Until about five years ago, I barely knew anything about soccer. Today, I'm a West Ham United fanatic and a San Jose Earthquakes season ticket holder. The reason? FIFA, the sport's unofficial ambassador in the U.S. and one of the best sports games on the market year in and year out. But this year, I have to come to grips with a glaring reality: It's getting stale. Of all the current-generation sports sims, no game has changed less than FIFA - an annual cash cow that has become one of EA's most important franchises. As recently as a couple years ago, it was still heads and shoulders above the competition in terms of graphics, presentation, and modes, consistently introducing smart additions that elevated the gameplay without hurting the overall formula. Now, even the perennially underperforming Madden has caught up to FIFA in some ways, at least on the field.
 
When dribbling, if turbo is utilized, players take bigger touches and have less control of the ball. It takes more thought now when trying to dribble past someone, even with speedsters like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo at your finger tips. The new addition of 12 women’s national teams to the game gives it a sense of much-needed progression as well. Women’s teams can be played in Kick Off, Match Day and in Online Friendly matches. It should be noted that the women’s national teams are restricted to competing against each other; No throwing the USA up against Barcelona.
 
On offense, notably in the midfield, players are better at looking for and making runs into open space. This lets you feed them with the new "ping-driven" ground passing mechanic that bullets the ball to a player low and hard. In general, gameplay appears more fluid overall and as always, you can make the game as hard or as easy as you like and play with basic or advanced controls. We really loved the new no-touch dribbling in the game, which causes the player to dance around the ball, faking a potential move. There has also been considerable tweaking done to crossing game play, with a handful of new completion animations peppered in for good measure, too.
 
But that's not to say there aren't a few niggles. FIFA 15’s AI last year had a rather annoying tendency to overplay in attack, but now they do so in defence. When goalkeepers receive the ball in tight areas under pressure, they should be launching the ball up the pitch with a degree of urgency. But in FIFA 16 they all too often look for a short pass to a teammate instead. It doesn’t destroy the improvements made to FIFA’s AI (of which there are many) but it does act as a reminder that there is still a rigid behavioral system at play. Rather than one organically responding to the quite obvious danger of making such a pass.
 
Passing in FIFA 16 also takes time to get used to, as it’s been made more difficult this time around. I’ve never been the greatest interactive footballer, but I don’t have a problem passing in PES 2016. Here, though, I regularly find that my passes miss their targets, by either going to their side or not going far enough. It’s a similar issue to that of the shooting, although both will likely get a lot easier as time goes on. When it comes to modes, FIFA 16 has a lot to offer. It asks you to pick your favourite team, monitors it and lets you play its upcoming game(s) and features a host of online options including ranked matches, leagues and online tournaments.
 
You’ll also find returning fan favourites, like the Be a Pro-esque player and manager Careers, plus the card-based FIFA Ultimate Team collectathon. The latter has been an annual addiction for many hardcore fans, and that will surely be the case again this year. Overall impressions, not hugely impressed with FIFA 16. The gameplay is still fun. A lot of the physics seem like they were (surprise surprise) ripped out of previous FIFA’s and at this point, I have come to expect very little variations in this series as there are some fans who generally aren’t too bothered and will buy anything EA releases as “FIFA”. I can only hope that EA have something up their sleeve in the future for their FIFA titles because they have really hit a wall with FIFA 16, and the cracks are certainly starting to show in this once great franchise.