FIFA is two things: an international soccer organization whose staggering corruption collapsed into self-parody earlier this year, and a multi-million-selling series of sports video games made by Electronic Arts. Today we will discuss the latest instance of the latter. However, those defensive changes - along with other tweaks and fixes to the AI - are what they should really have been bellowing about.
FIFA 16, which came out this week, is pretty much the same thing as FIFA 15. The menus are the same. The controls are the same. The graphics are a little better, with more dynamic lighting and, if I’m not mistaken, slightly shinier balls. Player modeling is more comprehensive; sides like Southampton, the greatest yet somehow most underrated team in the Premier League, now have most of their members replicated with the same level of detail lavished upon the likes of Lionel Messi.
With FIFA 16, the game finally feels like it’s starting to realize the promise that it’s shown for the last five or six versions. The simple reason for this is that in the game’s single player modes, you mostly get a realistic challenge when you’re playing at the edge of your comfort zone. No longer are career mode games that you SHOULD lose only lost because you couldn’t beat the keeper with 12 shots before the opposition suddenly sprinted up the pitch in the 88th minute and scored with their only attempt.
Attention to detail is something that I’m quite a stickler for, and FIFA passes the eye test here. The likenesses of far more players have been captured and look more like their real life counterpart. We're not quite to the point where everyone is going to get that treatment, but most of the top leagues are now covered. Even finer than this is that referees will now use the vanishing spray to mark off free kicks for the spot and distance.
What's impressive about this is that the spray will actually vanish as time moves on in the game, so after a free kick a player might notice a minute later that the spot and line drawn have faded out but not entirely. It doesn't affect gameplay at all, but this kind of detail shows just what kind of work was put into the finished product. Instead, FIFA 16 offers a more slow and methodical football game, where outsmarting your opponents is really the only true way to success. That’s not a criticism, just an observation.
A criticism is that sometimes slow build up play can be a little laborious. If you want to hit a team on the counter, it’s now harder than ever. For fans of a certain generation, there's only ever been one truly brilliant football video game. So, enter this year's must-have for avid gamers: FIFA 16. Possibly even worse than that are the connectivity issues. During our tests we couldn't connect to an online game and play against another opponent after several attempts and the game regularly loses connection while playing, forfeiting the match.
FIFA 16 is a beautiful game about the beautiful game. Driven by a need for authenticity, EA has created an unparalleled soccer simulation that improves upon FIFA 15 in every aspect. While the game’s elaborate controls and elite presentation still make it challenging for the uninitiated, steps have been taken to help welcome new players.
