Re: WE/PES 2008 Next Gen - News/Discussions Official Thread (Last Update 06/28/07)
That's something i didnt know about the grass in Fifa. I thought it was universally 3D.
By the way, Fifa's 1st 360 game had AMAZING Facial expressions. Almost real. So I don't think EA has anything to be worried about visually.
I'll go into a bit more detail actually, just in-case it interests anyone.
The very first FIFA on 360 had 3D grass all the time, and the framerate was utterly disgraceful. How the game passed testing and Microsoft certification I will never know. So in the next one it was abandoned for the usual flat grass, and then I think it was the one after that mixed and matched. I forget - all of the FIFAs on 360 have been nothing much to remember
apart from the last two, 07 and UEFA, which have had totally new and rewritten engines (something EA bragged about for ten years and never actually did). I can't even remember the "amazing facial expressions" you mention, actually. Seems crazy considering the latest one doesn't seem to have them!
But anyway, in the latest FIFA (UEFA CL), I'm pretty sure that in-game the grass is flat, but in instances such as training or in replays (manual or cut-scene), the grass becomes 3D. So it's a half-way house.
They will be concerned about the revolutionary gameplay in PES2008 this year, though. EA can't even catch up to PES's minor changes in gameplay every year, talk about TEAMVISION.
They will be concerned I'm sure, but bear in mind that UEFA actually had the same thing (where if you tried to go down the wing too many times, they would start blocking you off), so it's not actually new.
It all depends on how they implement it, though. It was great in UEFA but sometimes you could trick the players into moving out of their positions a bit too easily, leaving a nice big gap for you. If Konami nail it then yeah, EA will be worried - but like I say, they'll be worried anyway. PES has outsold FIFA in the UK before now.
But the way Konami are talking about TeamVision, using phrases like "enhanced threat maps", worries me. The "threat maps" have been in PES since the days of the PSone, where players have to choose whether to stay stood still in their positions or move out - based on their attributes. Otherwise, none of the players would ever move. That combined with the way Konami are saying it's a "totally rewritten-from-scratch engine" like EA said for years, has me a bit worried that Konami are simply adapting EA's old tactics and hoping we'll buy into it.
But we'll see.
