Can you believe this actually happens...Scripting???

[John Locke]

Funny you mention the darkside.

Was at a mate's at the wkend and we went and bought FIFA 09 for £18, and put in about 15 hours on it - England to world cup glory on coop etc etc.

Suffice to say, the AI was up and down. It was on Pro...not even the 2nd best or best AI...and they were on occasion impossible to best. Largest victory - 7-2: England v New Zealand. Lost 4-0 to Norway in the next game.

For 2 FIFA newbies playing coop, was just tragic to see the AI walk through the defence.

That said, it was a super smooth experience. I may just buy both FIFA and PES from now on.

So back to my PC, and loaded up PES. It just looked sooooo old school shabby. However, the immense shooting and the end-to-end-ness was a refreshing difference to the midfield wallowing of FIFA...was playing as Liverpool against United, Stevie G on a down purple, so subbed off at 60min.

0-1
1-1
2-1
last minute of extra time, impossible run through all my defence, shoots, gets blocked, one defender controls the ball and immediately gets knocked over by my other defender, centre back "clears" it straight to Rooney's feet...all of 4 yards away, he controls, shoots, in OFF THE FRIGGIN POST.
2-2
Lose on penalties.

Ok, I was rusty and gave away a cheap first goal by backing off Berbatov til he pinged it into the bottom corner from 30 yards...but after that my 20 shots produced TWO goals, their 2 shots got them 1 more. Grrrr.

I agree that Fifa is somewhat 'smoother' but it is such an arcade display of this beautiful sport.
Let's take a player like Messi as an example. Messi rarely uses tricks to get around players, just sick change of direction and change of pace to go a long with a sublime touch of the ball. In Fifa you can't get around players without using a heel-flick plus crazy siccors and a spin.

In PES you can run past defenders using change of direction and get open for a shot.

The AI in Fifa is also so flawed it's just sickening.

Trust me people, Fifa is not worth it. It feels great in the beginning, but when you dig a little deeper it is a horrible experience.

 

[XeOs]

you can feel it when it's a game that is going to "favor" the computer. but the cool thing is that you usually get a few chances and have the opportunity to control your own destiny. but if you make a dumb mistake, it's over.

One thing I noticed in older PES versions is that when you do get that feel and it's still early in the game, it's actually best to just let them score. That way the scripting seems to end or at least loosen up a lot. You'll just have to score two but, then again, you have the time. The reason why it may be a better option is because trying to fight the scripting drains a lot of time and your game (passing, shooting, pressing, defending, rebounds - oh those rebounds... -, etc) will be crippled by such scripting during that time. Anyway, I find that the scripting happens mostly at top player (that and weird referee decisions are actually a huge part of the difference between professional and top player).

 

[ThaReaper01]

I agree that Fifa is somewhat 'smoother' but it is such an arcade display of this beautiful sport.
Let's take a player like Messi as an example. Messi rarely uses tricks to get around players, just sick change of direction and change of pace to go a long with a sublime touch of the ball. In Fifa you can't get around players without using a heel-flick plus crazy siccors and a spin.

In PES you can run past defenders using change of direction and get open for a shot.

The AI in Fifa is also so flawed it's just sickening.

Trust me people, Fifa is not worth it. It feels great in the beginning, but when you dig a little deeper it is a horrible experience.

While I do agree, at least those tricks can be pulled off in FIFA. I would like to use Robinho or Gabriel Obertan and do more than a stepover without having to look at the fucking manual. Especially because that's what those guys do. I can understand if I was Messi and couldn't pull off a trick, but that's not what Messi does, like you said.