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FIFA 15
Platform: PlayStation 4
83

FIFA 15 Review

Plays a solid game of football, but new features fall short of the goal

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Having written a number of times about EA’s massively popular FIFA franchise, one can start to run out of things to talk about during the opening paragraph. But as sure as the leaves are turning orange, EA Sports has released its annual footy offering in FIFA 15. Packing numerous improvements in team management options, FUT, and gameplay itself, this is a great sports package for any fan. Although considering the resounding success of the previous iterations, a few faults keep this year’s entry from reaching excellence.

Before even letting players see the nicely organized main menu, we are thrown right into a matchday. It’s a clash between Liverpool and Manchester City, as the teams are battling for the BPL title on the final day of last season. The emphasis here is, clearly, to showcase the new presentation elements in FIFA 15. EA Sports has signed an agreement this year to bring more authenticity than ever before to the Premiership, including more scanned player faces, authentic fan chants, and even stadiums for all teams. There’s no arguing that the game succeeds in reproducing the beautiful game with more accuracy and attention to detail than ever before, particularly for the Premiere League. If this is a new presentation direction for the franchise, this treatment will be very welcomed by the other leagues in the game.

FIFA 15

Diving into the main experience, FIFA 15 doesn’t offer any wholly new modes, but instead tweaks have been made to mechanics that affect multiple areas of the game. Let’s start with FIFA Ultimate Team, which has grown exponentially in popularity over the past few years. Players once again create their starting squad from a random pack of player cards, and from then on it is a long and often challenging climb to create the best team you can afford. There’s lots of online and offline games to play, from tournaments to Seasons, and cards to buy and sell on the marketplace. FIFA 15 is decently generous with its card packs, and returning fans will get some nice bonus packs, so getting a competitive team together takes no time at all. Creating your dream squad, however, will likely take lots of luck, pack and player purchasing, and real cash if you’re impatient.

A couple of new mechanics make the overall FUT experience a bit more user friendly. First off, whenever you’re adjusting your lineup, the player swap menu now allows you to see exactly what effect on the team chemistry and rating your substitute will have. So instead of jumping through menus multiple times and seeing the result afterward, you can instantly preview what effect any given personnel change will have. Secondly, a new option for Concept Squads allows players to pull any footballers they want and build the design of their future team. For the dedicated fans, this is a great planning tool to see exactly what a squad will look like (instead of having to go on specific websites), and you could even use Concept players and throw them into your existing lineup, so there’s no guesswork on how a new player that you plan to purchase will synergize in the squad.

FIFA 15

Finally, there are loan players – footballers that you can use for a limited number of matches, and then they are gone forever. These players range from average to superstars, and that obviously reflects in how long they can be used. The first loan player is free, and the rest can be unlocked via EA Sports Football Club Catalogue. The superstars will cost you quite a few coins and are locked away behind higher EAS FC levels, of course.

EA Sports Football Club itself is now an integrated menu that can be accessed from pretty much any other part of the game, instead of having to back out. You can purchase various items with the earned coins, from new footballs to new kits, celebrations, and even FUT temporary match income boosts. Other noteworthy additions include more skill games (that remain fun and challenging), and the ability to add custom comments to your EAS FC activities, as well as comment and like the activity logs of others.

Further to online play, all of the usual versus modes return alongside Seasons, unchanged. In Pro Clubs, where players create their virtual avatars, join other player clubs and participate in global competition, there are few worthy additions. When creating your virtual pro, new style customization allows players to select new animations for free kicks and penalties to help you stand out during key match events. When playing club games, after the conclusion the system brings players directly into another lobby with a match countdown, to keep the players involved and ready for another opponent. Those who don’t make the opening kickoff can follow their club match live via updates in the game.

FIFA 15

Player and Manager careers, the two main offline gameplay modes, remain fairly unchanged. Player career in particular has little new of note, as you once again create a player or use an existing one and then hope to take your club and maybe even national team to glory. Playing as a manager, the glory ambition is much the same, but of course you are fully in control of the club and all players. A new system of Team Sheets (which also lends itself to other modes) lets players customize their lineup more than ever before. You can set individual player roles, positioning, and even their behaviors – by selecting from a list of available options, such as telling the midfielders to play wide and join the attack or stay put. These management options are nothing new for fans of simulation games such as FIFA Manager, but for FIFA this is a good step forward to providing more power over your players. All of the customizations are then saved into a Team Sheet, and thus you can easily swap between wholly different lineups and individual player orders by selecting a different sheet. As you grow the club, young talent now improves faster and older players don’t retire too quickly.

There are a few lingering concerns with the Manager mode however. The global transfer network, while still challenging, needs better filtering and sorting options for your scouting results. During transfer season, multiple absolutely insane deals still happen between AI controlled clubs, thus reducing any sense of realism. Also, there’s seemingly an issue where the game believes you are doing poorly and will send you emails about it, as well as add concerned commentary during matches, when your squad is in fact unbeaten for the season. And finally, the new management menus feel more than ever that half of the available screen space is simply wasted. It’s where your opponent’s team is seen during multiplayer, but career mode should have used a full screen view of tactics and other management menus.

With modes out of the way, let’s dive into the specifics of the gameplay on the pitch. The most immediate changes for seasoned players would like be the new goalkeepers and slide tackling. The latter has seen significant reduction in effectiveness, so players will need to be very careful as late tackles are now commonplace and result in many bookings. Goalkeepers got a fairly big overhaul in both their decision making and anticipation. New animations and better reaction time allow for more highlight-reel saves, desperation dives, and more. What used to be sure-fire goals are now deflected, and a variety of new moves and improved reactions make the goalies a formidable last line of defence. They aren’t perfect however, and there are already a number of situations where goalies allow extremely easy shots to go by for no reason. New goalies are an improvement and a step towards better realism, but there are enough inconsistencies to keep the overall experience more or less the same as before.

