Interfering With Play 13/05/08
Posted by Dan Bolas in Interfering With Play on Tue 13 May 2008
Welcome to a shorter Interfering With Play. I am currently having very bad luck with technology, ranging from Power Cuts to Sat Nav’s to Mobile Phones, and therefore have a lot of sorting out to do in a short space of time. As a result of this, I will be leaving some of the key talking points until next week’s article, and concentrating on three points in this weeks offering.
Congratulations
First point, may I hand my congratulations to Manchester United for their successful defence of the FA Premier League title. Whilst cup competitions can sometimes be won on luck and fortunate fixtures, any league season requires genuine quality, and once again Sir Alex Ferguson has managed to forge a team of top players together. Whilst I would have been glad to see Arsenal win the title, I am pleased that United did, as it proves that playing attractive football gets you rewards, and playing games to shut up shop, as Chelsea did on a number of occasions, is not the way to win over fans. As for the FA Cup, I really hope Harry Redknapp and Portsmouth do the business over Cardiff. I have nothing against Dave Jones’ side, but Redknapp has done an incredible job and fully deserves the silverware to cap off an amazing season. Your views on the title race and the FA Cup are of course very much welcomed.
The Big Four: Week Two
Over the month of May, Interfering With Play will be looking at four of the biggest titles in Football Gaming history, focussing on why they were so important and giving you the opportunity to decide on whether or not you agree with their place in the ‘Big Four’ category.
Fifa International Soccer (1993) Megadrive- It may seem controversial to include a FIFA title on a PES website, but anyone who grew up in the mid-nineties would have to agree that football gaming truly progressed with introduction of the FIFA gaming series. At its time of release, EA Sports were a minor company who had just won the license to produce a number of replica video games using authentic competitions. Nowadays, they have their fingers in pretty much every sporting pot, and rip off gamers with tournament based updates and ‘street’ versions of popular sports. Back in 1993 though, they were mainly responsible for the further innovation of the gaming genre. Gone was the top down camera view, as an all-new Isometric camera angle was brought into play. The game was not in 3D, and players could still only move in one of 8 directions, yet it game the illusion of a more realistic experience. Pitch conditions began to really come into their own as well. The option to play on an artificial pitch provided a different game mode, with bounce and roll being much more intense than the grass based game. Whilst the game did not feature real player names, it featured all the International teams you could require to play a number of tournaments and for the first time on any football game, featured on pitch trophy ceremonies for winning the title, a feature that made playing for an entire night in a league all the more worthwhile. Fifa has always been criticised for its passing engine, and the way players react to balls crossed into the box, and this title was no exception, however the shooting engine and block tackle features were so far ahead of anything out at the time, the game was regarding as the best football simulation available.
Of course, truly great games have truly great features, and through a number of intended events, FIFA International soccer was blessed with great features. The first was the ability to block down the Goalies kick, resulting in the ball looping over his head into the empty net. Whilst when playing against mates, you could opt to roll the ball out, the computer AI would constantly kick the ball straight at you, giving you an easy way back into any ‘lost cause’ match. Another bug was the ability to hack the keeper down when he had the ball in his hands. This resulted in a straight red card and was normally the result of a frustrated opponent missing a simple opportunity, but every once in a while was an accidental push of a button which could act as a real match turning event. My personal favourite of all the glitches was the ability to run away from the official when he was looking to caution you. Long before the days of in game football cut scenes, you were still given control of the offending player as the camera pans to the on screen referee begins his ominous jog towards you. This meant you could actually run away from him and he would continue to follow your chase, resulting in very frustrated opponents during multiplayer games.
The final factor for me, which I feel is exceptionally important to touch upon, is that FIFA International football was the first football game to offer a 4 player experience. Most gamers did not own multi-taps for their respective consoles at this time, and the mode was rarely used, however it paved the way for the future, and in particular the 4 on 4 games from PS2 Pro Evolution Soccer 6.
Your views of Fifa International Soccer would be most welcome. The game is readily available on a number of Internet download sites, and if you still have your SNES or Megadrive, chances are you still have your Fifa cartridge somewhere. The title obviously went on to spawn many follow-ups, with FIFA 95 including a number of club teams. The game today is well known for its excellent graphics and use of its huge array of licenses, and younger gamers will be unfamiliar with were ‘it all began’. If you were one of the originals, please get in touch and let us know your views and experiences of Fifa International Soccer.
Play That Funky Music
In Peter Willis’ recent 10 predictions for PES 2009, he expressed an opinion that popular speed garage outfit Pendulum would make an excellent choice when selecting a theme song for the next instalment of the series. Regular readers of this column will be more than aware of my feelings towards the music on PES, and I would personally love Pendulum to provide a number of tracks, including their excellent new single, for the PES soundtrack. However, the pessimist in me thinks this will never happen, and chances are we will be stuck with the same old generic Japanese pop the last few years have provided. So I open it to you, the PESGaming.com public, which artist would you list to see provide the cover song for PES. Kaiser Chiefs did a decent job for PES2008, yet it didn’t really catch the imagination the same way Song 2 did for Fifa 98 all those years ago. Anyone who underestimates the importance of music in gaming only needs to spend 10 minutes listing to the scores from GTA IV and the Condemned 2 to realise it can make a gaming experience. This is just a way of expressing your opinions on what music you would like to hear on the menu screens of PES, because if you play the game a lot, it makes sense that you are hearing tunes you can actually stomach. All together now, “I Want To Go….”
That’s your lot for this week. I have had a decent experience writing, with minimal computer slow down and actually zero crashes. Hopefully my technical problems will be sorted for next weeks Interfering With Play. danbolas@hotmail.com is the place to direct your e-mails to, or leave a comment at the bottom of this article!
