actually the title of this topic is what happened to me. i've played FIFA games, never touched a Konami creation since 1999. I bought PES not long ago, and i loved it off the bat. of course, i was blinded and still thought FIFA was king until just about last week
when i finally got past the graphics situation, and realized the gameplay was about 500 times better than FIFA. After this, i unistalled FIFA from my computer, and PES is my main action football game. What would be excellent is for Konami to kind of focus in on graphics, while still producing the excellent gameplay, the infinite amount of possible strategies, and the photo-realistic faces for some of the players. I was playing as Milan, and drew 2-2 to Roma, and Cassano scored twice for Roma. In both his celebrations, i was stunned by the realism in his face. it was like looking in the newspapers, and seeing the line: "Cassano Scores 2 For Roma." It was that realistic. I've played PES for about 3 weeks now, and i've been a fast convert. What else is, i STILL havent even begun to learn all the things you can do with this game. I'm using a ps2 controller, and was just wiped-out by the stuff you can do on the pitch. You can even make the defensive wall run in and jump to block a freekick! Suck that FIFA
Not only that, but the dribbling is excellent, tackling is harder; its no longer simply a slide-fest, with no cards, like in FIFA. Another thing i wanted to mention is that taking penalties in PES is much easier. In FIFA, i missed almost every penalty i took because of two reasons: 1) I overpowered the shot OR 2) The keeper always guessed right. In PES, it takes only a direction and the square button. To this, FIFA Fan Boys will jump like vultures to a dead animal, screaming about, "That's not realistic!" Well, answer this - is it realistic when Ruud van Nistelrooy misses every single penalty he's been rewarded in one season? NO!!! And the referees - almost a different one every match, with names and nationalities complete with it. In FIFA you have that same gay-ass ref every single game. it gets boring. True, you will barely ever see the ref (In FIFA you wont see it period, except in cut-scenes
) its nice to have a diversity of refs. Cinematics. The ref pointing to the spot, and players swarming around him.. well... you just dont see that in FIFA. True, FIFA does have a few nice cinematics (cant think of any off the top of my head, but i know there are a good few), but it lacks the feel of a penalty being rewarded, the defense's heart sinking, the attacking side getting excited, its just great. Another thing - freekicks. I cant get through this without mentioning the excellent freekick system in PES. you can choose to have a 2-man strike, or simply a one man job. the curl of the ball, little flicks to the side for a midfielder to rush up and nail the ball home, the controls are limitless it seems. Hard low strikes, or soft floaters. Granted, the controls are a bit of a pain to get used to, but only because in FIFA, all you need is aim, curl, shoot
In conclusion, you guys who think FIFA is great... give PES a go, a good long go and see what you think. Of course if all you care about is GFX, go for FIFA
but for the ultimate footballing experience, PES is the way to go. It all boils down to what i just said.