Curveballs are usually found in baseball, but EA threw us one with a soccer game anyway. Just when it looked like the year and the “Ultimate Team” tag were both going away during the soft launch for its latest FIFA mobile effort, back came both of them when FIFA 16 Ultimate Team made its global launch. That’s probably for the best, as Ultimate Team is what this game is all about, and suggesting otherwise is tantamount to intentionally leading fans astray.

 

By now, everyone should know exactly what that mode entails, but just in case, the idea is to start with a relatively modest team of real life soccer players and build it until you can field the Lionel Messis and Cristiano Ronaldos of the world. Success in a variety of leagues and tournaments leads to chances for better players, hopefully leading to an ongoing virtuous cycle of soccer. Also new in Career Mode is the option to issue two-year loans. Past FIFA games only had short-term loans, which only lasted three months. There is also an option of a six-month loan. You can also use an unlimited number of substitutions during friendly matches.

 

If you’re a trophy hunter, “FIFA 16” isn’t the most difficult game to conquer. I racked up nine trophies in a relatively short period of time, with some coming from gameplay and others coming from simply testing out some game modes. The easiest to achieve were “Social Craving,” where you share an activity on social media and “I am the boss,” where you substitute your best player out of the game.

 

This year’s game has developed many of its previous game modes, building new features into career mode and the likes, but the introduction of FIFA Ultimate Team Draft is the REAL exciting feature this year. But aside from the draft many fans will have been expecting other specific changes, but did they get their wish? Let’s find out... Don’t be fooled, the positives might have outweighed the negatives in terms of word-count on the previous page, but FIFA 16 still has room for improvement.

 

If you’ve played previous FIFA games on mobile, there should be a decent number of improvements and new features to the gameplay to delight in. One notable new change is the addition of player celebrations. EA states this is a first for mobile devices so it seems they’re trying to close the gap on differences between their mobile titles and the console counterparts. The game is also running on a brand new game engine which fuels the 3D visuals, and it’s optimized for tablets as well so gaming on the bigger display should make things the most enjoyable.

 

Whether playing as men or women, FIFA’s life-swallowing online offering is stronger than ever. EA’s streamlined matchmaking is so confident and reliable at this point, instantly hopping into lag-free multiplayer matches is something you instantly take for granted. And of course, FIFA Ultimate Team (the absurdly addictive card-collecting mode) is back and remains the crowning jewel. This time, the headline addition is FUT Draft; a set of one-off tournaments that reward you for putting together winning streaks. The bigger the run of victories, the better the prizes-I bagged three Premium Gold Packs for a three-match win streak, one of which gave me Messi and Aguero as loan players.

 

There will be the individuals who whine on the grounds that you can no more breeze past safeguards and depend exclusively on pace. I am positively not one of them. It’s more about the ability of the player picking the right pass, the right touch, shot or cross at the correct time. I was never a devotee of the FIFAs where pace was above all else. Clearly it is still a valuable instrument yet the playing field has been leveled and it’s the little edges which now win recreations.