FIFA 15 is not quite the great leap forward that many would have hoped for but it’s a bigger jump than it initially appears to be. The changes, although infuriating to begin with as they make you re-learn elements of your game, ultimately make for a more realistic game of football. There’s more nuance, more fidelity in the tactical systems and there’s greater movements from the players on the pitch. In a series that is synonymous with incremental improvements, FIFA 15 manages to feel like more of an evolutionary leap.
Aside from the philosophical issue of whether “largely the same” will fly as the basis of a fresh ￡50 purchase, the lack of big gameplay changes might reflect an uncomfortable truth about a genre that’s now over two decades old. It’s beyond argument that time and technology have made football games better, giving us lavish broadcast-style presentation, minutely detailed physical representations of players, and a complex causal physics environment which accurately recreates not just the sport of football but, by extension and existential implication, the fundamentals of our entire universe. And yet, awkwardly enough for the guy whose job it was to program that universe, it’s difficult to argue that this advancement has translated into more fun.
The atmosphere in the stadium is awesome. There are many people around the lawn and there have been few drops in frame rate. However, and despite the best players count with similar faces to their real counterparts, the facial animation is far from convincing. In some cases only by assumption we can equate certain players, especially with regard to Portuguese clubs. EA Sports continues to place particular emphasis on the most important players of the top clubs in the European context, while secondary athletes are relegated to a general treatment.
Off the pitch the game is largely the same as FIFA 14. Career Mode and Ultimate Team will undoubtedly still be where you spend the majority of your time, and EA has obviously decided not to fix what isn’t broken. That’s not to say that they couldn’t do with a little improvement, far from it, but things definitely haven’t gotten any worse. Most irritating though, is the removal of the ability to skip certain cut-scenes. Obviously that’s not right. Now, the best senior players will lose stats less sharply and in a more realistic manner meaning Francesco Totti won’t just lose the ability to spot a pass overnight, even as his legs continue to slow down.
This fluid, darting control can feel great when you’re attacking, and I’ve pulled off some goals in FIFA 15 that’d barely be worth attempting in the prior release. As mentioned though, the new-found nimble skills up front have turned defending into something of an art. In theory, I’m in favour of this. FIFA defending has often strayed too close to the automated kind where you just make judicious use of the ‘team mate press’ command (or, in older editions, just hold down A until your defender hustles someone off the ball.) The series’ move towards the self-styled ‘tactical defending’ has been making marking and tackling harder with each successive release.
The biggest change is in dribbling. It is vastly improved. Ball physics, bounces and control have been changed too, you can see this in every game. A player with high dribbling and agility is now lethal whether or not they have a high pace stat as they will turn those defenders inside and out, and punish those out of position. You don’t need tricks to go on a long dribble anymore- you just need to look at positioning. There is a slight downside to improved ball control- finesse shots are deadly from distance. If your opponent has a player with high shooting, do not stand off them if they are in a central area 30 yards out. And remember to put a man on the post behind the wall at a free kick.
The goalkeepers are “not only animated with a wider range of movements and reactions, they’re also more difficult to beat” due to their advanced AI, making them smarter and less likely to be duped by cheeky tactics that would’ve worked in previous games. When you get into the box, “there are many more deflections, rebounds and scrappy goalmouth scrambles” according to Peter. The improvements and changes feed back into the presentation, too: the team management is easier to explore, and you can be a lot more tactical with it. Ultimate Team too saw a raft of improvements, with concept squads and loan players. Overall, it makes for one of the best FIFA releases in at least a year.
