FIFA 08 improved....

FIFA 08 is the most popular football videogame in the world. FIFA has always dominated the football videogame market due to a combination of stellar presentation(graphics, small but important details, commentary,etc..), simple to approach gameplay and the FIFA brand itself. But recent years show the market, especially that of the hardcore gamers market turn towards the Konami Football game series, Pro Evolution Soccer.

Pro Evolution Soccer has, for the most part, inferior graphics, player details, commentary, presentation as a whole and due to the brand monopoly of FIFA, most of the players in the PES(Pro Evolution Soccer) series are fake(though this has been rectifies in recent years to the point where, most of the players except the EPL players have their real identities and not names like Rinaldo for Ronaldo).

So why is PES gaining such popularity you ask?! Well i can attribute it to two good reasons.
1. FIFA has dominated the scene from the very beginning, and driven every other competitor out of business. And it shows. The FIFA series, especially in the recent years has been getting lazy, to the point that evry FIFA game just becomes a roster update of the previous year, with almost no update to the gameplay or rubbish additions which dont make that much of a difference and in some cases actually hinder gameplay.
2. PES's own stellar gameplay. The game utilises, for the most part the directional buttons to move, four buttons to do all the passing, shooting basics of football and a few butons to do extra stuff, which for the sake of simplicity, arent really even needed to enjoy the game. All of this combined with precise response from the players to the extent that you can actually picture every pass or shot going to the right place with the right touch, and when any error occurs in the game, you know its your own fault and not of the game. Also, PES has nailed the part where individual players, though might not look as much as their real life counterparts as FIFA, they FEEL like their real life counterparts. Not everyone can do a rabona or elastico ar marseille roulette, And every small character specification really makes a difference. A person with long pass rating of 95 will definitely pass better than a person with the rating of 75. Basically you will know the difference between an Aaron Lennon and David Beckham, between the Maradona's(yes they even have unlockable players from the past) and the wannabes. Also, character customisation is so detailed that even if the players dont have their real names, with a litle patience and tweaking, you can have your entire EPL season authentically ready to go in a few hours.

Well, thank goodness for competition i say, cos FIFA has been really shaken up and have realised that substance really is important and in some cases, even more so than style. So recently, FIFA has picked up their game and has improved with each year. FIFA 08, though far from PES level of greatness, has come the closest to simulating football(No soccer crap here!!) in the FIFA series.

Therefore, the improved features in FIFA 08 are as follows :
1. First, the expected roster updates from more than 100 clubs from around the world are all there till the 8th of August 2007.
2. Graphics, as usual are top notch.
3. Controls are much more refined and ironically, are following a PES based control system.
4. Manager mode in FIFA easily trumps its PES counterpart with tons of options and the option to move around different clubs(PES only allows you to play as one club in its Master League mode).

Some issues still remain, like players all identical, with no distinction between Ronaldinho and Beckham as much as you might wish there to be. And long passes are still kinda awry and its impossible to execute any special maneuver with a keyboard. But these are small gripes, and overall, FIFA has done very well this year.