Defending in FIFA 15 was easily the game’s weakest area. Due to the dreaded jogging animation, incredibly agile dribblers, and curious positioning by your backline, playing defense in 15 literally felt like you were on the back-foot. With FIFA 16, that is certainly not the case. The headline feature regarding defending is “Confidence in Defending” and it’s an incredibly accurate one. I was initially worried when EA released their video touting “Defensive Agility” as it appeared to ignore basic human physics but seeing and feeling how it works in action feels right. You’re now able to keep up with some, not all, of the game’s most adept dribbler’s thanks in part to these changes in locomotion and mobility. Hips swivel freely as you can now track runs and close down on defenders with swing-steps. Whereas this is great when defending 1v1 it’s the “Defend as a Unit” that gives me the most satisfaction (especially as a Chelsea supporter).
The activity levels of your defense have been magnified ten-fold as your CPU teammates play passing lanes, cover gaps and track back on defense. Although the individual ratings don’t show it, it feels as if player awareness has received a huge boost. Breaking up attacks never felt so rewarding even if it means that you have to put in the tackle yourself as for some reason Tactical Defending still lacks a “Teammate Pressure” button. One area in which FIFA 15 nailed was fouls and so far my experience with FIFA 16 has produced mixed results as some matches will see aggressive pressure applied by the CPU (especially in the Barclays Premier League) resulting in a lot of fouls while others will produce maybe 2 fouls all match (Default World Class - 10 min halves). A deeper dive into the tactics, instructions and mentalities of players and teams might lead to the root of this issue. But as of right now fouls by the CPU are a bit on the low side. I am happy to say that handballs, broken in FIFA 15, work now.
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Those directional changes come in particularly handy when shooting. The ankle and foot of players has been redone, allowing for more precise calculations of spin and trajectory. Striking the ball on one side of center now creates much more predictable spin, and makes bending a shot around a defender an absolute treat - especially with the masters of the sport. Another area where it shows that the women didn’t get equal attention is in the player models. The players are not nearly as detailed as their male counterparts, which takes away from what is otherwise a beautiful game to look out. Instead of Alex Morgan looking like her gorgeous self in FIFA 16, she instead looks incredibly awkward. It’s a shame since a lot of casual sports fans in the United States can name more women who are a part of the U.S. National Team than men.
When you eventually set your team, you will participate in a tournament (online or offline) until you are eliminated. The reward at the end will be determined by the chosen difficulty level (if playing offline) and the number of victories. You can win multiple packages or even players with FUT Draft, but to participate you will have to pay as well. All players have a token to try out FUT Draft, but from there on in you will need to buy these tokens, each costing 15,000 gold coins or the equivalent of a couple of quid. Prices aside, it seemed to us like a nice introduction to the FUT universe, especially for players who accumulate many gold coins and want to spend them on something different.
Passers may not be the prolific scorers as the strikers in the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, but as playmakers, they can actually change the complexion of the game entirely. Indicative of how good an all-around player Lionel Messi is compared to the world’s No. 1 football player, Cristiano Ronaldo, the Argentinian football sensation is actually in the list of “FIFA 16” best passers in the game of soccer, which the Portuguese superstar did not make into.
I think a fair ranking would have been to put both in the same tier. Coming to the attacking players. Neymar should be in no way a tier up than Gareth Bale. Same is the case with Benzema I think. Whatever Benzema did or did not do last season, there is very little reason for anyone to rank him in the same category as Rooney and Muller. All in all, I think Messi deserved to be ranked a tier above everyone else.
