FIFA: A Franchise Reborn

[lhslancers]

Quote: Originally Posted by peigone

FIFA as a franchise has not been reborn, that's a rather silly premise. FIFA has always been #1 in sales while PES ran second in terms of mainstream popularity. The only thing that changed is when next-gen came along, the FIFA series made a smooth transition and continued on with its growth and development, focusing their dev efforts almost exclusively on User online play. But EA certainly didn't re-invent their game and franchise. At its core -- AI-wise specifically -- the game itself is more or less identical to what it was on last gen. Meanwhile PES stumbled, bumbled and failed miserably, losing a huge portion of its smaller audience and cult following in the process. A relevent article would have examined how and why Konami has failed to capitalize on EA's continued disinterest in creating a realistic User-CPU football sim, which was always PES's forte.

I'm not so sure anymore that a true sim would be fun to play. EA's game looks like football and is pretty and replicates some elements of football but it is arcade at it's core. That's fine with me by the way.

[peigone]

Quote: Originally Posted by lhslancers

EA's game looks like football and is pretty and replicates some elements of football but it is arcade at it's core. That's fine with me by the way.

That was my point. The FIFA franchise was never re-invented or reborn, it plays the same arcade style User/CPU game it played seven years ago. That's always been FIFA's appeal -- it's fast, fun, furious and pretty to look at.

Fine by me as well, now that there are sliders to tone down the fast and furious bits.

[NYKnicksNumba96]

Great article. Now if EA could just put in Red Bull Arena...

[Blublub]

Good article - I also never would have thought FIFA could hold a candle to PES, but this year finally changed my mind. If the EA team keeps focusing on gameplay improvements over silly flash it's their game to lose...