Thanks for Reading
there are much better artists than pendulum going around at the moment…. to me a few of there songs sound the same… i dont want to hear dnb anyway while trying to relax n play pes but anything would be better than that shit football soccer song…what were they thinking….
instead of putting music on the next i would like to hear chants from all different clubs around the world but ea probably have the licence to them also : p
even commentary from old real football games would be brilliant…
while were on sound that brings me to my next point about the piss poor crowd in pes…. im playing on surround sound n all but just want more variety during the matches. its all the same sounds even when you score cracking goals the crowd have the same sound..more chants needed..
while im happy with the appearance of the crowd i would like to see more of a reaction when there teams go down or towards the end of the match people start to leave if its one sided..
Hey Dan
Your FIFA section certainly brought back memories!
One of the best features of FIFA was the ability to run away from the referee when about to be booked. You could run all over the pitch, and the ref would be unrelentless in his pursuit!
The 4 player ability was also brilliant at the time too. I used to play with friends and we’d do the most stupid things in games - like taking down the keepers, blocking the keeper and all those other stupid things you could do.
I can’t remember which version of FIFA introduced celebration routines that you could choose when you scored too. That was a nice touch too.
It had its flaws, but at the time it was a breath of fresh air from the standard top-down viewed footy games.
At the time I can recall being aware of annual updated madden games and wondered if FIFA would go the same way, and sure as hell, it did.
What really turned me against FIFA was very early on, when the FIFA marketing shite that was put out in gaming mags, they would rave about what the new version of FIFA was going to play like, and how it was streets ahead of the previous version. In the same breath, they’d rubbish the old version , saying it wasn’t what they expected it to be, but never mind - this new one was going to be awesome!! From that point on, I stopped purchasing FIFA.
The madden model of introducing some new shitty feature, taking away another one, and updating stats was applied to their take on football in FIFA.
But it has to be said, that after years of milking the game, FIFA finally is a worthy contender to PES for the crown of football games. I have to say that I was impressed with FIFA 08, and word on the street is that the UEFA championship game is actually better than FIFA 08 too.
FIFA 09 or FIFA 2010 may finally topple pes, which would be a travesty.
I don’t hold much in the way of hope of PES 2009 righting the wrongs of both next gen offerings konami have shoddily put together for us. I think PES 2009 realistically will provide the same game with improved online features (though I think we’ll be incredibly lucky to even get 2 on 2 multiplayer games online)but overall the same mess will be replicated for all to see and weep over.
I don’t want to play FIFA games, but I also don’t want to accept the crap that is PES currently. October/November is going to require some serious soul searching to decide the way forward with footy games.
D.
FIFA - never liked it, never will. ISS came out around ‘94 and then ISS Deluxe in ‘95 and that destroyed FIFA. As bad as Pro Evo may be, FIFA is just nowhere near it.
EA wind me up. Just hand over the Premier League licence to Konami and let them show you how a real football game is done.
In terms of music, just make it so that you can have your own personal list of tunes playing. Failing that, why not have Finlay Quaye singing World In Motion over the Crazy Frog beat.
I echo dougiedonut. Couldn’t put it better really.
Just last night I was remanising the days of Fifa International and Fifa 95, Me and my brother and about 5-10 mates almost every fortnight rounded up at my house selected a team and began a tournament and each person getting very attached to the fake named players on the pitch, it was always a battle and always great fun, the fifa series paved the way for what we have today.
Thanks EA Sports I only hope you could provide a game that proves to be good competition for PES because in the end us the football fans are the winners.
Hypothetically if fifa produce a better football game than PES, i would have no problem playing it, as I want to have the best football gaming experience possible, having said that I do doubt fifa can match the play of PES.
As for music in a football game my favourite was chumbawamba(I think that’s how you spell it) PES does need to have an anthemic song one which is ging to be or become a popular song out of the footballing circle, and PES also requires for us to slect our own music to play as natural progression of next gen gaming
Ah, The original Fifa International Soccer with David Platt on the cover. Those were the days! Great reading about all those quirks I’d completely forgotten about like the running away from the ref!
I’ve still got the original cartridge tucked away as a reminder of where it all began. I’m obviously a PES man now but that original FIFA was the beginning of it all as you said. I remember the hype around it at the time, the emphasis on the many animations for each player, the stats and advanced formation set up, but my favourite thing about it was the fresh idea with the camera angle. It was the closest thing to a TV type experience at the time and I wonder if it influenced Pro Evo in some way with the ability to alter the angle to show more of the goal (Never understood why people don’t use angle 9!. Is it true that the ps3 version left this option out? Alas, I didn’t make the plunge with pes 2008 for that and many other reasons much discussed on this site.)
But Fifa International Soccer was the business. The next big milestone has got to be Fifa 96 on the PC with the 3D stadium? That blew me away. Yep, Fifa had my heart and my pennies once!
Fifa 96′ on the Mega Drive was a bit of a life-changer for me gaming wise - real player names at last! and how i wish Pro Evo could offer the same number of club teams - you could never tire of destroying teams from the Malaysian league such as the hapless Sarawak!
The edit mode was great too, but finding out that you could only do a limited number of transfers on the game for the first time was a bit of a shock, especially after discovering how good Cetinkaya and Steiner at Norrkopping were but not being able to move them!
Finally, was anyone out there able to score more than about 5 different types of goals on that game?! blasting them in from crazy angles outside the box was simple, but scoring tap-ins and penalties? No chance!!
And then Pro Evo came along…