Nice to see some familiar stories here. I was hooked on PES and WE games since the Nintendo days, im 29. Have been involved in patching, editing etc. when I found the time and overall played more hours of PES than I care to remember.
On the old school gamers FIFA debate, I must say that I have somewhat mixed feelings when assesing EA and Konami's latest efforts.
I play online FIFA09 and thought it was the dog's bollocks 2 weeks into buying it. But slowly the novelty has worn off and you need more than a few bong hits to get into this game and stay interested longer than 3 matches.
What annoys me?
1. FIFA rewards trickery and clever use of game flaws. e.g. forwards that steal the ball even when directly behind my defender who supposodly has contro of it,
2. lack of control and accuracy for no reason in some cases,
3. idiotic simple passes on manual missed by meters,
4. online gamers that button mach and spin your defense after 30 meter pinpoint passes with midfielder, leading to turns and one on ones,
5. too many one on ones,
6. lofty crosses,
7. online gamers that win every header cause they know the tricks,
8. too many tricks and shimmies that players need 4 meters of space to pull off(in real life, top players rarely try them and need less space when they do)
9. Pressing triangle with the keeper who is up to 5 meters closer to the ball is slow, and often forwards with a 5 meter disadvantage catch up to is and slot it home, wtf??
10. Online gamers that dribble past your whole team cause the whole "jockey" system is unrealistic and idiotic, what happened to closing down space and forcing the ballhandler a certain way by cutting off his pass or movement? Not in FIFA, trickery is the answer to it.
11. players that take up to 3 steps before doing what you pressed, by that time the chance is over. This forces you into pressing buttons before time and hoping he pulls it off, more button mashing.
12. Online gamers that pass BLINDLY into 4 of my defenders, only to have one of his forwards with a 2 meter disadvantage nip infront of everyone out of nowhere and control the ball. THIS PISSES ME OFF, LAWS OF PHYSICS EA!!
13. Ronaldo, and Man U all together.
So after nearly smashing my PS3 on numerous occassions and cursing FIFA (don't get me wrong, FIFA does some gameplay much better than PES, especially passing, but their player physics are atrocious) I went back to PES playing together with a mate recently.
What a releif, despite the passing issues, the wrong passes, limited movement, scripted scenarios, PES still felt like a football match.
Football should be easy to play, it's a smiple game of angles, movement, space. Technical skills and tricks helps throw defences, but movement and angles are paramount.
PES, and especially old school WE games like the superb WE6:FE did this so remarkably well, coupled with fantastic ball physics.
PES football, easy to play, hard to master.
FIFA football, hard to play, tricks needed to master.
Nobody online in the FIFA community beats me with clever football, just bullshit off the ball stuff that I cannot defend against, as I'm not controlling those players. Wheras I was seldom beaten in PES because I played football and thought 2 steps ahead, which is the type of game PES rewards. PES2009 is a step in the right direction, hopefully Konami can improve on it, GAMEPLAY baby, we want fluid football back.
Thanks to whoever took the time to read my rant
