FIFA 16 was released a few months ago and the game has received great reviews, with some saying that it is one of the best sports titles ever. The game brings lots of changes and improvements that players will notice after leaving FIFA 15. The most trumpeted enhancement to this year’s version of FIFA is the off the ball dribbling, where you are now able to shimmy and fake your movements off the ball to trick the opponent into moving the wrong direction.
However it’s not all great as the passing in FIFA still feels overly sluggish and you will quickly realize that you will want to use through balls far more often than standard passing to get that fluid motion that you will need to overrun your opponents. The other visible inclusion is the selection of women’s national teams (minus the highly-rated Japan due to what I assume are licensing reasons), which you can use in one-off matches or an unbranded definitely-not-the-World-Cup tournament structure. They exist in their own separate eco-system, so the lack of a full league structure (somewhat understandable, as the domestic women’s game hasn’t got close to the popularity of the international tournaments) means you can’t yet manage a side in career mode or anything.
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This is particularly dangerous in your own box, as even if the ball is won, making any kind of physical impression on the opposition often ends with a generous penalty being awarded. PES 2016’s referees are too lenient, so neither game is yet to nail the art of totting up and dishing out punishment when it’s truly needed. Tackles in FIFA 15 either resulted in success or failure. Things are much less rigid this year, with random bounces and deft touches of the ball affecting where the dome drops. Two players can slam into each other with neither of them winning possession, the ball then pinging off elsewhere instead.
Straight off the bat EA wanted to set up my FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) profile. This teaches the basics of Ultimate Team and opens a few packs for free. Just think of it as that dodgy looking toner standing outside the local store, trying to get the kids hooked on his wears; Try this for free, but you’re gonna need to pay if you want a real hit! Better players come from better packs, and they will cost. Players can use the in-game currency to purchase packs, but the the game dishes that out like Scrooge McDuck.
This time around, a new way to play FUT has emerged. They call it the draft, and it allows you to pick players for each position on your squad. I’m not talking about shitty footballers, either; these are good, high-rated players with rankings that top out at about 84/100. As such, you’ll likely be able to create a pretty strong team, although the catch is that you can only use it in draft mode and even then, the mode is locked behind a pay wall. To play it, you’ll have to earn opportunities by playing, or spend FIFA coins. I assume that you can also keep playing if you win, but I didn’t fare that well online.
It's maddening, beautiful and downright frustrating all in the same utterance; an unpredictable, oftentimes surprising, experience that gives and takes in the same breath. It's more like the sport that it's trying to replicate than ever before and oddly enough that's not always as laudable as one might think. Though not as refined as optimally as one would hope, (its shortcomings symptomatic of the constraints inherent with the annualized release model) there is undoubted progress in the right direction here. It's just as well, too, what with resurgence Pro Evolution Soccer as the contender confidently staking its claim as the best football game around with its latest release. Thankfully for us, it's looking like a two-horse race from here on out so let's cross our fingers and hope that it's not won on points difference like a certain league was a couple of years ago. As you might be able to tell, I'm still a bit bitter.
