I like football computer games. I also like Arsenal. As a football blogger, you receive many irritating emails from marketing types, but being invited to playtest FIFA 11 at the Emirates Stadium is not one of them. So this afternoon I popped down to Arsenal’s plush Royal Oak Suite for some free food, gaming, and conversation so geeky it’d make John Tickle blush. The view wasn’t bad either.
It wasn’t quite a full version of the game. Only certain teams were available: Real Madrid, Barca, Chelsea, Juventus, Lyon, and Bayer Leverkusen. The first thing you notice is that the menu screens are cleaner, crisper, and involve less lag time than on Fifa 10. One of my favourite features of recent Fifa games has been that the loading screen has allowed you to take potshots at a computer-controlled goalkeeper. This has now been expanded to include a scoreboard of shots, misses and saves, and the capacity for a second player to take control of the goalkeeper.
I was playing on a PS3 with a Sony HD screen, and the graphics were absolutely outstanding.
Player likenesses have reached new levels. From Petr Cech’s headgear to Amauri’s flowing locks, every individual was recreated in the detail we have come to expect. But the players don’t just look more like their real-life counterparts – they play more like them too.
The developers have taken pains to try and establish more diversity between individual players. A new system called Personality+ has been introduced to try and make each player more characterful. You do notice it. When playing with Barcelona, trying anything more than a simple short pass with Carles Puyol introduced the risk of losing possession, whereas the likes of Xavi and Iniesta could ping the ball about at will.
The players have individual skill traits, too. Lionel Messi, for example, has a special skill which allows him to dribble a bouncing ball, meaning he goes through, over, and under tackles with as much dynamism as he does in reality.
There are neat aesthetic touches too: a Frank Lampard goal is celebrated with a trademark point to the sky, whilst Nicholas Anelka spins away from a tap-in with his infuriating ‘dove hands’.
Gameplay itself feels less ‘arcade’, and more realistic. The game is slower: players get more time on the ball, but by the same token it takes them longer to shift it. It’s no longer possible to press ‘Pass’ repeatedly and ‘tiki-taka’ your way from one end of the pitch to the other in a few seconds. A more considered, thoughtful approach is required. Similarly, crosses no longer swerve with Jabulani-like unpredictability – you’re able to clip a cross with greater accuracy and delicacy.
Finishing seems to have been improved too. In my first few games I found it noticeably easier to get good contact shooting across the keeper than on FIFA 10. Penalties, as on the FIFA World Cup game, now include a ‘pressure bar’, which means accuracy is more difficult to achieve when spot-kicks are taken under mental strain.
I had always been a PES men – FIFA 10 marked the game when I switched allegiance. This summer’s FIFA World Cup was a marginal improvement on FIFA 10, but 11 has kicked on again. It’s certainly an upgrade rather than a whole new game, but as the saying goes: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. PES has a lot of work to do if it’s to overhaul EA’s latest offering.
