FIFA & PES: Contrast & Compare

[Madmac79]

At least they left a pretty rich legacy:
The BaL mode, The snow and weather effects, the linesmen referrers, the 360 movement, the coin flip.... Well screw the coin flip

I always wonder what could happen, if both teams KCEO and KCET worked together from the beginning and combined all ideas of ISS, We, GoalStorm, ISS Pro Evo.

Yeah I've always tought about it myself. Maybe it would have been too much of a work for the hardware of the era, but it's nice to wonder anyway. A game with the best features of both would have killed anything for a loong time in an even more brutal fashion.

 

[*aLe]

One of my favourite reviews ever was an ISS 64 one in which the guy went as far as heavily insulting whoever bought Fifa 64 rather than ISS (yeah, the magazine didn't care much about political correctness ).

And rightly so!
I had both games (as a 12-year-old I asked my parents to buy me FIFA as, you know, I came all the way from FIFA International Soccer... Then tried ISS and decided there was no match, so I got it too with my hard-earned tips as my parents rightly wouldn't buy me both of them) so I can definitely confirm this is the case.
Anyway, do you perhaps remember which review it was (or maybe also have a link)? Curious to read that if it's still around. 😄

 

[slamsoze]

And rightly so!
I had both games (as a 12-year-old I asked my parents to buy me FIFA as, you know, I came all the way from FIFA International Soccer... Then tried ISS and decided there was no match, so I got it too with my hard-earned tips as my parents rightly wouldn't buy me both of them) so I can definitely confirm this is the case.
Anyway, do you perhaps remember which review it was (or maybe also have a link)? Curious to read that if it's still around. 😄

He said a magazine, plus 90's so i think a link is impossible.
I can also confirm, and now it makes sense to what @Madmac79 said before, that for some reason back in 1996, being 10yo, I did knew FIFA but not ISS, no advs no promo about ISS.

It was XMAS of 1996 and my father asked me to order an Snes game for present. I needed a footy but I was knowing only FIFA, so I ordered whichever FIFA he finds.
He came a night after work, giving me my present, but it was something unknown. ISS name, two cartoony players in the label, no FIFA logo...He did not find FIFA 96 or 97 and the shop clerk suggested to buy ISS instead of some older FIFA.
OMG, I said. I can't describe my little child's heartbroken disappointment. On the one hand I tried to be polite cause it was XMAS and cause my father very rarely bought me video games, although he was a gamer in his youth, last game he played was in the 80's the DK with DKong as villain and Mario/Jumpman as the hero.

But I felt totally wasted and depressed, I was thinking, my present chance was fakin wasted, I must wait until nameday or birthday for a new chance, 4 and 7 months latter respectively.

My father seeing the disappointment in my face told me that he knows this KONAMI company (lie) and that they are goodfame developers, my father is a computer programmer too, and proposes to boot up and play a 2p VS. Me still having the screens of FIFA in my memory, cause I had rented in from a video club last summer, agreed to play only one game just to please my father. Usually the opposite was happening, me begging for one game and parents say only one.
We booted up, he picked Germany, I picked Netherlands, second shock here, the players were "unknown". My father contributed to my shock, trying to explain that maybe they couldn't afford licensing etc.
In my 10yo brain all those sounded extra-terrestrial, my only thought was, I got an unnamed soccer, with cartoon game cover, only NT teams and freaking fake players!!! What a disaster...

The rest is history.. We played two games, GER-HOL and BRA-ARG, then he got tired, I stayed and played 1pVScom, many matches up until late night, thanks to XMAS!!! I was so extatic fascinated by the gameplay, felt so jaw-dropping. And I could not even score a goal. The next day I played all day long, trying to score just a goal, and achieving it after the first 20 matches I think.
Then I loved Allejo, Gomez, Branco, Ferreira more than the original Selecao!!! After I played ISS deluxe, ISS 64 and 98 on N64, which was the second jaw-dropping moment in my football gaming life. On 2001 I finally got my own N64 with ISS2000, then PSX with all ISS pro and PES 1 & 2. Finally the last real jaw-dropping moment was the PES 3 on PC.

But it was funny that a lie told to me by my father "those Konami are OK guys, whatever they create is good" as an excuse, defined my early video gaming life. They had awesome games to be honest, CastelvAnia, TMNT, Goemon, NBA give an'go. Whatever video game of Konami i bought, I never doubted about it!
Only until after I bought Pes2008 for PC...

 

[*aLe]

My father seeing the disappointment in my face told me that he knows this KONAMI company (lie) and that they are goodfame developers
[...]
But it was funny that a lie told to me by my father "those Konami are OK guys, whatever they create is good" as an excuse, defined my early video gaming life.

What if it wasn't totally a lie?

Konami released an arcade game named Premier Soccer before they started working on ISS, and it was indeed a pretty good football game for the period (1993):

​

As a bonus, I'll drop also a short video of "Soccer Superstars" (their second football game, dated 1994):

​

By the way, Soccer Superstars' flyer (here) inspired at least two other covers...

• International Superstar Soccer (I mean, it's the same cover FFS!)
• Virtua Striker 2 ver. 2000.1 (to some extent at least)

 

[Madmac79]

@slamsoze Really nice recount mate. Also, all in all your father lied but totally got it right even if by chance .

@*aLe It was Game Power. I still have the paper magazine, I rever this piece as the ultimate game review as even if it talked about ISS 64 it pretty much nails perfectly how I feel about the whole Konami soccer saga. I liked it so much I was tempted to translate it for the folks here. Maybe in the next future .

Anyway, by pure luck it's also online, the number stocked on the internet archive with many others. Here it is : https://archive.org/details/Game-Power-63/page/n41/mode/2up
.

 

[slamsoze]

What if it wasn't totally a lie?

Konami released an arcade game named Premier Soccer before they started working on ISS, and it was indeed a pretty good football game for the period (1993):

​

As a bonus, I'll drop also a short video of "Soccer Superstars" (their second football game, dated 1994):

​

By the way, Soccer Superstars' flyer (here) inspired at least two other covers...

• International Superstar Soccer (I mean, it's the same cover FFS!)
• Virtua Striker 2 ver. 2000.1 (to some extent at least)

They had also KONAMI HYPER Soccer. 1992 NES/Famicom. According to Wikipedia it was their first football game and part of "Track & Field" series.
Seems they started far before EA the footy development, that's why they were always one step ahead gameplay wise, at least in the early years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Hyper_Soccer

 

[Antoine]

I won't be buying either titles anymore. So sick of the constant patching and gameplay changes. I can never settle into the game properly.

Both companies should be sued for mieading consumers.

 

[shumway]

They had also KONAMI HYPER Soccer. 1992 NES/Famicom. According to Wikipedia it was their first football game and part of "Track & Field" series.
Seems they started far before EA the footy development, that's why they were always one step ahead gameplay wise, at least in the early years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Hyper_Soccer

I spent countless hours with Konami Hyper Soccer to that time. My avatar is from the game.
But to be honest, it was pretty bad compared to similar footy games on the C64 for example.
There was no referee in the game and it had no fouls. Not too different from the current PES iterations, one could say...

 

[*aLe]

They had also KONAMI HYPER Soccer. 1992 NES/Famicom. According to Wikipedia it was their first football game and part of "Track & Field" series.

Yeah, you're right. I remember hearing about it, but I actually never played it so I overlooked it. From what I say it doesn't hold up very well anymore against his younger "cousins" though.
The first Konami game I played was Premier Soccer and it kinda blew me away (at least compared to Euro League which was the only other football game at the arcades at the time).
Well, arcade games should have a thread of their own though, they've nothing to do in here (apart from this obviously).