FIFA has always been odd in the fact that it’s the only EA series that’s not intended first and foremost for the North American market. This makes absolute sense, however, given that in practically every country outside of USA and Canada, soccer rules supreme. Quite suddenly, however, we’ve seen a paradigm shift that is seeing the North American market become a priority. Last year’s FIFA 15 was picked up by an entirely new audience riding the wave of the exciting 2014 FIFA World Cup and this year sees that audience increase even more after the sensational 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. While women’s sports popularity almost always play second fiddle to men’s, the recent Women’s World Cup proved immensely popular.
To download the FIFA 16 Ultimate Team iOS app you’ll need 1.4GB of free space and it’s compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad running iOS 8.0 or later. In the words of the App Store description, “Play beautiful with a newer, better, and faster FIFA experience on mobile! FIFA 16 Ultimate Team lets you celebrate every awesome attack, nail-biting goal, and powerful win like never before with console-like graphics. Experience the most realistic set of football features on the App Store.” FIFA 16 Ultimate Team offers an all-new engine and the ability to build and manage your ultimate team. Users can choose from more than 500 licensed teams and over 10,000 players, and the app also features player exchange for trading players. You can find the iOS FIFA 16 Ultimate Team app at this iTunes page.
FIFA 16's most notable (and some players would agree, most crucial) changes are on the pitch. If you've had a chance to jump into the franchise in recent years, you'd find that players would focus their squads on dribbling and pace, which resulted in quick through balls and volleys to the forwards. Developers have noticed this too, so this year's edition has seen a variety of gameplay tweaks to make the midfield play more relevant than it's been for a while. It starts with the passing mechanics, which now have an element of uncertainty. Not only might your pass go in a slightly wrong direction, it may well be intercepted. Players will need to use the new precision passing to create the sharp ball movements of old. While you can still cross the ball, players have the option to use no touch dribbling and feints, to get by defenders.
More than twenty million people tuned into watch the final against Japan, which set a viewership record for any televised soccer game in the United States. EA has shrewdly taken advantage of this historical success and has added women into the series for the first time, alongside a bevy of updates. Of course all of this would be rather useless if the gameplay was a letdown. Last year FIFA 15 suffered from two major faults, an overreliance on speed and horrible goalkeeping mechanics. This year both have been looked at and massively tweaked. I really don’t think I can stress this enough, the goalkeepers ACTUALLY WORK. They actually make saves you’d expect, they catch and punch the ball like their real life counterparts and they don’t get confused when the ball takes a slight deflection.
It’s better than that because now they’re actually difficult to beat. A one on one situation is now no longer a guaranteed goal, you have to think about what you’re going to do and there’s every chance the AI will outfox you. They probably hold onto the ball a little too much for my liking, seriously sometimes it’s as if their gloves are made of glue, but this is just such a massive improvement from last year. Presentation in FIFA is undoubtedly one of the genre’s best. From stat overlays, to in-game updates from around the league, to slick menus, FIFA continues to raise the bar. FIFA 16 sees the introduction of the authentic German Bundesliga package after introducing the Barclays Premier League last year.
Hopefully next year we’ll see an expansion to include Spain’s La Liga or Italy’s Serie A. In-game, the crowd is boisterous as ever as you’ll hear familiar chants such as “When the Saints go Marching in” from Southampton supporters or Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge army yelling “Jose Mourinhoooooooo”. Commentary has been improved although as with any game, you’ll hear recycled lines as you pile up the hours played. The Soundtrack is catch as ever and new weather effects such as “hazy” and random rain showers are now available. Nine new stadiums have been added bringing the grand total to 78 (50 authentic, 28 generic).
