What makes the Premier League the greatest in world football? The presentation. What makes FIFA 16 the greatest football game in the world? Yep, you’ve guessed it, it’s the presentation. Matches start with all the pomp, fanfair and ceremony expected with a FIFA title but this time the presentation has been carefully choreographed with a much more realistic TV camera viewing dynamic than last year cutting to scenes of the fantastically superior rendered fans jumping around in a living, breathing stadia not seen in the franchise before. Your computer controlled teammates appear to have not heard of the word positioning.
The other major issue in FIFA 16 is defending. Yet again this side of the ball has been neglected is favour of making the game look prettier (which they failed at as well). They run off in completely the wrong directions often at the most inappropriate times. The full-backs have become so bad at staying in position that there is now a slider to modify how well they position - though it doesn’t make much difference anyway. Players still get lost under the high-ball and often fall over when attempting to head the ball away. This preference to spending more time on floor than in air is probably down to the physics engine. The last line of said defence is the FIFA 16 goalkeeper who still fails to make the most pedestrian of saves while his computer-controlled counterpart pulls off stops that would make creators of Star Wars Battlefront proud (i.e. the fact that the game kept being pushed back and eventually canceled/stopped).
This is what it feels like to try to score in FIFA 16 at first. You need to be good at passing, controlling and going with the flow of the defenders in order to find a chance. You can power a ball from 20 yards out with the right player (I’ve done it once or twice with Schweinsteiger or Robben) but the average striker needs to be more clever with how they attack in the box. Speaking of Ultimate Team mode, it is pretty much impossible to go back and start over once you get the metaphorical ball rolling. I decided I wanted Secretary of Defense Tim Howard to be my captain but accidentally clicked on the guy next to him, whose name I don’t even know, and I couldn’t go back to fix it. The game just kept forcing me forward through more menu and tutorial nonsense.
The graphics are also something that has to be mentioned in this review as the players have never looked this realistic in a FIFA game due to the brand new face scans of over 200 BPL players. Along with players looking extremely life like, FIFA 16 features all 20 BPL stadiums that look extremely impressive. Even the pitch has had some changes to make it look more life like! Boot marks and slides tackles will mark the pitch, and matches played in the rain will cause the pitch to turn muddy.
The “emotional intelligence” that EA has bestowed upon the rest squad creates an interesting element of randomness - don’t expect to see any biting, but players railing at referees mid-game, sometimes to the detriment of your play, certainly adds to the experience - as does their unilateral decision to “park the bus” when leading in an important game. In addition, the previously frustrating menus are now slick, making a run through the near-unchanged career mode less of a chore. There’s also a greater sense of solidity to the FIFA 16 players (if you understand what I mean); tangles of feet result in frustratingly authentic fouls; goalies keep the ball out with a desperate scramble of arms and legs; and easing defenders off the ball as you run in on goal feels just right.
FIFA 16 is a sleek, new addition to the football franchise and EA Sports has done a fantastic job in improving the most critical areas on the field and off the field. A game of FIFA 16 is now almost as good as a real game of football. EA Canada, much like their PES counterparts, are stuck between a rock and a hard place. What is the perfect FIFA game? This is certainly the most modern, perhaps the most feature-stuffed version out of the box yet, and on the default settings it plays a fast-brand of attacking football that requires relearning much of what you thought you knew. But the alternative is stagnation. I for one love the changes that have been made this year on the pitch (those unskippable little emotional reaction cutscenes aside), but the lack of growth elsewhere is troublesome, as are the online bugs that continue to plague FIFA launches.
