EA Sports have always strived for realism in their FIFA franchise. FIFA 15 upholds the series' lifelong tradition of making marked improvements upon the previous installments thus successfully taking steps toward capturing the true essence of the beautiful game with every sequel. This year, EA Sports do have a very refined product in their hands packed with new features and graphical improvements. Though there’s no doubt that FIFA 15 is the premier soccer game on the market, there are a number of problem areas where EA falls short. EA has always taken great pride in the level of detail of leagues included in the game, with logos, rosters and team ratings all typically spot-on. But this year’s version struggles to offer an accurate replication of certain leagues, with Major League Soccer, the English Premier League, and Italian Serie A notably wayward.
You're flooded with angry outbursts from disgruntled players, and screams of joy as that vital goal finally comes. And that in turn helps to make this the most authentic and emotionally-invested Fifa yet. Corner flags move, goal frames shake, and animated LED ad boards around stadiums really bring FIFA 15 to life like never before. The game plays much like last year's version. Although I found it slightly harder to score this time around thanks to revamped defending. The battle for the ball in the midfield also seems more prevalent.
When playing a game in FIFA 15, there are subtle things in the presentation that add up and stop me from skipping certain animations and replays. Usually, when a ball goes off the field or after a foul, I quickly tap a button to skip. In this version of FIFA, EA Sports has added what's called Emotional Intelligence. Players now have emotional responses based on what happens on the field. For example, when a goalkeeper blocks a shot, you can see his teammates giving him a celebratory hug or chest pump. When a striker misses a few shots, you can actually see his teammates getting frustrated, especially the ones that were wide open. After a bad tackle, you can see players get up to confront the opponent.
The gameplay this year is noticeably better. There are a lot of minute changes to the core gameplay that the series has retained which make for a fluid, fun and responsive experience. The players, in general, feel a lot better to control. It is possible to outplay defenders just by precise timing of the left stick as opposed to the last game in which you had to use tricks in order to do the same. The ball feels more like an independent entity in this game. Usually, the team in possession used to have the ball glued to them so it was really difficult to intercept the ball. This year, passing is riskier so you have to actually plan your moves carefully before you actually think of advancing as a team. However, lob through balls remain overpowered. Often times, defenders would give the attacking player so much space that a simple lob through pass can tear the defense apart. Aside from this, defending seems to have improved a bit. Players contain smartly and make good tackles so long as the tackle button is pressed on time.
Earlier this week we told you about the big FIFA 15 update which added price ranges into the game. There has been a lot of discussion on this, most of it negative but now we can see that EA has just issued a new FIFA 15 price range update affecting players such as Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez MOTM. We spoke about some of the reaction that FIFA 15 players in the UK had made on social media this week, with many players hurling insults at EA over what they perceive to be a bad decision made by the developer.
Also the big FIFA 15 1.05 update that landed on PS4, as well as on other platforms. The big talking point since the update, is the fact that EA has now effectively shown another red card to persistent FIFA 15 coin sellers. We have told you in the past that EA was finding ways to eliminate this naughty trend in the game, at the same time implementing other changes to make it more balanced and ‘fair’ for other players using the FIFA 15 transfer market. Now, we can safely say that EA has dropped a few bombs and unsurprisingly, the FIFA 15 Twitter brigade is out in full force – hurling insults and abuse at EA in the process since they can’t cheat the system any more.
