14 DAY TRIAL // How much time are you willing to spend looking at a FIFA 15 match before actually playing some football? This is one of the questions that pop into my mind as I frantically push the A button on the Xbox One controller in order to get through the various presentation elements included in the new EA Sports title and get to the point where I can actually control my players on the pitch.
The developers at EA Sports have spent serious resources to introduce all the stadiums in the Barclays Premier League and many other well-known ones from other championships, and there are sweeping shots of the teams as they get out of the well modelled tunnels and get ready for the match.
I can understand why this kind of presentation and attention to detail can sometimes make gamers feel like they are truly immersed in the FIFA 15 experience, but there are moments when I wonder why they are often breaking up the pace of the matches.
Even the small animations added for goalkeepers when they get a ball and place it before a goal kick should have an option that turns them off, and such a mechanism is even more important for the replays that take place when half time hits.
The value of time in FIFA 15
This might sound like trivial elements for such a big title, but there are many players, myself included, who simply do not have the time for such small details and want to spend as much time in FIFA 15 actually playing the game as possible.
Another minor annoyance is the longer than usual time that referees take to signal offside situations, allowing the player to deliver one or two passes before they signal the infraction.
Those seconds are wasted, and while the EA Sports team says that they create extra tension, they only exist to frustrate me.
At least we are able to skip celebrations after goals, even though there seems to be no way to move quickly through the sequence that results in a yellow card being awarded.
Presentation, especially given the extra power offered by the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, is very important for modern video games, especially if they are sports sims, but I would like to see that developers understand that it should not get into the way of gameplay and give fans an option to eliminate elements that they might consider unnecessary.