FIFA has long had more than eight directions of movement, but the from-the-stands camera angle has the effect of foreshortening the width of the pitch, making it harder to judge distances, and impossible to see who might be lurking thirty feet ahead of you and just a little off screen. In this instance, computer-assisted passing becomes a necessity to all FIFA players except perhaps the savants.
The main bit of game modes in FIFA 15 includes the standard career mode, where you can be a player or a manager, and the famous FIFA 15 Ultimate Team. The career mode is expansive, letting managers to not only run their club, but if played well, be chosen to manage their national side. Similarly, if you play as a pro you could be sent on loans to other clubs where you improve and try to cement a starting spot on your original club. Playing FIFA 15 online can be an extremely miserable experience. How often do you dominate a game, give up one counter attack goal, then have to sit through an obnoxious opponent doing stupid celebrations and watching every single replay? It’s horrible, yet we keep coming back for more. A large portion of the online community are the same teenage morons that inhabit the Call of Duty servers unfortunately. However, it’s harsh to ding a game for the type of customer who purchases it.
If you happen to be tired of playing all of your Premier League matches at the generic Town Park or Stadion Neder or whatever else they assigned to the KC Stadium, the Hawthorns, and Selhurst Park last season, there's some more good news for you. For the first time, all 20 Premier League grounds are in the game of FIFA 15, adding 11 new grounds to the mix in just England. On top of that, Boca Juniors' la Bombonera and Ajax's Amsterdam ArenA, among others, are also back in the game, among many others. Goalkeepers have a whole new range of save animations to boot. So, if you like flashy saves with plenty of hangtime, you'll have a few more reasons to hope that the ball doesn't hit the back of the net.
There’s a twisted logic here that would suggest that if CPU-controlled “Any” players were as skilled and reliable as human controlled players, then there’d be no incentive to fill your team with human players, thus defeating the object of Pro FIFA 15; but you’ll never have 11 human players online at the same time in your clubs. There’s also an argument that you could end up with 1 human player sacrificing their own pro by opting to control all “Any” players. Yes, the restriction reduces the chances of a defender making a brain fart in your own penalty area, but the fact remains that the “Any” players are in some cases rated 20 points lower than human players and so difficult to control that they’re a hindrance – and this doesn’t change the fact that you still have no control over the goalkeeper whatsoever.
Unfortunately, however, the same story seems to have been written for every match. Players scarcely react in a noticeable way and, if they do, it’s usually repetitive and lifeless. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched a player express their ‘emotional intelligence’ by awkwardly chest bumping a member of the other team. Despite the supposed 600+ different emotions present, ‘mild rage’ is the only one you’re likely to see – an arid political correctness purveys this feature, no doubt a consequence of the title being an ‘official FIFA product.’
Overall FIFA 15 is brilliant; it can get frustrating at times, but then so does real football. It’s a game where emotions can run high, and EA have captured that perfectly in this installment of FIFA. Unlike its predecessor, when you’re being out played on FIFA 15, it feels like you’re being outplayed not just being mugged off by the games ‘broken’ mechanics working against you. Though, there are a few things in this game that could use a little tweaking, it is by no means a perfect experience. Compared to last years title FIFA 15 is a massive leap in the right direction. FIFA is as great as it’s ever been, and though this year’s title is by no means ground-breaking, it’s certainly the prettiest, most life-like, and most complete football video-game yet.