The unveiling of a new FIFA commercial is always a highlight, full of slick production values and plenty of cameos. This year's is no exception with the likes of Kobe Bryant making an appearance and of course superstar footballers in the form of Manchester City's Aguero and Barcelona's Lionel Messi. The United States Women's National Team player, Alex Morgan, is also included highlighting the debut of female players for the first time in FIFA history. Watch the full two minute commercial below and cue the celebrations. EA also just debuted a new trailer, so if you want to see Raheem Sterlin in his new Manchester City kit being taken down by former team mate (and cover star) Jordan Henderson, it's worth a look. It also shows off some of this year's updates including a better look at the women's national teams that are included for the first time.
The result of all of this is that FIFA 16 is full of scrappy back and forth, the ability to play patient possession football, and a greater range of passing than ever. The dominance of pace in last year’s game is over, although sometimes it does seem as though it has been offed through foul means, with through-balls, for instance, feeling conspicuously limited, unwilling to put players in the clear either up the lines or over the top of defences. But for the most part the new style of play-slower, grittier, but still skilled-seems like it’s been achieved through nurturing rather than nerfing. Draft Mode, for example, is separate from your FUT team, gifting you superstar players to fill a squad, play matches and earn Gold and Platinum player packs to add to your own spud squad. You can play the Draft for free the first time, but it’ll cost you 15,000
FIFA coins every time after that, which is serious coin for those not prepared to play the five or so hours needed to build up that sort of wealth.
A new add-on feature called Morale makes the players more competitive and improves team performance. A Morale pack for a single player starts at 50 coins and for the entire squad, at 300 coins. The controls are better, but there is so much happening that playing on a small screen makes it even more difficult and challenging. Moreover, graphical improvements like player appearance, movements, detailed stadiums and unique player reactions need at least a 5.5-inch device to be fully appreciated. Draft Mode, for all the fanfare that EA have put behind it, is a very limited add-on to Ultimate Team where you're given a choice of five random formations, five random managers, and five top players in each position, with the goal being to assemble the best possible team (with the highest possible chemistry rating) that you can. "Legend" players are apparently included, but we're yet to see one appear.
Once you've built your squad, you can head out onto the pitch to take on a series of four knockout matches against increasingly talented opposition. If you win at least one game, you'll get a reward that's the equivalent of your entry fee, generally in the form of Ultimate Team card packs. If you win all four, you get a bigger prize. We found ourselves picking up three gold card packs for winning just two matches, but then only a "jumbo" gold pack and a standard single gold pack for winning all four, so the payouts aren't necessarily all that well-structured. The main bugaboo that people will have is that it actually costs a fair bit to even enter Draft Mode. You get to play it once for free but after that, each play will cost 15,000 Ultimate Team coins or 300 FIFA Points.
In real terms, that works out to about ￡2 per play. Like we say, you'll generally win back the cost of entry, but given that you could be rewarded with gold packs that contain nothing but seven contract cards, a stadium you don't want to play in, a ball that you don't want to use, a manager from the Tippeligaen and three players from the Saudi Arabian Premier League, there's the chance that the cost of entry will appear to be a bit high. A lot more could have been done with this mode, rather than just four relatively dull knockout games, too. How about a league, or a World Cup-style affair with groups and a knockout contest to finish? How about drafting a team of players with lower skill levels being tasked with taking them into the game's addictive career mode? All of those would be preferable to what's here.
