There are incremental improvements, but the obsession with the superficial endures, the build-up to a match resembling Sky Sports more than ever. There’s an added physicality to the players this time, rendering pace less of a killer and giving defenders greater options for easing attackers off the ball. Cerebral passing is Fifa 17 Coins encouraged, too, coming to the fore in the women’s game, which is represented by 12 teams.
The other big addition is that of a draft mode to the increasingly popular Ultimate Team. Rather than spending months building a squad, you can dive right in with players, draft a quality group and take on four increasingly difficult challenges, with big rewards. But the scarcity of goals at higher levels will not be to everyone’s taste, and the endless replays still frustrate, meaning for the first time in a while Fifa isn’t a clear winner on the virtual pitch.
Computer games are eerily realistic today, and none more so than FIFA 16. EA Sports’ sporting masterpiece offers a near-perfect rendition of Premier League football. The graphics, physics and likenesses are truer to life than ever before. However, it is not entirely without inaccuracy. Every season, the stats given to Fifa Coins certain players will infuriate their teams supporters.
There’s nothing more frustrating than taking charge of your favourite team only to discover your player appears bereft of the abilities he shows week in and week out on the field. Arsenal fans will have that experience in a couple of cases with FIFA 16. Several of their first-team players might feel they have been short-changed by the stats team. Hector Bellerin, for example, surely deserves better than an overall rating of 74.
The young Spaniard, 20, has become one of the most exciting attacking full-backs in Europe yet has a lower rating than, say, unheralded utility player Mathieu Flamini. However, there’s one Arsenal player whose rating is so low it stands out from all others. In assessing the Gunners squad, the makers of FIFA have hugely underrated Francis Coquelin. To an extent, that’s understandable: Many Arsenal fans were probably guilty of doing the same. Few anticipated Coquelin would ever reach the level he’s at now. At the outset of last season, the 24-year-old was a reserve player with Fifa 17 Points Account no real prospects of regular first-team football.