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10 things FIFA 15 needs fixed right now
FIFA 15 has many new skills, but there’s still a handful of gear-grinding issues that remain.
The players now come with emotions, the graphics are sharper than the very sharpest pin and Ultimate Team remains as addictive as ever. However, for all the incredibleness of FIFA 15, there are still some things that leave our knuckles white as we crush the controller in frustration. Why is the commentator saying the same thing over and over again? Why can all the strikers hit the ball harder with their heads than their feet? And the goalkeepers… oh, the goalkeepers...
Every goalkeeper is now as good as Tim Howard, but only nine times out of ten
The latest keepers have been made more realistic, in so much as they vary their style of save and run out more, only to either change their mind and backtrack or attempt a leaping punch. However, they’re now ridiculously hard to beat. Fire 20 potential goal of the years at them, in a row, and they’ll pull off inhuman saves. Yet they’ll then randomly let in a daisy cutter from a weird angle or mess up a simple punch. In other words, they’ve all become Robert Green. The search for the perfect FIFA goalie continues.
Latency issues. Sorry, what did you say? Oh right, latency issues
The last thing you want in a fast-paced sport is everything freezing and slowing, but that’s exactly what happened on the release of FIFA 15, leading to uproar from users experiencing lag issues when playing online. However, last week the FIFA 15 1.02 update went live, featuring a latency checker for Ultimate Team, allowing you to view connection strength before getting stuck into online play. Hopefully that’ll put at least some of those frustrating lag issues to bed.
Commentators make the same quips over and over
Whether or not you enjoy or loathe Martin Tyler and Alan Smith’s chat, there’s no denying the new dynamic dialogue quickly becomes tiring. As part of the march towards ultimate realism, the pair bring up mentions of the past World Cup, recent team-specific struggles, sadnesses at Liverpool’s lack of silverware… but amazingly all this seems to do is make it more obvious when they’re repeating the same observation for the fifth game in a row.
FIFA 15
© EA
Headers are still too effective
Headers now have a bit more to them, making them trickier to master. That said, if the opposing team has a Fellaini in the box and a cross is whipped in with which his fluffy head connects, nine times out of ten the ball’s going into the back of your net at the speed of light. It’s as if the ball’s been punched by Superman, rather than the skull of a Belgian with a perm.
Defending
One of the biggest shifts in the latest FIFA comes in the form of tactical defending, which to us translates as ‘really difficult defending’. Unless you’re in exactly the right spot you won’t dispossess your opponent, allowing them to run through on goal with alarming regularity. You can also spend five minutes chasing a player without a hope of nudging them off the ball, which is good only because the FIFA 15 refs can’t wait for a reason to send you off.
FIFA 15
© EA
Come on Ref, seriously
Every ref has a bad game now and then in real life. In the bid to make FIFA 15 realistic, the designers seem to have taken this fact and chopped out the ‘now and then’ part. After your second red of the match for a gentle, mistimed, one-footed slide tackle on the opposing player who earlier wrestled you to the floor when you were through on goal, you’ll be doing a Roy Keane stamp on your controller before storming off down the tunnel (or into your kitchen).
At least the AI defenders are as bad us. Yeah, that’s a good thing
If you’re not controlling your defender then boy is he lazy. Faced with a forward going full throttle down the wing, he’ll stand there as if watching a non-stopping train going through the station. Of course, it’s up to you to control your team, but a little help wouldn’t go amiss. Too often the players won't anticipate passes into space, instead just staring gormlessly at the ball. Before making players 'emotionally intelligent' it would be nice if they were just regular ol' footballing intelligent.
FIFA 15
© EA
High pressure ball chasing works too well
Coming up against an online player who insists on employing high pressure tactics is enough to ruin any evening. Faced with this, as soon as you have the ball at your feet you have literally a second to get rid of it again before the opposition is in your face. In actual football, keeping possession and dictating play is applauded and often rewarded with a win, but in FIFA 15 the spoils too often go to those getting their team to play like a bunch of excited schoolboys full of sugar. It's just not fair.
Passive offside
Make a pass forward and if any player is idling in an offside position the play will be stopped dead the second the ball leaves your laces, even if an onside player intercepts the pass. This results in a lot of stoppages and makes it seem as if the officials don’t know what they’re doing, which could be said to be in-keeping with the quest for realism. We’re looking at you, Mark Halsey.
It’s too much like FIFA 14
Yes, it’s a great game. Players have more emotion, the gameplay has been tweaked, the graphics are incredible, players have been gifted emotion… but, and feel free to call us spoilt, it’s not a giant leap from FIFA 14, and those gameplay tweaks take some getting used to and aren’t always satisfying when you do, as you’ll see above. With Konami making huge strides with its PES franchise, you’d expect full price FIFA 15 to be more than FIFA 14 with a new coat of varnish. Another extra level of realism to crowd sound isn’t going to be enough to make us buy FIFA 16, so here’s hoping for more of an overhaul.
