This year promotional buzzwords promised ‘Confidence in Defending, Control in Midfield’ and ‘Moments of Magic’. However in reality I’d have gone with ‘Like Someone Stuck FIFA 15 on the Slowest Setting’. We all remember the days when you’d give Gabby Agbonlahor the nod up top for England or play Roberto Carlos as a LWF because searing pace meant everything. Thunder in a goal from distance and the way the ball hits the net coupled with the player celebrations, the crowd reaction and the commentary feels just right. Martin Tyler and Alan Smith are on the mics once again and you won’t be surprised to hear the look of the game, especially the menus and layout, is so slick and well oiled.
Ultimate Team Mode comes to life with the economy created in the auction, so you need to know how to exploit it properly. Take your time to search the market for the best prices, and don't fall into the mistake of buying expensive just because one of your targets is available. Reversing the role, before you set a card on sale, make sure to check its value on the market. If all players are selling Messi for 100,000 gold
FIFA 16 coins, for example, it would be a huge mistake to put him on sale for much less. In addition to the proposed standard of both solo and online, EA Sports also usually offers several special tournaments that last for a specific amount of time. These tournaments often impose special conditions (such as playing with 11 players of the same nationality, for example), but they are a good way to gain gold coins or extra packs.
One of the biggest problems I had with FIFA 16 I eluded to in my PES 2016 review. The A.I. controlling my teammates never felt like they were trying as hard as I was to win. I changed strategy settings to make them more attack heavy or more defensive and they all still seemed to act the same. If I wanted to get a steal or stop a shot, I had to take control of the closest player and do it myself. I enjoy being in control over the whole team, but I would still like the A.I. players to do their jobs. If the other team is moving downfield with the ball, don’t just stand there, make a play on the ball!
Another shortcoming was in the commentary department. I did notice some commentary adjustments depending on how many goals a particular player scored and if the game was a blowout. Outside of those and a couple other stand outs, the commentary was mostly forgettable, repetitive and boring. I would put the commentary in FIFA 16 on equal footing with PES 2016. Sports titles across the board still have a long way to go in getting commentary right. Anyone who says they’ve never raged because their world class keeper has scuffed a basic save or kicked a ball into their own net is either a liar or incredibly lucky. EA desperately need to sort out their keeper A.I. because it can be utterly dreadful especially when it comes to long shots or pacey strikers. You’ll all know the situation: Ibarbo comes storming through your defence, sprints around your keeper who doesn’t move and slots home into an open net.
It’s ridiculous and spending hundreds of thousands of coins on Manuel Neuer should give you a real noticeable boost, rather than finding someone does better for you at a fraction of the price. Goalkeepers in FIFA 15 are probably the main cause of high blood pressure or smashed controllers across the globe and it shouldn’t be like that. Sure, every keeper has a ‘mare at some point but not every game. So, I'm sure the very perceptive among you have figured out how disappointed I am with FIFA 16 UT. EA has turned the best football series on the App Store into a game about menus with the occasional basic ball-kicking. You'll spend much more time going through badly-designed and unnecessarily complicated menus than playing football. Where does that leave FIFA 16 UT? Well, if you want to play a CCG, there are much better CCGs out there than this clearly Pay-to-Win game.
If you want to manage and build a team, you can go with PES Club Manager instead since its interface is much better and the whole team performance depends on attributes rather than chemistry. If you're planning on getting FIFA 16 UT because you missed a good football game on mobile, I hope you still have FIFA 14 on your device because this stripped-down version will only satisfy the die-heart UT fans and no one else. Not all is bad though; you can now celebrate your goals in many different ways.
