FIFA 13 Demo vs PES 13 Demo: Which Demo Was Best?

FIFA vs Pro Evo: very soon we're going to have a definitive answer to the annual question every football gaming fan asks. In just a few short days, Pro Evolution Soccer 13 will land on shelves as the first of this year's duo of football game giants, putting an end - at least in part - to this year's round of traditionally rampant rumours and expectations as to which of the games will emerge victorious. But while the games both remains unreleased, and while there is still time to hold on to your hopes that your favourite of the two will win, we're looking back at the teasers released by the rival development teams to see which team won the final bout of preliminaries before the main event. Which of the demos, released weeks apart, but with similar fanfare (though not quite the same sort of logistical problems for PES as there were for PS3 owning FIFA fans), was the best? It's a simple question, but one that may well have pre-determined which of the two games you are now set to buy - and this year that decision looks like the most difficult it has ever been, with PES Team making a determined effort to redress the perceived bias towards the EA Sports title and both sides unveiling new features and eye-catching tweaks that have meant that the overall winner of the entire conflict is us, the football gaming fan. But for some, that isn't enough and those fans need a definitive answer either way. So which was the better demo? Hold tight and here we go with our four-round face-off to determine which demo we have crowned as the best of the two...

Round One: Gameplay

FIFA 13 In a word, excellent. The new features, brought in with an obvious eye on the game's overall authentic feel, work wonderfully to add that realism as well as making the game feel fun again. Both the defensive AI and attacking AI have been given a revamp after some of the problems of last year, and attacking play in particular feels a lot less one-dimensional than it has at times in the past. Thanks to the increased intelligence of team-mates, there are always a number of options available to the attacking player, and if the player should decide to take it on themself, the change in the dribbling system, and control system mean that trying to take a man on is not the furstrating experience it was in FIFA 12, when the containment system meant evasive one-twos were a lot more successful (though less entertaining). Unfortunately for PES, this is the most real football gaming has ever felt, and that comes without a compromise in the entertainment factor, which has got to be the ideal balance. PES 2013 Though there have been some serious improvements on last year, there is still something not quite right about the fluidity of play and gameplay can feel slightly awkward in comparison with FIFA. That has something to do with the ball, which seems to lack weight, even despite how much more typical its behaviour is, and the movement of the players on the ball, which lacks the grace of FIFA. It is easily the less realistic of the two in terms of gameplay, though it is still entertaining all the same (which was the bias this game was once loved for predominantly), and there has clearly been a lot of work gone into tweaking the engine to make matches play better. Like FIFA, PES has been given a make-over in terms of the control system, which stands out well, and passing between players is accurate and slick, despite the lack of ball weight, but it feels a lot more difficult to score goals, like the bias of the play leads the player to passing around more than looking for a killer touch. That isn't helped by the lack of impact on scoring that should be the reward for hitting the back of the net - there just isn't the ceremony of FIFA unfortunately.