FIFA 15 has been receiving a massive amount of hype since its reveal trailer at E3 2014. Everyone has been majorly looking forward to it, myself included, but will it manage to deliver? Will it provide the promised “Next-Gen” goalkeepers or will they be dreadful? So many questions, time to get the answers.
Let’s start with the Career Mode, and unfortunately there isn’t a great deal to say about it, as it’s exactly the same as it was on FIFA 14. I’m pretty disappointed about it, as I was at least expecting something different, yet even the menu’s are identical. I honestly haven’t enjoyed a career mode on FIFA since FIFA 06, just over nine years ago. It looks like it’s going to be ten years since I last enjoyed one. Fantastic start.
Ultimate Team is my favourite game mode and one great addition is the fact you can loan out some of the best players in the game, which is definitely a bonus to those who may be struggling. Another decent feature is the fact you can now have online friendly seasons in Ultimate Team with your friends, as opposed to just having single matches constantly.
So let’s move on to some of the in-game features, and there’s nothing more heart rendering than scoring a quality volley, watching your striker sprint off to celebrate, only for it to then be ruled offside. After calming down from giving the virtual linesman a shit load of abuse, it’s undeniably a good feature. Another feature that has been constantly mentioned prior to the release of FIFA 15 is the use of Goal Line technology. I can almost guarantee that everyone has screamed at their TV when they’ve thought the ball has crossed the line, but now there is no doubt whether it has or it hasn’t. All you’re left to do now is blame the defender who couldn’t clear it, for example, why the f*ck did he jump backwards to head it!?
This brings us to the most talked about and hyped up feature of FIFA 15: realistic goalkeepers. Apparently they’ve fine-tuned the goalkeeper performance so well that the AI versions of the goalkeeper’s will react to shots the same way as they would in real life, and to an extent they’re right. It seemed awkward and an absolute ball ache to score past them at first, then I played it a little bit more and the “realism” goes straight out of the stadium (excuse the awful pun). As well as the keepers glitching out quite frequently, I’ve also noticed that their positioning is really poor, and it makes scoring free kicks and lobbing the keeper so much easier. However, you can make your keeper attempt to put off a penalty taker by doing the good old “jelly legs”, or even pointing which way you think they’ll go. Surely that makes up for the poor keeper positioning, right? No? Definitely not, moving on.
There is a clear difference between FIFA 15 and FIFA 14 when it comes to gameplay. It feels likes you’re in a lot more control when it comes to dribbling with the ball, and passing seems so much more accurate. The amount of times I was on a counter attack in FIFA 14 and a stray pass would cock it up was absolutely diabolical, but it definitely isn’t as frequent in FIFA 15. You can knock it around with the back with a lot more confidence, and without the worry of one of your best players just casually rolling the ball straight back to the opposition.
Overall this very hyped installment of FIFA is slightly over-hyped. There have been minimal additions to Career mode, Ultimate Team, and Pro Clubs, and it’s clear that the main focus was gameplay this time around. The goalkeepers are personally a let down, as they’re helpless against free kicks and lobbed efforts, however the vastly improved dribbling and passing outweighs it, as well as great visuals and a decent in-game atmosphere.
FIFA 15 hits the post from two yards out and receives a 3/5 due to the disappointing and over-hyped goalkeepers, narrowly missing out on a 4/5.
★★★☆☆
Sam Terry
FIFA 15 at CeX
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