One of FIFA's greatest strengths has always been the sheer volume of licensed teams and players it gives you access to, and FIFA 16 is no different. Just about every major league and team and player on the planet is included here, and as much as we'd like to pretend that it isn't, that is a pretty huge feature advantage. Major League Soccer isn't a big or important league in the grand scheme of things but, darn it, it's OUR league and having it included here is very much appreciated. Likewise, having our real USMNT fully present and accounted for makes a difference. These are the teams and players I actually want to play with, and it is nice to not have to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it.
While they are still some the best players to have at your disposal in the game they do not have it all their own way this time round. 'FIFA 16' promises "confidence in defending" and that boast is correct. Computer controlled defenders now mark correctly, intercept passes and react accordingly when faced with fast forwards and the chosen tactics and formations are crucial. You'll need to have the tactical nous of Jose Mourinho to set your team up correctly. I am on my own as the friend with FIFA 16 at the moment so I can’t comment on Pro Clubs mode but you can carry your pro across from last year and I am pretty glad to not be starting from the beginning again.
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Gameplay feels better this year and seems to be a little more helpful with achieving intercepts, drawing fouls and having your defence and keeper actually manage to stop the other team from scoring. I’m still trying to figure out quite how the AI decides to play with a formidable Bolton Wanderers team almost proving too much for my Manchester United line-up even though I’d breezed past Bayern Munich in the previous match. I don’t play on an easy level either! Remember, on World Class level Bolton Wanderers might as well be Barcelona.
The animations seem more real when players interact and conversate. It seems for the pitch to be more alive in certain situations. Even if Electronic Arts introduced new animations in FIFA 16, there are still moments when the characters feel very robotic. They also go in a non natural way to their fixed positions to trigger the animations imposed by the situation. Although they have hair effects, and have a distinct movement, at least for me the female teams act like the male characters, but with weaker stats in some areas, but still having high passing statistics. As we have seen over the FIFA games since we made the jump to the current generation of consoles, shooting continues to be tweaked so that we see more real-life ball movement. FIFA 16 is no different, with more looping shots on display and further tweaking to finesse shots (to ensure that there are fewer “cheap” shot spots on the pitch). It is always awesome to see a ball truly knuckle on its way towards the goal, and it adds another layer of realism to the game.
The first thing that you need to know about Pro Clubs is that the two biggest “cheats” from last year have been (mostly) fixed. No longer can players just head down the sideline and then dance their way into the box with ease. While dribblers will still have more success than people afraid of the trick stick, defenders seem much more prepared for you to try and cut inside than they were in FIFA 15. Also, for those of you that either took advantage or just hated people that used this, the ridiculously long-range finesse shot and looping power shots are much harder to execute. They also are not nearly as consistent or predictable, which will come as a relief to players that hate seeing opposition players taking advantage of small “cracks” in the realistic gameplay.
However, despite the major improvements, FIFA 16 still has one major issue; one that has continued to plague the franchise over the last few years: it’s not a massive leap over the recent installments. It’s still an exceptional football simulator that you will get hours and hours’ worth of replayability from, but there’s still that nagging feeling that you’ve forked out ￡50 for what is essentially the same game. Nevertheless, with Konami immensely upping their game with Pro Evolution Soccer 16, a major overhaul can’t be too far around the corner.
