EA Sports can still improve the core mechanics

Oct 12, 2014 19:51 GMT  ·  By

My original experience with the FIFA series was on the PC, with endless matches with my brother in the early 2000’s, but the long-term commitment to the football series ended when I discovered Football Manager and decided to play that game while moving our rivalry to Mortal Kombat 4.

I have returned to the EA Sports experience with the launch of FIFA 13, and for the past two years I have been playing the game almost every day, enjoying another long-term rivalry, this time with a co-worker.

This simple commitment means that I have seen plenty of combinations of moves and both impressive goals and a lot of bugs and weird behaviors from my players.

FIFA 15 is a clear improvement

Sure, the Career and other modes have been a bit neglected as EA Sports has focused more on the Ultimate Team and on the core mechanics, but when I fire up a classic local multiplayer match, that does not matter in any real way.

The actual matches are both more thrilling than before and ask the player to think more about how he intends to play and then to spend more energy actually implementing their ideas.

Even top players tend to find it harder to control the ball and that means unexpected things often happen, with changes created from nothing by good attackers and with solid defenders sometimes stumbling when they should be able to easily deal with situations.

The goalkeepers rebuilt from the ground up are maybe a bit too capable at dealing with some shots, but I like the fact that even superstars need to work in order to get in a good position from where they can really threaten the goal.

There’s space to make it even better

FIFA 15 is by no means perfect, but at the moment, given the amount of gamers who are playing the title, it’s probably impossible for the developers at EA Sports to find a balance, let’s say between long shots and goalkeeper skill, which will satisfy everyone.

I would like to see more precision for tackles and defenders who know how to get out of the way when a teammate aims to clear the ball after a shot on goal.

The community also wants a reduction in pace, changes for long shots and improved movement for long passes, to cite just a small number of the threads that exist on both the official and other fan forums.

It will be interesting to see what EA Sports includes in the big first update for FIFA 15.