14 DAY TRIAL // For the last few years, the FIFA series of football simulations from EA Sports has been better reviewed and has sold better than the rival Pro Evolution Soccer, but for the Konami development team, the sense of competition between the two titles has not been dampened.
Adam Bhatt, the European brand manager at Konami, claims that at the moment FIFA resembles a game of ping-pong and is all about scoring goals, with little thought given to the complexities of the modern game and its beauty.
Speaking to NowGamer, the game maker claims that PES 2015 will deliver more realism and will offer plenty of options to decide which strategy is best suited to a team, with a focus on matching the player and the moves that suit him.
Bhatt states, “I think we've proved that with our understanding of the sport in this presentation. At the same time as being the connoisseur's game we don't want to end up excluding people.”
He goes on to describe a typical football situation in order to show how his own football simulation can deliver a better result than FIFA, while also reflecting the way a real world player relationship influences the phase.
The developer adds, “In real-life Schweinsteiger with the ball in midfield wants to hit a ball to Klose, and in that case the other team's midfield will block out the passing lanes and the defence will push out. That makes it really hard to make that pass to him, very rarely will a lobbed through ball work - but that's exactly what you can in FIFA.”
FIFA 15 is set to launch in late September and the development team at EA Sports claims that gamers will be able to enjoy better goalkeepers, smarter overall teammates, more realism for ball interactions and various improvements to the core game modes.
Konami will deliver PES 2015 in November, and the two development teams working on it are focusing on emotion, signature moves for the most important players and a way to tweak teams in order to blunt an opponent’s attack and score goals when the opportunity presents itself.
Both titles will be offered on the PC, the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 and last-gen consoles.
The earlier launch date will probably mean that FIFA 15 will generate much higher sales, but it will be interesting to see whether true football connoisseurs will make the switch to Konami’s title because of superior mechanics.