While the scouting systems of FIFA 16 have seen attention over the years, this is an area that has been all but ignored, yet the two really do need tying together. Surely part of scouting and signing a tremendous young player is in how he then fits into your squad? What's the point of managing Real Madrid and finding a wunderkind at AFC Bournemouth, if you can only bed him in by forcing him into the first team at 17-years-old? The best you'll get these days is an email from one of the players asking for a game. The outcome is either you play him and he thanks you, or you don't, he gets grumpy and eventually asks for a transfer.
Martin Tyler, Alan Smith, Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend have all returned to the booth for another year, with Geoff Shreeves providing injury updates throughout each and every match while Alan McInally will give updates on other matches occurring during gameplay. New commentary has been added to keep every broadcast fresh, with much of the commentary surrounding the results of the 2014 World Cup. The broadcast graphics for pre-match have been upgraded to give a better feel of watching a match live, and those who follow the Premier League are going to recognize every graphic being accurate to broadcasts as well. EA Sports outdid themselves in creating an authentic experience, which bodes well not only for this game, but for future versions of the franchise.
PES 2015 attempts to take on FIFA’s hugely popular
FIFA 16 Ultimate Team mode with their own online mode called myClub.The basic premise is similar to FUT 16 with gamers trying to amass players to create a fantasy team of superstars. Konami have even included their own take on the addictive pack opening system and the mode does feature some nice additions such as manager ratings and a team spirit system for lesser skilled players at your club. The Champions League tournament is amazing though and offers fans a world class mode but it’s not enough compared to all FIFA has going for it. The lack of proper image importing on next gen consoles means you can’t even have a sponsor on the unlicensed kits which isn’t Konami’s fault, but it still suffers because of it. It’s an area Konami need to work on for next year.
Within a few games it becomes abundantly clear that midfield battles are rare in FIFA 16. Too often the ball bypasses the midfield with one or two passes. Counter attacks continue to rule the proceedings in a manor that does not mirror the modern game. We would love to see the game have more midfield involvement and this could be achieved by reducing the impact of speed and the success of “Hollywood” balls being attempted from defenders. We would all love to see more instances where teams try and attack and have to play the ball backwards as the defensive AI performs a stellar job of blocking the channels and covering players. As it stands FIFA 16 is exhilarating with amazing end-to-end action, particularly online where the possibility of having a match with less that 3 - 4 goals is impossible. But for FIFA to be deemed the ultimate football simulation it has to accurately recreate the action on the pitch by areas and in competitive matches this mainly takes place in the middle third.
This year, EA Sports is aiming to play up the game’s emotional side, and it achieves this almost entirely through its audio-visuals. It’s about animation and atmosphere: players will more frequently react to on-field incidents, and crowds will bellow team-specific chants from the stands of all 20 authentically modelled Premier League stadiums. This is the sort of thing FIFA has done well for a while, and this year it does it better than ever before. As always, ball physics have been improved, and in noticeable fashion. The way that the round piece of stitched rubber moves around the pitch is a beauty to behold, even more-so when it slides under a goalie or careens off of a post and into the net. Goalies have also been reworked from the ground up, though, meaning that they’re more realistic than ever. As such, you can expect better awareness, in addition to much more lifelike save animations. Hell, they even challenge more.
There’s also the addition of loan players, which allow players to spend EA coins they’ve obtained from playing the game in order to purchase the likes of Gareth Bale and Robben for a limited amount of matches. This is a nice inclusion given that many of us will never earn enough gold coins to buy these players outright, though it did lead to me facing several teams that had loaned these players, thus making many matches feel repetitive as they inevitably based their whole attacking play around them.
