of the least importance, but you try saying that when you do a tackle, the crowd goes "oooh" in appreciation and applauds. Seriously, when that happened, I remembered a match I watched on Match of the Day this weekend and shivers went down my spine, the likeness was uncanny. Realism of a different kind - it's all good.
I suppose it's up to what each individual likes, though. There's plenty of guys who will prefer dribbling (as has already been mentioned in this thread) and so will prefer the latest Pro Evo, and that's fair enough. I think we should all be allowed to like whatever we like and not have "fanboy" or any kind of insult thrown around. Have fun playing your game of choice this year, and if you happen to choose FIFA, I'll catch you online sometime most probably! :thumbup:
(By God will I be heartbroken if the FIFA is crap on the XBOX 360...)
), but lets just push that aside for now. My whole point is really just to show the blind fanboyism around here. For some reason its perfectly acceptable for Konami to have only the top teams (which the majority of them are fake and need edited by us, the consumer), but its a crime when EA only puts in the top teams (which are all real and will not have to be edited by us, the consumer). What was a PES/WE fanboys most used comment in the past? Quality over Quantity. Quality as in all the player attributes and gameplay. Which was PES/WE, as it didnt have the "quantity" of teams FIFA had, but this was also the old FIFA's downfall. Now they have done what people have wanted for many years, Quality over Quantity, and somehow its a bad thing now that it has been realised. 
