I used to post a lot on here back in those glory, glory days (WE7 to WE10); I was a stadium editor and patchmaker. Never got on with the newer games, so I never bothered to buy a PS3 - the fact that I've been skint for the last few years didn't help - and I've been hammering PES 2010 on PS2 for the last year or so (it's surprisingly good, by the way... better than PES6 if not as good as PES5).
Anyway, encouraged by all you lot saying that those glory, glory days are back again, I just splashed out on a PS3. Got it in a bundle with Fifa 11 (you've got to try, haven't you?) and downloaded the PES 2011 demo immediately.
I'll tell you what though, I can really see why so many people rate Fifa over PES this year - even though I now think they're wrong. First game on Fifa (semi-assisted everything) I was shaking my head, muttering "this is... really... GOOD". Fluid passing, freedom of movement, astonishing animations, all that stuff. First game on the PES demo and I was shaking my head in a different way: lousy lack of animations, gamespeed that switched between too slow and too fast in a millisecond, no advantage rule, dumb goalies, occasionally stupid ball physics, "green zone" bug, ridiculous-looking collisions... all of this stuff was very, very obvious to me in my very first game. Just for a moment, I was wondering if this was the Emperor's New Clothes, and I'd end up a Fifa fan like all the kiddies - which would be a bit undignified at my advanced age.
Funny thing is, after three or four games of Fifa, I could see through it like a wet T-shirt (except that what was underneath was less pleasing to the eye). Seriously, it only took that long to spot the flaws: awful team AI, crazy cartoon graphics, ridiculous lack of inertia, no real midfield play, total lack of individuality, pitch too small and players too big, etc etc. Sure, I'd read this stuff on Evo-Web but I wasn't projecting it onto the game - that really is what the game is like. Superficially amazing, but a load of crap once you scratch the surface. Took me less than one evening to get bored of it.
Still haven't quite clicked with the PES demo, and I can definitely see why people who've just played it a few times think it's "clunky" and "robotic" and all that jazz. You can tell, though, that this is a game with real depth. All the flaws are still very obvious, but it's satisfyingly difficult. I still can't do the things I want to do, but now I can tell that's because I haven't mastered it, rather than because the game won't let me. Those little flashes of brilliance that happen when I start to feel comfortable with the game - they're keeping me going.
Still a few things I could pop Seabass on the lip for. What's with the insane somersaults when you get tackled? Not only are they silly in themselves, but they seem to happen on fast-forward, while all around the game goes on at normal speed. And what's the point of the new defensive system, when you can still just charge into people with X and usually come away with the ball? Not keen on the way the ball sometimes spoons up in the air like it's suddenly been filled with helium. Are any of those things fixed in the final version?
I'm really looking forward to the Copa Libertadores, but I think it might drive me mad that every time there's a break in play you get the "South America" logo zooming towards you like the Bat Signal from the old Batman series. When you're playing in a darkened room, it feels like someone flashing a searchlight in your eyes.
Still, I reckon I'll be trading in that copy of Fifa on Friday morning (should still get enough cash from it to make PES very cheap indeed). The PES demo didn't do what demos are supposed to do - make me think "wow" immediately - but I don't think that's the fault of the game.
