FIFA 16 is a game about balance in all its incarnations, a football game that understands the importance of spectacle and the impact that superstars can have, but also asks gamers to carefully move the ball around in order to unlock stubborn defenses and deliver a goal at a crucial moment. EA Sports delivered a complete game last year, and this means that, with this new installment, they had no revolutionary features to offer and instead focused on improving all the core mechanics as much as possible.
To counteract that, the game is much more physical. There are more tussles for the ball. There’s more aerial battling. It's odd then, that the referees will blow up for even the tiniest amount of contact. Dear EA, football is a contact game. Yours sincerely, a football fan. Thankfully, the shooting and the goalkeepers, which I took great issue with last year, have returned to form this year. In fact, I much prefer the shooting and the goalkeeping in this year’s FIFA to that in PES. It has a bit more of a zip to it and is infinitely more satisfying. Unfortunately though, keepers are beat at their near post far too often, but that’s me nitpicking.
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FIFA 16 also boasts an improved career mode that adds Pre-Season Tournaments and Player Training to the mix. In the pre-season tournaments, the player’s club will be invited to three out of a possible nine tournament played in Europe, Latin America, Asia or North America. The matches allow players to hone the tactics and skills of their team to get a feel for where they stand before the games start to count. In Player Training, managers are able to train their squad to increase player development, allowing up to five squad players to train from numerous training drills. This mode allows more growth for young players to increase transfer values or form a formidable roster of rookies.
Career Mode also brings with it year-long scout reports, friendly subs, improved transfers and the ability to sign free agents outside of the transfer window. Like playing against a side that parks the bus, FIFA 16 challenges you to orchestrate your attack and execute it with skill. Getting through the midfield is tougher than last year. Although the new driven pass is useful in putting some pace on the ball, it's risk/reward because while your pass can be zipped into tight spaces, your teammate may bobble it.
Defenses are smart about surrounding teammates in good areas in the midfield, so you have to carefully (and quickly) assess when you have the chance to effectively use this driven pass. A.I. teams also do well by getting out of your high press better, passing out of the back effectively and switching sides. So, I'm sure the very perceptive among you have figured out how disappointed I am with FIFA 16 UT. EA has turned the best football series on the App Store into a game about menus with the occasional basic ball-kicking. You'll spend much more time going through badly-designed and unnecessarily complicated menus than playing football. Where does that leave FIFA 16 UT? Well, if you want to play a CCG, there are much better CCGs out there than this clearly Pay-to-Win game.
If you want to manage and build a team, you can go with PES Club Manager instead since its interface is much better and the whole team performance depends on attributes rather than chemistry. If you're planning on getting FIFA 16 UT because you missed a good football game on mobile, I hope you still have FIFA 14 on your device because this stripped-down version will only satisfy the die-heart UT fans and no one else. Not all is bad though; you can now celebrate your goals in many different ways.
