Besides football, we also enjoy gaming—perhaps excessively.
We at Football Tribe understand the appeal of these games as opportunities to bask in the reflected glory of taking your favourite team to a win over a peer, a stranger in another country, or even against the machine itself. So, join us on our journey to finding that perfect football video game.
eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020
Better known as PES 2020, the football game with the most awkward title ever is playable on the widest range of devices: iPhones and iPads, in addition to Android devices, Windows computers, the PlayStation 4 console, and the Xbox One. The various game modes that e-football fans look for are all in there, enabling one to play through the career of individual players, play against others online, or manage a team.
Purists might appreciate the greater emphasis on tactical play and the unrelenting realism: you actually have to face the direction you want the ball to go, and sometimes players even break out into little tiffs on the pitch.
Fans might enjoy the motion-captured animations and the painstakingly 3D scanned likenesses of players from five major teams: Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Juventus, and Arsenal. In addition to these five, the licensed likenesses of teams and players from 18 leagues around the world are included—those other guys didn’t get themselves 3D scanned though, so don’t expect those faces to be nearly as photorealistic.
Minimum Windows PC Requirements
CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 / AMD FX 4350
CPU SPEED: Info
RAM: 4 GB
OS: Windows 7 SP1/8.1/10 – 64bit
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 670 / AMD Radeon HD 7870
PIXEL SHADER: 5.0
VERTEX SHADER: 5.0
FREE DISK SPACE: 40 GB
DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2048 MB
Football Manager 2020
If you are the kind of person who gravitates towards the big picture kind of play, then FM20 is probably what you’re looking for. On the other hand, if you didn’t expect to see a lot of tables and charts, you might be in for some disappointment. FM20 appeals to a select breed of e-football enthusiast, the kind of person whose idea of fun looks like work to the rest of us and who probably runs a fantasy football league in his spare time.
This is a very different kind of football simulation from what you might expect. The only on-pitch action one gets to see is an overview of matches similar to the view a spectator at home might have while watching a broadcast. Equipped with big data on the level of Sky Sports or ESPN, this is the kind of simulation that some serious analysts use to imagine hypothetical scenarios and make predictions in the real world.
Not that you ever get to see the players’ faces up close, but there are 26 licensed leagues among a total of 118 playable leagues from across 53 countries.
FM20 is primarily available for play on Windows or Mac computers, but there are mobile versions available for Android or Apple devices as well as for the Nintendo Switch.
Minimum Windows PC Requirements
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 (64-bit), Intel Core 2 or AMD Athlon 64 – 2.2 GHz +
CPU SPEED: Info
RAM: 2 GB
OS: Windows 7 (SP1), 8/8.1, 10 (Update 1803/April 2018 or later) – 64-bit
VIDEO CARD: Intel GMA X4500, NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT or AMD/ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 – 256MB VRAM
PIXEL SHADER: 4.0
VERTEX SHADER: 4.0
FREE DISK SPACE: 7 GB
DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 256 MB
FIFA 20
FIFA 20 comes out of Electronic Arts, a titan of the gaming industry outweighing Konami (PES2020) and Sega (FM20) combined by a factor of two. So you know they’ve got money to spend on motion capture and the licenses to so many more players and teams. FIFA 20 contains the likenesses to over 30 leagues from across the world, including more obscure nations such as Romania.
With lower system requirements than PES 2020, and broader appeal thanks to the higher number of licensed teams, players, and stadiums, FIFA 20 is the preferred choice of the casual armchair footballer. Like PES 2020, FIFA 20 offers opportunities to play both as a player and a team manager, but unlike PES 2020 or FM20, this title enables you to go from player to manager with seamless progression.
FIFA 20 provides additional and innovative means of play that the other two titles don’t. Additional game modes, such as VOLTA street football and the ability to field an Ultimate Team with your own picks from a pool of thousands of licensed players, set FIFA 20 apart from the other entries in this list.
Minimum Windows PC Requirements
CPU: Core i3-2100 / Phenom II X4 965 or better
CPU SPEED: Info
RAM: 8 GB
OS: 64-bit Windows 7/8.1/10
VIDEO CARD: Radeon HD 7850 / GeForce GTX 660 or better
PIXEL SHADER: 5.0
VERTEX SHADER: 5.0
FREE DISK SPACE: 50 GB
DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 1024 MB
Kevin Eichenberger does not run a fantasy football league in his spare time but finds FM20 to be the most attractive choice—partly because he refuses to give EA any more money and mostly because his idea of fun looks like work to some people.
Omar Zin prefers FIFA 20 not just because of it’s graphics, and definitely not because of the high number of team licenses (Juventus doesn’t exist in FIFA anymore), it’s easier to switch on consoles and play the game when you don’t have much time in your life, as compared to FM, you need hours and days to build a good team, it’s just like a full-time job.