FIFA 16, by and large, is the same FIFA game as the last couple of years. By no means is this to say it is a negative. In its entirety, the look and feel of the game is crafted beautifully and gives the audience that true-to-life experience, starting with play on the field. Dribbling with the ball hasn’t felt this good before. With the new ability to dribble off of the ball, attackers have added a skill to their bevy of moves. This means you will be able to use a fake by holding left bumper or L1 and throw defenders off balance.

 

Guys like Eden Hazard will greatly benefit when using such a technique, especially when you couple it with quick one-touch passes, which also feels like it has been tuned for a faster paced style. Players' emotions and reactions will be mostly visible in the replays, though. Big misses will finish with a shot of a player patting the goalkeeper on the back, and cheap goals will often see a frustrated goalie (especially one who has been taking a lot of shots) lashing out, presumably at his defenders.

 

There are exploits to be found and they'll find them. That's where EA need to take control. It shouldn't be possible to pull off a dozen fake shots, a rainbow flick and a few roulette moves and retain perfect control of the ball every single time, or for the matchmaking system to only take into account quit percentages, rather than there being some sort of reporting interface in the game's infrastructure that prevents idiots from being inflicted on innocent people more than a handful of times before they're relegated to the drunk tank.

 

The long and the short of FIFA 16’s online play comes down to the fact that while you may be there to play football, the random opposition that you'll be dealt - nine times out of ten - will be there to play FIFA. The difference, however, is that the drafted team is stuck to one game mode where four wins gets the absolute best reward. The opening match starts off easy, but working off a progression system means that the final match could be against a European giant such as Real Madrid or Bayern Munich. The further the team goes, the better the rewards.

 

The real star of the FIFA 16 show is the controls. They're a hybrid mix of FIFA 16's excellent touch scheme and the buttons we've had all along. It seems like a bit of a cynical move on EA's part, and it's a shame because it's a lesser game for it. FIFA has taken a huge leap forward with its excellent new engine, hybrid controls, and expanded Ultimate Team options. However, it's taken two lengthy steps backwards with its lack of game modes, poor menu navigation systems, and generally sluggish design. “Corners can be very difficult to capitalize on unless the player taking them has an outrageous ‘curve’ statistic.”

 

Thus ends my first experience of FIFA 16’s new game mode, FUT Draft. After winning several fraught matches, my run ends with a whimper - massively frustrating but enough to draw me in to yet another year of football addiction. Think of this new Draft mode as an epic cup run - a series four increasingly tough matches, where the prize fund grows the further you progress. The new addition to the hugely popular Ultimate Team removes some of the usual grind and tests your team building abilities by immediately offering up a selection of some of the most ludicrously skilled players on the planet.