"Come
quick!" the PES fan shouts, as if peering from his bedroom window and
seeing fresh snow. "It's back!" It happens every year – this hoped
for resurgence. Later, brash words are rescinded and shoelaces gazed at. PES2014 earned a deserved four stars in our recent review, but against what a
hopeful community tells you, this is not the year PES beats Fifa. That's the
curious thing about their great rivalry. PES continually improves and Fifa
doesn't – at least to the naked eye. Yet, Fifa is, still, better.
After a decade of juggling between the two, I've settled
on this analogy: PES is chess, Fifa is draughts. Both have their virtues, but
draughts works better as a video game, more immediate, easier on beginners, and
generally more fun. Fifa 14's new Pure Shot mechanic fits all three criteria in
one. Essentially, efforts on goal have a greater tendency to dip, bend and
rise, giving them ferocious unpredictability. It's difficult not to feel a
flutter in your gut as the ball falls to your long distance specialist on the
edge of the box.
Thunderous volleys, first-time belters and off-balance
lashes — they look natural and feel right, thanks to improved ball physics and
a slew of new contextual animations.
Keep in mind, long shots aren't a magic button. They're
actually less frequent, and this is thanks to EA's other new back-of-the-box
feature – Precision Movement. So-called 'stepbased location' is a technical
triumph, players now weightily planting feet when running and pushing off from
pivots, but it's an awkward fumble of a feature in practice.
For one, players take ages to get going. The effectiveness
of a simple turn, bread and butter of football, has been neutralised in the
maelstrom of 22 men on the pitch, all dizzyingly scrambling for ball possession
and losing it just as quickly. In Fifa 14, thanks to clumsy new biomechanics,
space is a truly rare commodity.
Attacking
is revitalised by Pure Shot, but Precision Movement clogs midfield and defence.
Matches aren't ruined by any means – rather, they're simply thrown off in a
second. Problem is, in a high-tempo game like Fifa, with its tight margins for
error and all-important timing, that second counts. However slight, the
complexion is altered.
Off the pitch, things could have been equally clogged if
not for revitalised Windows 8-style menus that cleanly whizz you through skill games(navigate
imposing gauntlets of yellow plastic men and knock down evil towers of cardboard
boxes), a creation centre (create and share custom players, teams and
tournaments) and market (buy vintage kits, virtual pro boosts and cocky
celebrations with coins earned online).
Most substantial is Ultimate Team, which, EA is keen to
tell us, hosts 3.5m matches daily. No huge improvements here, but it does
streamline the previously arduous organisation of online single matches and
seasons, and the ability to change kit numbers and set-piece takers in addition
is community wish fulfilment. New chemistry styles are welcome, too. There are
a variety of them; you can, for instance, apply a defensive chemistry style to
a defender in order to boost their performance. It's contributes fresh
complexity towards chasing the rainbow of your dream team.
Likewise, the career sees only minor changes. It's still
split between player and manager – both options let you control the entire
team, but the former can use their virtual pro and skip all the management
gubbins. It still serves up emails from the board and transfer gossip on the
wire to keep you involved (Soldado isn't happy at Spurs. Oh). And it's still
meshed together by an agonisingly slow calendar system that ticks through each
day like the life cycle of a star. Transfers have at least had a facelift, though.
Along
with more hurdles to jump for a signature, such as promising players match time
and checking they're nice and marginalised at their current squad before
prowling, there's a new global scouting network. Here you'll employ up to six
scouts of varying knowhow, set parameters, and send them off. You can find and
nurture an unknown prodigy in the youth team or get beads on established names,
learning cost and wage demands so you can make a bid that won't be laughingly
dismissed. As a result, wheeling, dealing, and finally securing that hot
prospect is much more rewarding.
Online,
aside from two v two co-op seasons, Fifa 14 doesn't have any big new mode to
show off. But that's OK because they've just about got the entire sport covered
anyway, from user-made pro clubs with customisable kits, to 10-game seasons
where players fight each other for promotion, to full on 11 v 11 matches. Any
one could easily see you through to next season.
The game's difference-maker is entirely on the pitch –
that new movement system. In multiplayer especially, where the absence of an
all-knowing AI sees imperfect humans make repeated mistakes, it leads to
slightly clumsier, boggier, slower matches. All the same, the change is only
incremental, and doesn't ruin the game by any means.
You know this by now – things in EA Sports land either get
slightly better or slightly worse, and whatever side of the dial the year's
instalment ticks into, what you're getting remains the same: the most fun and
feature-rich sports games on the planet. Still.
See also PES 14 REVIEW
Source: Theguardian
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