Eddie Cassidy on the eternal derby…Pro-Evo v FIFA

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Celtic V Rangers, Scotland v England, Real Madrid v Barcelona, John Terry v ethnic minorities.

The game of football is filled with classic rivalries as mentioned above and some will argue that when ancient enemies clash, you have to favour one or the other. I’m sure non Old Firm fans tire of hearing, “yeah I know you’ve been a Motherwell season-ticket holder for 15 years, but seriously, Celtic or Rangers?”

I don’t agree that you always have to pick a side in any rivalry. For example, I just watched a thoroughly enjoyable El Clasico, and couldn’t care less who won. I was happy watching some of the best players in the world go toe to toe (though I did think Hooper and Samaras would have run riot against that Barca defence and Forster would have saved that Messi freekick……. ahem).

There is another rather strange rivalry in the world of football, one in which almost everyone has picked one side over the other and which always comes to a head around the lead up to Xmas. It’s the rivalry between the two big guns in computerised football – Konami’s Pro-Evolution Soccer (endorsed at the moment by one Cristiano Ronaldo) and EA Sports’ FIFA Football (endorsed at the moment, funnily enough, by one Lionel Messi).

The new version of both games have been released recently and I have noticed, yet again, the remarkable amount of vitriol that supporters of either game have for the other. Fifa fans hate Pro-Evo and vice versa. This is, bizarrely, as much a gaming/technology trait as a football one. It’s not enough that I succeed, my nearest rivals must fail and I must mock them mercilessly over my superiority! Think back to the number of times as a kid the question “Mario or Sonic?” or even the broader “Sega or Nintendo?” came up. Either could almost end in pathetic 10-year-old blows being thrown! I’ve even heard “grown-up” mates recently having heated discussions over which is better – Xbox or Playstation, iPhone or Blackberry, Sky Plus or Virgin whatever it is! Baffling stuff.

To understand the FIFA v Pro-Evo rivalry, we have to go back in time and look at the history of both games. As a kid, my free time was pretty much taken up by two pastimes, playing football and playing computer games (this is before i discovered the joys of w*nking to Jet from Gladiators). In the summer you played football, while in the nuclear winter you stayed in and played the computer. In those early days of consoling, there was one undisputed champion of football gaming – Sensible Soccer. It was a top-down view, featured players such as Jargon Klonsman and Moradona (each player only really discernible from the others by hair colour) and was very unrealistic, but great fun. The ability to swerve the ball when in the air meant last minute winners coming from a 60 yard diving header moving like a Beckham free kick to make the final score 9-8 were commonplace!

Technological advancements meant that the game changer soon arrived, in the form of FIFA’s release in 1993 (my neighbour had it for the megadrive), featuring a new isometric view. It was like a new ballgame, though similarly to Sensi it was very unrealistic, overhead kicks could be scored from your own half, and huge scorelines were easily racked up.

Then in 1995 Konami released International Super Star soccer, my mate had it for the SNES and it was the best yet, mainly because it was REALISTIC! Scoring goals was, like in real football, DIFFICULT! Certain players needed a TOUCH to get the ball under control, sometimes hanging on for a 0-0 was a GREAT RESULT, keepers made SAVES… and it quickly became the game the football fan who played computer games preferred. FIFA became the choice of the computer game fan who played the odd football game.

EA sports quickly realised that the more realistic approach was the way to go and both games entered a bitter rivalry, which is still going strong to this day. (ISS introduced club sides and became Pro-Evolution Soccer in 2001) Now, you some of you may be reading this thinking, “why could you not just play both”? Well, both games, while looking alike, featured very different controls. “Shoot” and “blooter the ball up the park” were the alternative buttons, so, if you played ISS regularly and you had a shot of FIFA at a mate’s house or vice versa, after being clean through on goals a few times and smashing the ball into row Z each time you rather quickly decided it wasn’t worth the hassle! Especially when it might affect your performances in your “real” games!

Since ’96 I’ve always been in the Pro Evo/ISS camp. Thinking about it now, thats 16 years I’ve now been attempting to master the through ball and debating with FIFA fans which is the better game. A common thing thrown at the PES camp is that FIFA has fully licensed teams and players, whereas PES still has the unofficial sensi-esque Rayne Wooney playing for Manchester Red. This has never bothered me, gameplay was all I cared about, and the game has even started to influence my views on real football. I would always go Argentina back in the day and now am rather fond of the actual Argentina team. I know Messi, Aguero and Tevez is a cracking front line, but will we ever again see the likes of Krespo, Botistuta and Lapez?

As I’ve said, I’ve always been a Pro-Evo man, but i don’t feel any ill will towards FIFA fans. Play and let play, I say. I find the partisanship of fans of both games both confusing and amusing. It’s not a team you’re supporting here its a game! However, I think I am reacting like a football fan in a different way. Many people have told me they were Pro-Evo fanatics for years, but in recent years Fifa has become the better game so they have jumped the dyke and are now playing Fifa (who have enticed these judases with a preset of PES’s button configuration, scandal!). It may well be the case that Fifa is the better game now, however, I personally feel a loyalty to the PES side and would not only feel bad changing sides now, I’d feel dirty and wrong. PES is like an old friend, it’s been there for me through the good times and the bad for 16 years and I feel obliged to stick with it now and hope the glory days of undeniable superiority will one day return. No matter how shiny and attractive FIFA may be, and as ridiculous as i know that is, I also know it will never change and I’m PES till I die. By which point it will probably be a 3D interactive experience played by wearing a cap which monitors your brainwaves. Though even then they still won’t have forked out to use real players’ names and badges!

Told you it was a crazy phenomenon! To conclude…ooh, ah, Kamaras!

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About the Author
Eddie Cassidy (eventually) started Stand Up Comedy in Aug 2009, after many years of threatening to, and since then has reached the Scottish Comedian of the Year final in 2010 less than 18 months after his first gig, and has since performed all over Scotland and parts of England including a gig to the out their nut audience at scotlands (2nd) biggest music festival Rockness.

A lifelong Celtic fan and former regular at Pollok Juniors Newlandsfield Ground, situated in the shadow of the high rises in his native Pollokshaws in Glasgow (where he once witnessed a sub knock out a fan in a penguin costume while warming up), he is also a lover of all football and while Celtic will always be his true love, he views the rest of the football world as a copy of nuts magazine, something to look at and enjoy with no emotional attachment! A keen fan of the Premiership, European and International Football he has developed crushes on Parma (around 1994) Dortmund (around 1997) Croatia (1998) Valencia (2001) Ghana (2006) Brentford Town (2009) and still looks out for their results, and like any other football fan currently loves watchin the greatest team of all time, Barcelona. He also has a love hate relationship with Arsenal, however has recently been casting admiring glances at Spurs.

Eddie’s achievements in football include a u15′s medal from the goals 5 a side leagues with the legendary AC Pollokshaws, and once scored 19 goals when 21 years old playing against a bunch of children while drunk.

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