FIFA 16 Review

Out-foxed by PES?

This year’s “FIFA 16” release promises new ways to play FUT, and a host of other improvements. Is it the football game to rule all others though? With PES continuing its remarkable upwards trajectory again this year, is FIFA starting to wobble at the top of the pile?

Gameplay:

This year’s FIFA includes a number of new gameplay elements aimed at both new and returning players, albeit most of them concern existing gameplay modes, which certainly retain a familiar feel to them. New players can activate ‘trainer’ mode, which puts a large white circle around the player they control, shows them the direction of travel, and suggests an appropriate next action. In practice, I didn’t feel it added much – player animations like calling for a through-ball are much more responsive, and without the context of highlighting which player the game was trying to have you target with the suggested action felt like you were blundering onwards.

The passing game has also been changed up. Pressing pass now only gives you a fairly lumpen pass that rolls towards your intended player. Passing with pace now requires the player to press RB+A, which rockets the ball onwards, giving you a chance to pass quickly, but also the possibility of a messy first touch. It’s a nice bit of risk versus reward, although not having a medium pace option seems a bit odd. FIFA 16 is also noticeably slower-paced than last year’s game (and similar to FIFA 14). Clearly players moan about game speed regardless of where EA land, although perhaps they could try a middle ground for once, rather than calling the pace change one of the enhancements? Meanwhile, off-the-ball AI has seen some improvements, along with the goalie AI, who are almost too good on some of the lower difficulty settings, who do their best to keep the scorelines realistic, even if the rest of the team can be breezed past by a child.

In terms of game modes, the major changes this year come to Ultimate Team, or FUT as the game likes to call it. The new draft mode again offers an element of risk versus reward, by costing a packet of coins to enter, but giving you plenty more packs than those coins would have bought if you can progress far enough. It’s a good idea, but apart from one free play, it’s effectively a paywall for your newest game mode, which feels a bit cheap, especially when the opportunity to draft in some of the best players in the game is very enticing for the more casual player. The rest of ultimate team, especially if you’ve played the game before, also seems geared up to getting you up to speed faster. By the time I’d opened my packs for being a returning player, spent a few coins in the online catalogue and played the Draft mode once, I had a half-decent set of players that were at least all gold rated throughout my team, subs and reserves. This was both a good and bad thing, because I was instantly competitive, but instantly placed into the grind for marginal improvements to my squad, which is normally where I check out every year.

Beyond the usual little iterations here and there, there is a ton of content, 26 licensed leagues, and, for the first time, the ability to play as women footballers. You can’t play them against men, and it’s limited to about a dozen international teams, but it is a start. The women’s game is rapidly growing in popularity, and it’s about time that sports games began to recognise this. I hope that the options and teams continue to grow in future years though, as it is a slightly more bare-bones start than I was expecting. Whilst there’s nothing revolutionary about FIFA 16, the sheer amount of content could keep even the most ardent fan very happy for months on end, and that has to be commended.