FIFA 16

Each year, just as surely as you can expect an exciting match between Barça and Real in El Clásico, you can count on EA Sports to put out a new version of their hugely popular soccer franchise FIFA. This year’s most interesting new feature has to be the introduction of several women’s national teams. But they’ve certainly made some changes off the field as well. Keep reading our review of FIFA 16 to find out everything you need to know about the latest installment, as well as some important game day analysis.

Just looking at the list of stuff EA Sports put into FIFA 2016, it’s pretty much everything you could ask for. More than 650 clubs and 30 whole leagues made it into the game, all with official licenses. This includes the top 4 English leagues including the Premier League, Germany’s Bundesliga 1 and 2, Spain’s BBVA League, the American MLS, and many more. And alongside more than 50 men’s national teams, the ladies are taking the field for the first time ever. Probably the most controversial new feature, even leading to attempts to boycott the game in some places. While we’re going to take a closer look at that later on, first let’s check out the various game modes.

Football is Life

After you win your first match, you can jump right into all that FIFA 16 has to offer. Career Mode, online matches, Ultimate Team, Match Day, or a quick match ("Kick-Off") – it’s all up to you what you feel like playing. You can start multiple careers at the same time, no matter whether you want to play the whole team or concentrate on a single player – and like in FIFA 15, you can also create and train your own player. They do a good job of realistically simulating a soccer career, too – young players often have to spend a couple of games on the bench before they can take the field. Of course, you can take control of any one of the 650+ clubs available in the course of a career, or start the game with your favorite team.

“Ultimate Team” features a new draft system with several innovative features. This game mode allows you to put together a team composed of whatever players you want. This is assuming you’ve got the money for it, of course, which you earn by winning matches, naturally. If you don’t feel like putting in the time to get the cash the old-fashioned way, you can always put up real money in exchange for Coins, the in-game currency. This has aroused its fair share of “pay-2-win” complaints – everyone knows money can’t score goals, but having the right talent on your team sure makes it a hell of a lot easier.

The new FUT Draft, on the other hand, allows you to assemble a super-squad by picking one player for each position from a random draw of five players. The catch is that you can only use your dream team in four matches. Microtransactions play a role here too though, which tends to leave a bad taste in most people’s mouths. Luckily there are enough other game modes to choose from. If you like playing against other human players, you can always play as any of the licensed teams in an online match.

The End of Full-Steam-Ahead Soccer

Actually scoring a goal now requires a lot more of a feel for handling the ball – if you try to rush it too much, the only people cheering are going to be the other team’s fans, or maybe the ball boy. On the other hand, the AI doesn’t really seem to know how to react to shots that ricochet off the goal posts, often resulting in a second chance. And the various difficulty levels means that each player can adjust things to their own skill level before the match begins.

In general, you’re able to make changes to your tactics and lineup before each match. You’ll also have to make sure you’ve got substitute players that fit in with the tactical direction you want to take – it’s kind of hard to maintain a defensive orientation when all you’ve got on the bench are strikers. One thing that really adds to the depth of the gameplay is that you can give instructions to individual players. For example, you can have your forwards stay on the opposite half of the field, or allow them to fall back into defensive positions. It’s also really easy to set their behavior for when they get possession of the ball or suddenly find themselves facing a counteroffensive from the other team. All these things can bet set and changed however you like in the middle of a match via the pause menu. They’ve also added more options for corner kicks – for example, you can use the directional pad to instruct your players to stand at the edge of the penalty area for a quick counter, or put them directly in front of the goal line. Unfortunately, though, they don’t give you these options for free kicks.

Portraying Women Realistically

The tournament had a sizeable viewership in North America, but not as many people watched it live in Europe due to the extremely late kick-off times (when the final match in Vancouver started at 4pm local time, it was midnight in Continental Europe). Nevertheless, it was a major international success. It’s actually a pretty clever move on EA Sports’ part to focus on the national teams first. All the well-known names are there, and skeptics are more likely to give a USA vs. Germany match a shot than attempt to play FC Kansas City vs. the Seattle Reign. They’ve done a great job of authentically replicating the feel of women’s soccer. The pace is a tick slower, flanking isn’t as precise, zone defense and pressing not as polished, and goalkeepers make a few more mistakes. This isn’t meant to denigrate women’s soccer in any way; in this case it’s just a reality of the sport. And they’ve done an awesome job implementing the gameplay and creating a new gameplay style for FIFA – there’s more time to react to circumstances on the pitch, and team play also works a bit differently.

The ladies themselves look extremely realistic, thanks to the magic motion-capture filming. Considering all the exaggerated and objectifying depictions of women in other sports and fighting games, the developers at EA Canada have come closer than ever to creating a realistic – and beautiful – portrayal of women in a video game. It’s too bad, though, that the Women’s World Cup is not available as a tournament mode, and without Japan they’re missing one of the best teams in the world. If you’re really familiar with the women's soccer scene, you’ll probably also notice that certain prominent players are absent. This has to do with licensing issues; or to be more specific, you can blame the NCAA’s bylaws. Several of these athletes play for college programs with strict monetary compensation rules, and their likenesses cannot be used for commercial purposes. Despite the fact that EA Sports had licenses for the national teams, they grudgingly removed 13 players from the in-game squads so as to protect them from any future eligibility issues with the NCAA.

Right in the Middle of Things

On the other hand, the animations for when you make a play are so repetitive that it almost feels like you’re watching a highlight reel over and over again. Like last year, the ball and the pitch itself look excellent and play really well. The depictions of the various stadiums already did a great job of capturing the atmosphere of a professional soccer venue, and they just keep getting better. Once again, you can play in several of the game’s top stadiums, but some things are just a bit too familiar. Like before, the issue is mostly with the fans – while they get excited and actively respond to the action on the field with chants, cheers, and applause, they’re still mostly too stiff and lacking in detail.

The commentators do their job well, mostly recognizing what’s going on and providing jargon-laced commentary for all the soccer insiders. EA’s done a good job of using the official licenses (i.e. selling point #1) to create an atmosphere where you really feel like you’re right in the middle of things.