FIFA's stock in trade, a rare one for annual releases, is the miniscule but radical overhauls made year to year. Goalkeepers behaving more like actual athletes, humans that move and react in accordance with their surroundings, making saves of sheer brilliance and bobbling sitters instead of behaving like a binary hitbox, is one of the simplest, but most powerful changes. Others are more easily spotted. FIFA 15 continues the focus on dribbling and one-on-one situations, making for a more aggressive angles towards the box rather than the classic burst down the wing before cutting inside. It's possible to play a higher defensive line too, with the improved keeper AI resulting in Manuel Neuer behaving, well, more like Manuel Neuer should.
Likewise, fifa 15 plays very well. The ball physics, long the thing that makes and breaks individual entries in the series, behave well, particularly during rainy day games, where it skips across the pitch in sometimes unpredictable fashion. The ball’s behavior has also made it a bit tougher to dispossess computer players; in last year’s edition, it was extremely easy to simply bump lightly into a dribbler and come away with the ball. Combined with some clearly improved on the ball AI, the game both feels and plays better without ramping up too much in difficulty. Admittedly, Pro Clubs is pretty tough to pick up and win with, but the more matches you play the more adept at FIFA 15 you become. My Pro Club, Wombles FC, is a mixture of FIFA 14 friends and new faces, including Orange in the Oven’s own Leo Ponce! We have played 3 or 4 matches already, and while it has been a struggle there is no denying the fun when someone scores a goal and we all get to celebrate.
Benefiting the most from the intelligence upgrade, goalkeepers now perform to a higher degree with this boost in smarts. The way they move, block, and parry shots has a new mechanic. As many have seen, Tim Howard made a strong case that he is one of the best defenders after the performance he put on against Belgium. FIFA wanted to simulate his skills, as well as others, by allowing goal-stoppers to read and react to the trajectory of every ball. Sometimes the flight of the ball may change course at the last minute due to how it is kicked, wind factors, or deflections. Keepers can now bend and contort themselves at the very last second in a ditch effort to salvage the save for his team. What’s changed instead in FIFA 15 are the same things that do change every year: pace, defending, dominant strategies. Crosses, so overpowered last year as to make every game about simply chasing the ball down the wing and then hoofing it into the middle, have been nerfed. This diversifies the tactics you’ll encounter when playing online.
The change has been partly supported by the decrease of pace in defenders, or the increase of pace in attackers. Sturridge can now sprint past defenders with the ball at his feet exactly as he could in real life, without having to worry about slower defenders somehow being able to catch up with him. This means that, in lieu of the all-powerful cross, you can cut inside and make breaks through the middle much more easily than before. Once the final whistle is blown, that's what FIFA 15 does: it makes you feel like a star. On a number of occasions I scored goals from the edge of the centre circle, the ball zooming straight into the top corner with the precision of a guided missile or a Maradona handball. Arjen Robben and Yaya Toure seem to be especially adept at executing this kind of extravagance, with even missed shots coming back into play following a fumble by the keeper.
Player strengths have also been amplified so that individual players with particularly good skills are more prominent. For example, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, one of the strongest players you can put on a pitch, is very physical and brutish, especially when you're trying to defend against him. I initially thought this was another overly exaggerated player facet, like the aforementioned Hulk-like player appearances. However, defending against players like Zlatan must be similarly difficult and frustrating in real life as it is in FIFA 15, therefore adding to the realism. This is monumentally stupid, and it’s an act of gross hubris on the part of the developers to assume we all want to watch this stuff every bloody time. At least when the commentary gets repetitive and tedious after two games you can switch all that off and replace it with music and podcasts of your own choosing. These mid-game cut-scene segments just can’t be stopped. Diligent PC modders, if you’re reading, you know what to do.
