 | A very good game on the precipice of greatness. |
FIFA 16 is a very good game. The graphics and presentation remain excellent. The no-touch dribbling is a fantastic addition to the repertoire of skill moves. The A.I., rather than stop and stare vacantly as opposing players ran past them with ease, actually try to defend. They finally added women’s teams! For all of these reasons, as well as my addiction to the beautiful game, this game will consume a large chunk of my life for the next year. But the improvements in gameplay, unfortunately, make the lack of innovation in certain areas all the more glaring.
I spend the vast majority of my time in FIFA, and other sports games as well, playing the game’s single-player career mode, taking a team to the top of the virtual world over the course of a few seasons. But the despite the various changes to improve the game this year, FIFA 16 appears to give this portion of the game the short shrift.
One of my favorite things about watching soccer is the wildly contrasting styles of opposing teams. Trying to figure out how each team adjusts their tactics game to game is how I learn more about the game and appreciate it on a deeper level. It is in this aspect where FIFA is at its most disappointing. There is a severe lack of diversity in the play styles of other teams. According to this game, every team in the world tries to play through teams as if they’re Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona in different jerseys. In this sense, FIFA 16 is still far from being the realistic soccer simulation that it aspires to be. You don’t face teams that play more long balls, change the way they defend depending on the opposition, or even changing formations.There is an option in the menus to create “team sheets” to create formations for teams that will be saved for when you want to use them; just letting the CPU choose from those formations would help a lot in this regard.
The unvaried tactics of A.I controlled teams is symptomatic of the general air of sterility that pervades most of the career mode. You can give press conferences before games, but they’re extremely simplistic and carry no ramifications whether you do them or not. Rivalry games also don’t feel especially different. The atmosphere in big games can contribute greatly to creating the special occasion that these games are capable of being, but the atmosphere in FIFA 16 doesn’t see a difference between a pre-season friendly and El Clasico.
The lack of innovation in most of the career mode is made much more frustrating because the one new feature added to the mode is excellent. Weekly training allows you to develop the skills of up to five players in order to improve the chosen players faster. I really liked having this extra layer of control on how players get better, and it added something unique to a mode that was severely lacking in creativity. It is a feature that gives me hope that Electronic Arts can make the requisite changes to make the truly special soccer game that they could make. They’re not that far away.
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