FIFA 18 is a great game of soccer with an absolutely amazing singleplayer mode. PES 2018 is a fantastic game of football wearing clearance rack package.
That’s about the sum of it. I’ve already been doing this feature lengthy enough—and these video games have settled into such a comfortable holding pattern of strengths and weaknesses—that it is in danger of growing repetitive, each year’s evaluation only partially distinct from the one that arrived before. Which has long been my biggest criticism of not just these games themselves, but of the media coverage of them as well.
Wait, what is this?
We normally review one game at a time here at Kotaku, but when it comes to the year’s big soccer games, that modifications. FIFA and PES are like Batman and the Joker: their own strengths and weaknesses are defined through the competition, so it only makes sense to look at all of them together.
So while it’s tempting to spend pages here slamming on about the particular ways in which PES 2018's mastery of the real sport of soccer (as it’s played) is unmatched, or just what it is about FIFA that makes it irresistible every year in spite of its glaring flaws, I’m just going to just get the facts.
PES 2018 may be the better game this year because it plays a better game of soccer. Sorry if that sounds predictable, because that’s been the situation for the last few years, but it’s the case once again in 2017. If you want my tl’dr verdict, that’s it.
Constant improvements to buy fut 18 coins the series’ player animation, coupled with a nice sedate pace and almost ideal ball physics imply that a session with PES 2018 is as close as you can get to lacing up your boots and spending 90 minutes on an actual presentation without actually performing it.
All the things I love about football-its artistry, its capacity for individual expression, the fluidity with which top-level celebrities can play the game-can all become found in PES 2018. And they’re just better than they were a year ago. It plays so smoothly and so responsively that the quality of PES’onfield action is enough to outweigh its serious shortcomings elsewhere, and just enough to place it past FIFA in my books.
FIFA 18, despite some improvements to its own animation (players react to inputs a bit faster, still lags driving. It’s football like a Premier League executive wants you to experience it, all bloodstream and thunder and sprints into the box and cracking top-corner finishes, which is good, I just don’t possess as much fun playing it because there is not as much room with regard to unique moments, that sensation that every objective you score is different. It also still seems a little too much like you are controlling 11 wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men instead of human footballers.
I know die-hard FIFA fans will always purchase FIFA, and PES fans will similarly buy PES no matter what people like me say, but in case you asked me in order to recommend one game to someone within the fence-or say I could only choose from one of these for myself-I’d recommend PES, because for all its problems (and we’ll get those in a minute if you think like reading in more detail) it’s mastery of the actual sports activity puts it previous FIFA’s mastery when it comes to stuff like licenses and commentary.
With that out of the way, there are still two points I want to talk about, 1 from PES, 1 from FIFA. They might influence which of the two games you prefer this year, but they’ll definitely make a difference in the future if 2017's video games are anything to pass.
PES’ PRESENTATION IS EMBARASSING
It’s already been true since the dawn of the rivalry between these two series that FIFA was always the prettier game. But as the years have dragged on, and EA offers spent more time, work and money on improving the presentation of their series, PES’ has barely moved in a decade.
Jumping between FIFA, using its lavish match intros, graphics and replay rendering, and getting in PES, using its lifeless characters and drab menus, feels like stepping back in time. Its on-field visuals are amazing, of that there’s no doubt, but serious gamers spend as much period off the pitch because they do on it, and to do so with PES2018 is to spend 5 minutes (on the field) on the PS4 accompanied by 10 minutes (in menus) on the PS2.
The actual gulf between the two games extends into the audio as well. FIFA’s duo of Martin Tyler and Alan Smith may recycle a few lines here and there, but for the most part they do a wonderful work of replicating the TV broadcast experience.
Along with PES, I’ve switched the commentary away. It’s abysmal. Silence is perferable in order to Peter Drury and Jim Beglin, whose charmless chatter is not just repetitive, but often wildly inaccurate too. If PES can make one change next season, it needs to be possibly completely re-recording their own lines, or going and finding someone else.
Things are so bad with PES it makes recommending the series over FIFA to the average punter an increasingly tough sell for me. As someone that plays both video games every year I’m in a position to indulge in the luxury of saying “well, PES plays better”, but if you’re a more casual football enthusiast who only wants to have fun online and stick to their favourite team/league (PES’ licensing continues to be a black hole), then I can understand why people might acknowledge that FIFA may be the worse game of football but still prefer it.
Konami aren’t just failing towards FIFA, PES’ presentation is embarrassing by any standards for a sports game released in 2017. It needs to change.
THE JOURNEY IS INCREDIBLE
Alex Hunter’s singleplayer strategy cheap fut 18 coins last year had the showed a lot of promise in terms of structure, but its corny and predictable turns left me a little chilly. So I came into FIFA 18 expecting much of the same. I wound up having my socks (and shinpads) blown clean off.
FIFA 18's The Journey isn’t just a big improvement over last year’s effort, it is now (partly thanks to NBA 2K’s own goal) the best singleplayer campaign in all of sports video games.
Without having spoiling too much, this starts you away in England picking up to left off after FIFA 17, only for events to soon transpire that have you whisked away overseas, where you run into some heavy personal shit (that’s handled within a surprisingly deft way) and play for a couple of new clubs as you go along.
FIFA 18's Journey is much brighter and chippier than FIFA 17's subdued event, with more frequent, smaller cutscenes that breathe life into the figures. It also finds the sweet spot between sitting the player down for some story and letting them get on with the overall game, something many of its competitors struggle with (2K interrupts you too frequently , while Madden’s Longshot didn’t have enough real sports gameplay).
As you still play almost every game of the season-meaning this takes quite a while to work your way through-the changes in landscapes, constant story up-dates and challenges the plot throws in you mean that this rarely feels like the grind.
The parts I most loved, though, are when the story twice throws a big development in you, and rather than just playing it away via cinematics, really drops you onto the pitch with regard to unexpected and challenging scenarios.
Oh, and you also unlock everything, from skills to wardrobe changes, through playing the game, not by buying stuff, which is fine.
Alex Hunter is a likeable kid surrounded by a solid cast of characters that are right for the establishing and tone, and the way The Journey played out this year has me more excited to see where he goes next than I am more fanciful and established video game stories.
I’d go so far as to say that even if you are not that into these games, but enjoy sports along with a good singleplayer computer game, that FIFA eighteen is worth it simply to work your way with the Journey.
And that’s it for the 2017 instalment of FIFA v PES. PES wins again with a whisker thanks to its onfield supremacy, like it often does, but if it can’t improve things off the pitch-and if The Journey can keep improving like it has-then its days may not just be numbered in 2018, but in the years past that as well.
