So I finally managed to get around to playing the FIFA 13 demo (PC).
Let me just say, I skipped FIFA 12 completely because it was a horrible game in my view, it was just too arcadish (at least out of the box) in many key areas. I should also state: I've been playing the PES 2013 demo constantly for the last couple of months and really enjoying it, so I felt like coming into this that it would take something very special to impress me. And DAMN has it impressed me. From my 5-6 matches so far I'd say this is the most complete football game ever made. There is so much more individuality than I remember, I would dare to say that the difference between Pirlo passing the ball and an average player is even more pronounced than in PES, and in general the technical players just have so many more contextual passing animations and ways to find a man that another player could not, which when you've come from the other game takes you completely by surprise.
All of the usual complaints about FIFA are still lurking in the background (lack of inertia and so on), but they are sufficiently concealed to allow the quality and variation in animation to shine through, and the new features like skilled dribbling (remarkably similar to Deft Touch in PES) and first touch augment the game with an element of scrappiness and randomness that simply wasn't there before. The sliders are of course a new phenomenon for me and although by default the CPU plays a horribly flawless game of football, the sliders seem to make all the difference and I've found myself having some very close and exciting matches on World Class difficulty. The prospect of career mode combined with a semi-playable CPU AI is staggering. PES needs sliders next year, simple as that - do I want to go back to PES now with the CPU constantly trying through balls past my hapless center backs? I'm not so sure.
The crowning moment was in my last match Cassano gets injured and is seen writhing around in agony on the pitch, then thirty seconds later Geoff Shreeves pipes up saying how the back is the area of concern. I suppose that could get annoying after a while but in terms of overall polish my word, just the fact they have the tech to know what part of the body a player has injured and link that to commentary, you are now entering dream land.
As I said to my friend, the sad thing is if you merged all the good things about PES with this FIFA game, you would have the holy grail, the best football game ever made, and that is why I said earlier that this FIFA game may be the most complete game ever but not the best, because even after a few games I am missing little things from PES that would make FIFA that much better (user triggered runs etc.) For now I'm just happy there might be a real choice of football game this year, but also really concerned that EA will do their usual routine, and (as the reports have suggested) tone everything down at the last minute to appease the casuals.