FIFA 15

In the outfield, there are numerous improvements as well. Players are much better at blocking shots and passes to prevent scoring opportunities, and altered defensive tackles require more player skill to dispossess opponents. At dead ball situations, players have the option to manually control a teammate and get into position. Crosses are more realistic, as players on both ends sometimes mistime their jumps and the ball sails harmlessly through everybody. AI teams have more contextual awareness, and for example will hold the ball in the corner in an attempt to run down the clock, or notably change their tactics depending on how the game is going. Other additions include a new All-out Attack and Park the Bus tactical settings, as well goal line technology for replays of questionable goals. A notable bug concerns the game clock, which now slows down when the ball is out of play, but has a habit of always adding a ton of extra time at every half, even when there are no stoppages throughout the match.

The most heavily promoted new feature, Emotional Intelligence, falls short compared to other changes. In theory, and as we saw during E3 tech demos, each player on the pitch supposedly has an attitude towards everyone else. As match events occur, these emotions can change, so a particularly harsh tackle can cause an angry exchange of words, or being selfish and wasting opportunities can cause teammates to become upset at the striker. Unfortunately, very few of these behaviours are ever seen in a match, and they have little effect. Most often you’ll see the same two or three animations of players arguing after a tough challenge, or defenders congratulating their goalie for a save, but beyond that the system has no effect. Even when you take terrible shots and refuse to pass, the teammates still give each other smiles and thumbs up when in theory they should be getting frustrated. Or when a goalie makes terrible errors, there are no visible or gameplay reaction from his teammates. Emotional Intelligence sounds like a fantastic idea, but the execution in FIFA 15 is basic at best.

FIFA 15

FIFA 15 plays as well as it ever has and looks great while doing so. Being a second entry on the new generation of consoles, the game does look sharp. Players appear lifelike and the atmosphere of the matches can be quite engrossing. New additions such as introduction of team lineups and discussion of upcoming matches help push the game closer to TV level of presentation. For the first time, the pitch itself shows realistic wear as the match progresses, and players leave scuff marks and patches of dirt during the action, doubly so when it rains. There are more goal celebrations too, and an absolute ton of new little animations and cutscenes after the whistle to add more of a cinematic feel to the game. Some players however will claim that this is just more fluff, and after a few times of watching pre-kick ball fetching and organizing, you’ll be skipping the cutscenes as fast as possible.

A few physical and goalie glitches aside, the biggest concern for the game are the animations. Not while the ball is in play, as those look smooth and polished, but rather the rest of the time. The new player interactions that relate to the Emotional system are awkwardly woven into the match, as you watch one altercation snap into another with little concern for fluidity. Players awkwardly stand around, or begin to sprint on the spot, or start their emotional animation without much integration. It looks quite stiff most of the time and a bit of a disappointment considering the quality of the rest of the presentation elements. One fairly major issue on PS4 specifically is overscan, as the game stretches beyond your TV’s edges. It’s fixed by scaling back your PS4 system display setting, but hopefully EA Sports addresses this problem soon.

FIFA 15

Audio design remains solid, with new crowd chants, and audible player interactions on the pitch adding to the already excellent commentary. There’s not much new when it comes to the pundits, but they do a solid job once again this year. Soundtrack is great as usual, though a bit notably lacking in international flavors of music. The only concern with the audio is the sometimes missing crowd cheers, especially after a satisfying win at home.

FIFA 15 plays a very solid game. The major additions of Emotional Intelligence and new goalkeepers are underwhelming, but the foundation of the franchise is so solid that they don’t substantially subtract form the overall experience. New presentation elements help the game feel more realistic than ever, though animations could use more work. A variety of gameplay modes and authenticity continue to help FIFA define the sports genre. It may not be groundbreaking in any particular area, but FIFA 15 is the high quality product that fans expect every year. Both hardcore and casual soccer fans should get a solid kick out of this year’s annual entry.

Our ratings for FIFA 15 on PlayStation 4 out of 100 (Ratings FAQ)
Presentation
83
This is the best and most authentic looking FIFA yet, but some rough animations often break immersion.
Gameplay
84
Changes to tackling and goalkeepers will require players to adjust, and while the mechanics are a step forward towards realism, there are a few issues with their implementation. AI teams now behave more realistically than ever before.
Single Player
80
The new Team Sheets and individual player strategies add depth, but overall there are no major improvements and some problem areas persist.
Multiplayer
86
New mechanics in FUT and Pro Clubs are welcome, as the multiplayer modes continue to shine.
Performance
85
Some audio and physics oddities, but nothing major.
Overall
83
FIFA 15 offers a glimpse into the future with new goalkeepers and emotion system, but at the moment it is only a tease. Regardless of that, this is still a complete and enjoyable experience of virtual footy.
Comments
FIFA 15
FIFA 15 box art Platform:
PlayStation 4
Our Review of FIFA 15
83%
Great
The Verdict:
Game Ranking
FIFA 15 is ranked #320 out of 1953 total reviewed games. It is ranked #23 out of 152 games reviewed in 2014.
319. Path of Exile
PC
320. FIFA 15
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Screenshots

FIFA 15
21 images added Sep 2, 2014 11:34
Videos
FIFA 15 - E3 Trailer
Posted: Jun 15, 2014 16:48
FIFA 15 - Emotion and Intensity Trailer
Posted: Jul 20, 2014 16:00
FIFA 15 - Agility and Control Trailer
Posted: Aug 1, 2014 15:01
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