Fifa articles

I started reviewing these two games together all the way back in 2012, but six years in, I feel like this double-review is in danger of settling into just the kind of repetitive drone it was designed to counter. Now, more than ever, each series' pros and cons are so established, so settled into routine that it's almost a waste of everyone's time to dredge them up once again.

The latest sports games are not always the best. There's an obsession with incremental changes and bullet-point features, one which challenges fan's ability to take a step back and assess each game as its own title. It's something I try to do and I'm taking to its logical conclusion here in this Quixotic attempt to pluck one game out of hundreds and call it the "best."

FIFA 18 is a good game of football with an absolutely incredible singleplayer mode. PES 2018 is a fantastic game of football wearing clearance rack kit. That's about the sum of it.

FIFA and PES are like Batman and The Joker, their entire existence defined by the presence of the other. You can't play PES without talking about FIFA's licenses, and you can't play FIFA without talking about PES' gameplay, because those things are as much a result of targeting the competitor's weaknesses as their own inherent strengths.

Look, I like FIFA. I've liked it for a long time, and even when the game has an off year, I've stuck by it and enjoyed my time with it. This year is no different.