FIFA 15 review
Has The Best World Cup Ever™ inspired the best football game ever, or is FIFA 15 on a post-Brazil comedown?
World football tends to move in cycles – and as the FIFA games attempt to replicate the sport as closely as possible, EA’s annual soccer sim must also move on.
If FIFA 14 was Barcelona’s tiki-taka, death by 1000 passes, FIFA 15 is Germany’s more explosive World-Cup-winning evolution of it. Like Spain at Euro 2012, FIFA 14‘s patient style was considered boring by some. In its quest for realism it had lost some of the breathless excitement that makes football such an absorbing game – and that’s the focus of FIFA 15.
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Heavy metal football
FIFA 15 feels like it’s been in a few extra training sessions to sharpen up. Its reactions are faster and it’s found an extra yard of pace since last season. It maintains the realism but injects a bit more ‘heavy metal’ as Jurgen Klopp would call it. Players seem more responsive to movements of the left stick, with a last-minute nudge to either side often enough to beat a defender or draw the foul when running at speed and if the momentum is with you. With the right player it’s also more effective from a standstill, shifting the player’s weight one way and then bursting the other past the defender.
In fact, weight and momentum play a bigger part in general. Ground passes are zippier, particularly over longer distances, meaning you have to be more accurate with them to keep play flowing. Players now use all parts of their boots to nudge, flick and lay the ball off, although you will have to get used to giving them a touch more power. Stringing together a few first-touch passes is hugely satisfying, particularly because it often feels on the edge of all falling apart, a bit like pulling off an improvised combo in a beat ’em up.
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Take your chances
When you do create a chance you need to take it, because two things have changed: hitting the target is harder and the goalkeepers are better. Defenders are very good at blocking shots and goalies react more quickly to them, so you often need to use power or inch-perfect placement to beat them. Too close to the keeper’s body and they’ll get a hand to it. The better ones will even manage to get something on the ball when it’s gone past them.
They don’t hold everything, but there seems to be less pushing it back directly into the path of another striker than in FIFA 14. They still remain suspect at claiming balls dropping from high but in general keepers perform better, with a much larger range of saves contributing significantly to the more lifelike feel of the game. Only many months of play will reveal exactly how lifelike they are.
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Foul throw
Some of the veteran players of Stuff‘s lunchtime FIFA tournaments have been frustrated by throw-ins for years so their overhaul in FIFA 15 is most welcome. Whereas before the lack of movement from your teammates meant you were often left with no choice but to throw the ball backwards or risk losing possession, FIFA 15 allows you to take control of the receiving player and move them around the pitch before commanding the taker to throw the ball in with a press of the pass button.
It opens up a whole new world of unique attacking advantages (or disadvantages, if you believe the assertion that it’s the only time you have 10 men on the pitch without being shown a red card). Most importantly, you can now skip that irritating phase when there are two balls on the pitch.
Corners have also been enhanced, with special tactics activated by pressing one of the four directions on the D-pad. Rather than just hoofing the ball hopefully into the box you can instruct players to crowd the keeper, make a run to the near or far post, or drop to the edge of the box. How successful they are depends on your delivery of the ball and the quality of the defending, but it’s nice to finally have some tactical options at set pieces.
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Tactical genius
In a world of zonal marking, false nines and Borussia Dortmund’s extreme gegenpressing, FIFA‘s tactical side could previously have been accused of being more Tim Sherwood than Pep Guardiola. Fortunately, 15 addresses that with significant success. The redesigned menus make it much easier to set up your team to play how you want them to, picking from simple styles (counter-attack, high press, possession, etc) and tweaking attitudes and instructions for individual players.
Team-mates also make more intelligent runs and signal where they want the ball to be played, which gives you far more confidence to play it into space. There are also more options when it comes to adjusting your team’s attack/defence balance, with new ‘Park The Bus’ and ‘All Out Attack’ options at either end of the spectrum. Catch a team on the break when they’ve chucked everybody forward and you’ll often be able to exploit their lack of numbers.
AI-controlled teams now use these more noticeably too, although they can be a little too simplistic. While it makes some sense for Man City to hoof high balls into the box for Dzeko when they’re 1-0 down and running out of time, we’ve also seen teams taking the ball to the corner flag in the last five minutes of a friendly that still stood at 0-0. Surely not even Jose Mourinho could be that negative.
Licence to thrill
As usual EA has squeezed every drop out of its official licences, this year adding every Premier League ground, including those of newcomers Leicester, Burnley and QPR, although it looks like we’ll have to wait until next year for the addition of Magic Ref Spray. Goal-line tech has made the cut, though, with refs visibly checking their watch to confirm the ball has crossed the line.
Pro Evo still waggles its Champions League licence in EA’s face but if it’s slick, Sky Sports-esque presentation you’re after, FIFA is still the daddy. Besides, any self-respecting football hipster is far more fussed about the Austrian cup, and that is present and correct.
While the commentary is still pretty repetitive, these days the commentators even chat about Financial Fair Play if you take charge of Chelsea, PSG or A.N. Other Enormobrand FC. A real sign of the times.
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Career advice
Career and Ultimate Team are the two modes that keep many people coming back to FIFA again and again, and EA has adopted an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to both. Apart from some cosmetic changes to bring it in line with the rest of the game, Career mode is largely unchanged. It’s not going to beat Football Manager for depth but if you want to see Brighton & Hove Albion playing in Europe any time soon it’s probably your only chance.
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Verdict
Just as Bayern Munich’s style contains elements of the Spanish way, FIFA 15 will be familiar to players of the previous game. It’s certainly less of a jump than FIFA 13 to 14.
To some that will mean it’s not worth the upgrade but with an emphasis on fast, attacking play it mirrors what football fans see out on the pitch better than its predecessor.
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Stuff Says…
Harder, faster and stronger means FIFA 15 is a better reflection of modern football than ever before
Good Stuff
Faster, more exciting gameplay
Irritating throw-ins fixed
Improved goalkeepers
Bad Stuff
Goalkeepers yet to prove themselves
Not a huge leap from last year
Tom Wiggins
Contributor 
