The demo of EA’s latest footballing offering has been out for a couple of days now, and I thought I’d give a little review of my thoughts on it and the differences between it and last year’s installment.
The first thing I noticed was the visual difference, Fifa 15 is of course the first Fifa game on EA’s ‘ignite’ engine, and it shows. It just seems crisper, cleaner and the new Barclays Premier League graphics before games really adds a huge authenticity to proceedings.
But you knew it was going to be nice to look at, the most important thing is of course how it plays, how it ‘feels’. Well things are looking good on this front too. As an avid Fifa fan and player, I began to rack up a high amount of pet peeves with Fifa 14, things that when I noticed once, I’d notice them all. the. time.
Things such as tackles giving the ball back to the opponent, supposedly quick players being caught up by supposedly slow players, and weirdly, never being fouled. I like free-kicks I guess.
All of the above and more have been drastically improved in Fifa 15. Tackles are cleaner and really change the momentum of a game and can lead to quick counter attacking football. Quick players are very quick and can flick the ball with a flick of the right thumbstick past players and won’t be caught too easily, which makes you really want to run at defenders when getting the ball and completely changes how you play and how you want to attack a team. Finally, the other team definitely slides more, sometimes you avoid them and keep running, sometimes they will catch your leg and completely take you out. Very frustrating but also very realistic and really quite brilliant.
Which leads on to how clever the AI are this year, again another feature of the ignite engine. When attacking they will come at you in a different way each time, using great movement, turning on a sixpence to get away from you and also use clever back passes and touches to have you beaten. In one game I played, I was attempting to defend a corner when it was hit straight to a player running into the box completely unmarked who easily put it away. Very clever and lovely to see, despite that I’d just conceded!
As well as the intelligence of the outfield players, EA has worked heavily on goalkeepers this year, shown in a couple of videos that they have released. One of which you can find below.
All the work they have done to improve goalkeepers really has paid off. Goals that were usually certain goals last year are no more, saves look more realistic and they have me oooing and ahing a lot more at some saves they pull off.
In addition to all of these things they spoke about before the release of the demo, there are little improvements in there that I wasn’t even aware were in the game which adds to the whole spectacle. Players legitimately pull the shirts of their improvements, there are a lot more passing animations which doesn’t sound exciting but it really makes it feel a lot better and even the commentary before the game detailing the lineup as it comes up on the screen. They really have thought a lot about the details that make the whole experience a lot more immersive.
In general, everything I have got from the demo has me really excited for the full release of Fifa 15 and hopefully I will be doing a review of the full game after it releases in my part of the world on the 26th of September. Enjoy it for the three days before us you lucky North Americans.