Most of the long standing modes are unchanged apart from a couple of additional features, the majority of which are in the FIFA money maker, FIFA 16 Ultimate Team. With the introduction of Loan Players (using EA Coins in the catalogue) I think they’ve attempted to narrow the gap between people who spend cash to buy packs and those who don’t. I felt this just forces people’s hands to go for a crazily good team immediately which reduces longevity. When you’ve been up against or have had in your team the likes of Bale, Rodriguez and even Messi it can only make anything less feel inadequate. There are absolutely zero brand new modes to report except the return of being able to create offline Tournaments, which are handy for customizing the set-up for having a knockout tourney with a couple of mates. You can also start a new tournament based on real ones such as the FA Cup in England or the Coupe de Ligue in France.
Subtle visual improvements in FIFA 16 add up to a drastic revamp although some players do look overly musculus in comparison to their real life counterparts, Ricky Lambert of Liverpool is a prime example. Goalkeeping animations have drastically changed the way you shoot and goalkeepers finally feel like a challenge instead of a certain goal every time you are through 1v1, and this helps reward creativity in shooting, resulting in some fantastic goals that look like they have been taken off the television screen. So, as ever, the advice is to avoid this if you own a recent FIFA; get FIFA 15 if you have a PS4 and a burning need to play a football game on it, or just buy this if you simply must stay up to date. In a world with no FIFA, producing this game would get you labeled as a witch and burned for using magic, but in a world where FIFA comes out every year, there’s no reason to lose FIFA 15 and get this one.
The Pro Evolution Soccer demo this year is very good and you may want to see how the full game fares in November before shelling out the money for FIFA 16. Or not. Who am I? Your mother? How these things are even possible to exist isn’t clear, but they do. They by no means break the game, but they might break a few controllers. Player faces have always been a little hit-and-miss within FIFA, and the dichotomy is particularly noticeable this year. Every single Premier League player within sniffing distance of the first team has had their whole head scanned into the game, meaning that if you’re playing with Premier League clubs you’re in for a treat. Each crease and crevasse on Joleon Lescott’s forehead is just so, and Hugo Lloris is a digital dreamboat.
FIFA 16 triumphs over FIFA 15 simply because of its seamless pass and play favouring mechanism, the centre of the park is now as dangerous as the flanks. The decoy jostles have been replaced now with standard right stick moves and a more controlled R1 button and L2 button triggered dribbles set. If FIFA 15 was a treat for the attackers, FIFA 16 emerges as a tactician’s masterpiece, because a slide tackle in FIFA 16 can actually win you a match. If you mistime it, you will not only receive a lecturing from the referee and maybe a card, but you will also provoke the victim to get on his feet and shove you in your ribs. Little moments within the game that increases the worth of every game, whether you are playing the Champions League Quarter Finals against Real Madrid or warming up to the season with a Friendly against Swansea.
It's not possible to play as women in FUT, and there are several reasons for that. First of all, there are only twelve teams and secondly, it's not possible to play men against women. EA justifies this decision with the fact that women's football and men's football are not comparable, and therefore it's not possible to let them play against each other. When we finally picked up a controller and tried Sweden's national women's team, we had hoped for a bigger change. In the end it's still football though, although it seemed like female players fell down a little bit more easily, which invites a more tactical play-style where the ball will do more of the work. This was the only difference we immediately felt.
