Electronic Arts' all-new "FIFA 16" may have all the juicy modifications and updates fans didn't get from the predecessor, but it still lacks one major element to boost its worldwide reach - the absence of Japan's women's team. Off-the-ball controls that help the gameplay stay on the ball. No touch is cool, and it adds more depth to the gameplay. It’s another useful tool to get past defenders, and I couldn’t help but smirk after pulling off my first few fakes. While the mechanic can be immensely satisfying, I can see it ending up as another interesting concept that EA will simplify and downplay in future FIFAs.
It's important to separate "FIFA 16" the game, created and distributed by EA Games, and FIFA the organization. Soccer's governing body is anything but inclusive of women. Julie Foudy said it best in her open letter to the organization: "It's abundantly clear that [FIFA's] mission to provide football everywhere and for all really means 'everywhere and for men.'" And there is plenty of evidence to support that claim, including the lack of funding for women's soccer around the world (see: the Matildas' protests), allowing the women's 2015 World Cup to be played on artificial turf, and the absurd disparity in World Cup prize pool money between the men's and women's competitions. Add all that to FIFA president Sepp Blatter's being questioned again regarding corruption allegations and it does not look good for the home team.
Players adjust their bodies while making slide tackles or blocks in order to get just a toe or a knee to the ball, rather than ignoring it once locked into an animation. Keepers are more human - rushing from the area to clear over hit through balls and adopting better angles at shots from out wide, but also flapping at crosses and sometimes out-jumped by taller forwards. Referees use vanishing spray at free kicks which, like in real life, stays on the turf for a few minutes afterwards. In isolation none of these adjustments constitute a selling point, yet together they again bring the series one step closer to what you see on Sky Sports of a Sunday afternoon.
The downside to the more cerebral action is that it slightly diminishes tactical variety. An array of possible formations make themselves available, yet from English Premier League to Colombian Liga Dimayor, it often feels like neat passing triangles are the only viable play style. In real football, when a stopper strays from his line, hearts enter mouths because of the possibility, no matter how slight, that they'll misjudge the flight and present the attacker with an open goal. However, FIFA keepers so rarely screw up, even when the striker makes the better run, that it almost seems impossible to get the jump on them. Now, as soon as you see the keeper leave his line on a cross, there's no point even trying. It's boring.
EA's other attempt at coaching, FIFA Trainer, however, is a visual mess which overwhelms the player with too much information and detracts from the football. It'sr eminiscent of FIFA 04's off-the-ball passing mechanic, where players were too focused on everything other than the man on the ball, meaning possession was frequently lost. This is obviously a slight simplification; micro transactions in gaming are a fact of modern life, and understandable in free-to-play titles and for small developers. But the approach FIFA 16 takes seems particularly egregious after you’ve dropped ￡40+. It’s also in how it’s dealt with: the home screen quite literally plays video adverts for Ultimate Team. A separate banner advertises the ‘Team Of The Week’.
Meanwhile, every year the other features of the game -- in particular Career mode, which has some wildly overdue and lackluster changes (a slight repackaging of existing skill games called ‘training’; pre-season tournaments) -- are increasingly slighted. It’s not a bad game but it’s unquestionably the runner-up in this year’s title match. But that’s fine. That’s normally what it takes for a series like this to decide to pull its socks up and reshape itself from the ground up, instead of just tinkering around the edges of the problem. If EA now feel they have real competition then that’s only going to increase their efforts, and that can only be good for everyone.
