Grrrrrrrrrrrr.....
There was a time when Pro Evo ruled the soccer video game world. Purists swore by it, as its on-field action was second to none. There was no better soccer game, period. Or maybe even exclamation point.
Electronic Art's FIFA had always lagged well behind when it came to actually representing on-field gameplay, despite ridiculously higher production values. Unfortunately for EA, without decent soccer gameplay, "high production values" simply meant "better menu screens;" an underwhelming achievement, because Pro Evo's menus have always been notoriously terrible.
Fuggles.
FIFA's financial endowment also allowed them to snag up almost every licensing agreement with soccer leagues around the world, meaning that real team jerseys, logos, stadiums and sponsors appeared in the game. Konami was not so lucky (read: smaller budget), meaning Manchester United became Man Red in Pro Evo, along with other things of equal or greater lameness.
Until 2006, soccer fans had to choose between a better game lacking their favorite teams in Pro Evo, or the authenticity and good menus, but shoddy gameplay, of FIFA. But 2006 was the year everything changed. Both franchises floundered into the newly minted console generation, releasing forgettable entries for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, but the FIFA 07 released for the previous console generation was incredible.
And by incredible, I mean you could score really cool goals from really far away.
While it didn't quite best Pro Evo (which was still called Winning Eleven in the U.S. at the time), it was the first time that FIFA had threatened the throne that Pro Evo had sat upon so restlessly, for so long. Three years and a leap onto next-generation consoles later, Pro Evo was limping off the pitch, and FIFA 10 was the best soccer video game ever made.
But once again, as is liable to happen with sports games, everything has changed. FIFA 11 is still great, but has stagnated slightly in the wake of that whole, "best soccer game of all ever" thing, while Pro Evo has quietly stepped its game up enough to make things competitive.
Competition is generally good for video game enthusiasts, as two development teams duking it out to make sure their game is the best around increases the probability of two good games being released.
It also increases the volume of fanboy banter. And wow. Does this rivalry have some fanboys. It's always been a contentious debate, even when one of the games teeters into lessened relevancy. However, the best arguments are always wrought in years where the two franchises are closest in critical appraisal.
The following comment was posted on the above review from Gametrailers.com.
YUP.
So much good stuff going on in this comment. Wildly variant capitalization. Beautiful misspellings. No less than 12 sentence-ending punctuation marks for just two sentences (that's a SEPM average of 6.0/sentence for you stat geeks out there).
And you just can't go wrong anytime you replace "bought" with "bort." Incredible.
And now to sit back and wait for the Guiness folks to call me up about the record for "Longest build up to a comment-related post."
As for my prediction of what soccer game will reign supreme in the coming years, I'll say this: EA Sports has money. That will come into play. That's why they call it money.
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