4. It's New
For the first time in years it feels like I'm playing a new football game. FIFA has been excellent through these last three versions, and the tweaking throughout the series resulted in the best version yet last year, particularly with the defensive improvements that added a certain intelligence to the game. However, the leap in quality with Pro Evo (please remember I'm using only the demos as a basis) this year is huge. Whilst FIFA feels very similar with only the apparent introduction of increased speed and new player animations, the brains at Konami have taken improvements from the work in progress that is PES2012, and made something that is both exciting and functional. That's not a negative - there are so many ideas involved here that to get them working together is a great thing. By the end of last season I'd almost stopped playing FIFA entirely, I find the single player mode a slog thanks to regimented defensive lines and poor attacking AI, much like in this demo - despite what others are saying about the newly revamped features. And online play had become as much about repetition as it had about Napoli. In short, it felt a lot like the game had gone as far as it could as players found the ways to exploit the game's programming. This year, it's not that much different.