The rivalry between EA's FIFA and Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer is well-documented. Over the years, FIFA has been a big breadwinner for EA, alongside Madden. On the other hand, PES has been the favorite for hardcore soccer fans, and has been slowly gaining momentum in the US for years. However, as time has gone by, it seems as though EA has experimented wildly with its formula for soccer, as many different approaches have been applied in the transition from the PS2/Xbox era to the Xbox 360/PS3 age. With FIFA 08, the team might just have found the right combination to close the gap just a little more.
We've been playing quite a bit of a pre-beta build of the next-gen game for a few days now, and while we'd normally give a big overview of the game's features, we thought we'd focus centrally on perhaps the biggest new feature of this year's installment: Be a Pro Mode. While we haven't necessarily gone through each of the eleven positions on the field to try everyone out, we decided to go through some of the Champions League matches from this week's seasonal kickoff and discuss the ins and outs of the mode. In the final game, you'll get Be a Pro offline training out of the box, and EA has promised to patch the game in a few months to allow for the mode to be played online.
In Be a Pro, you'll have control of one player rather than the entire squad. For gamers who've spent years controlling the entire team, it's a fairly drastic departure, and while your fundamental skills will still be called into play, you'll have some moments where you'll instinctively want to do something with a player, and discover that, surprise, you can't, since you're only in control of one person on the pitch. The camera reflects this, as it will track the action up and down the green, but mainly keep you in its focus, at least, in the next-gen versions. In the current-gen build that we played, the camera will keep its default mode, which is advantageous if you're playing a midfielder, but a bit iffier for defense and strikers.
Before you jump into a round of Be a Pro in the final product, you'll want to familiarize yourself with the visual indicators provided. No matter where you are, there will be a bar in the lower center of the screen that judges your performance. Good plays keep it green, while bad moves add more red to your bar. The game will evaluate your timing for pass calls; an interception will get you red marks, but a successful pass will add to your green. If you're anything but a striker, leaving a man unmarked in your zone (he'll be designated with a red ring around him) will get you red points for either position, defense, or both. You'll also have positioning arrows that tell you where you need to be, either on defense or offense. Too many arrows mean that you're way out of your zone, and you'll get red points for it. The game will also let you know when you're offsides, so no Filippo Inzaghi line-toeing tactics here.
With that in mind, we re-enacted a few of the matches that have gone on over the past two days in the Champions League, including Barcelona vs. Lyon, Manchester United vs. Sporting Lisbon and Arsenal vs. Sevilla. For the Man U. match, we chose Cristiano Ronaldo to get a better feel for the mode's midfield action. For the Barcelona match, we chose Deco to get a feel for defensive play, and for the Arsenal match we picked Dutch striker Robin Van Persie to get an idea of how the forward game will feel.
