Fifa 15 review

Ready for kick-off?

PlayStation 4 tested version.

Punctual as the flu, every year at the beginning of autumn the perennial challenge between Fifa e Dog. Or at least, this is what happened until the arrival of the new generation of consoles. Because this time, unexpectedly after the 2014 transitional year, Konami has decided to get out of contention and postpone the release of his football video game to mid-November. After years of theoretical "domination", Fifa 15 thus finds himself to be truly the only football game to keep the fans company in this first part of the new season. But is the title of “king” of football games really suited to this umpteenth chapter of the twenty-year-old series?

Get excited!

This year's slogan, "Feel the game“, It's spot on like never before. Because from the first introductory match it is immediately clear that something in the atmosphere has changed, not only thanks to the Liverpool fans and their “You'll never walk alone” (already present last year). The entry into the field is in fact seasoned with new spectacular animations, while during the match it often happens to hear the fans cheer the team in moments of difficulty or whistle heavily at the opponents in the final minutes of a painful match. Throwbacks, free kicks, substitutions and celebrations also benefit from a whole series of new sequences, which bring the product closer to what can be seen during a TV game and reduce the occasions when we cannot see what happens. on the playing field. Of course, since they increase the length of the games, most of these additional sequences can be easily skipped.

The new commentary by Pierluigi Pardo, which, after years of almost identical repetitions of the dialogues between Caressa and Bergomi, brings some freshness to the comments, even if the technical contribution of Stefano Nava is still far from being significant. His interventions are in fact too sporadic and often empty of meaning, simply confirming, not even with a too different turn of phrase, when said by his colleague. To be the first year of "militancy", however, the script of their dialogues within the game is very good and appreciated especially by those who, in recent years, have not had much familiarity with the competition.

New generation, old problems

The notes of unconditional merit, however, practically all end here. Filled the gap in this sector that historically still saw the dominance of Pes, Fifa 15 it fails to take full advantage of the new hardware and the year of additional experience on the new generation consoles, proposing on the PlayStation 4 a whole series of defects that have plagued it in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era. Ea Sports, thanks to the power ofIgnite Engine, promised new physics, "next-gen" goalkeepers, improved AI, smoother menus and big improvements for the Ultimate Team

Let's start right from Fut (Fifa ultimate team), one of the most popular modes among fans around the world. The creation of your own "All-Star" team by means of virtual stickers, after the welcome news of last year - styles for the players, modification of jersey numbers, removal of the influence of the module for the understanding - improves the experience above all through the introduction of experimental teams, a new team creation system that allows you to better plan your team by browsing the complete album of players uploaded to the database (thus taking the place of numerous and excellent tools unofficially present on the web). Once the team has been designed, which can take advantage of an improved squad generator, the player can now quickly go and quickly buy the players at auction directly from this screen. Too bad we must then go from the watched list to bring the player into the club, otherwise the new system would have been almost perfect.

Experimental pink

News of the 2015/16 season are also the friendly seasons online (which are similar to those already present in the online standard) and the possibility of taking in loan, for free, some top players. This last idea, which could have been excellent to help us in the creation of a new team, ends up being trivialized in a mere use of random high-level players, for a variable number of games (the stronger the players, for less time. you can keep it). “Use them to win the final of an important tournament or obtain a decisive success for the conquest of the title”, reads the tutorial; in reality, inserting players whose characteristics we do not know in decisive games, within a well-established team, often turns out to be a double-edged sword that we have rarely been able to use.

On the gameplay front, the improvements can be counted on the fingertips: the much vaunted new physics engine does not prevent the recurrence of situations of uncontrolled chaos (albeit without the excesses of past years), the game mechanics still reward the " pace abuser ”and the goalkeepers, alongside a series of spectacular new saves, have also added numerous outgoing ducks and positioning errors to their repertoire. After an incredible rejected with the recall hand of our extreme defender, we can thus find ourselves in the next counterattack the opposing goalkeeper come out with a timing worthy of a bradibo (HERE a demonstration video). 

And again: there is, again, a pitiful veil on the stability of EA Sports servers. In recent weeks the usual reassuring promises have followed one another in this sense, promptly denied at the time of the litmus test. If during the week the situation was all in all calm, playing the Ultimate Team on the weekend is confirmed to be an almost impossible undertaking. Inaccessible screens after endless uploads, failed match-making, failed auctions ... All exasperated by some offline victories frustrated by server "crashes" immediately after the final triple whistle, resulting in the loss of the match and the connected prize.

In short, even if in conditions of relative normality Fut 15 proves to be a decent upgrade of its predecessor, under “pressure” we see all the historical criticalities of the series confirmed. We report, incidentally, the total abolition of player exchanges and that the companion app, also graphically renewed, is still not able to manage simultaneous connections and let us check the auctions during a game.

Become a star

Out of the closed world of the Ultimate Team, Fifa 15 re-proposes in block the modes of last season: through an even more intuitive, fluid and "modern" menu, we thus have quick access to the last mode played, to offline / offline games and Match Day Live, our window of continuous updates on the world of football and our favorite team. We thus have the "kick-off" for a quick match, the already analyzed Fut, the mode seasons - offline, as a coach or promising young players, and online, with solo, cooperative or friend championships - and, finally, tournaments, customized or not. Among the numerous licenses granted to the Canadian giant, which can boast (and it is not a trivial matter) practically all the main leagues, unfortunately there is no one for the Uefa competition, for some years exclusive to the competition. It will thus be impossible to play the Champions and Europa League. Also noteworthy is the absence of the Libertadores Cup and the Brazilian championship.

The main menu of Fifa 15: also this year there are challenges, to improve our skills in the various phases of the game

Even when you take the field, however, it does not seem to be very far from the next-gen version of Fifa 14. The pace of play, first of all, albeit slightly slowed down, is still very frenetic and favorable to those who prefer quick bucking on the flanks; if you love very reasoned actions you could therefore find yourself without the ball before understanding what is happening. The goalkeepers, despite the day one patch having fixed the problem of goals from midfield, continue to churn out frustrating errors in exit and positioning, especially on the steeples and on the crosses towards the far post.

Overall physics are good, exactly as it was last year, with minor improvements in ball control and tackling. The AI ​​of the CPU, on the other hand, remains a mystery and every season brings new bugs to the scene, such as the possibility of starting from kick-off and scoring goals in a few seconds with disarming ease. The maneuvering capacity of the virtual opponent is also poor, as we often see trotting horizontally, without having an idea of ​​why another dozen people are present on the field, all dressed alike. Separate chapter for the referees: the differentiation of styles is welcome here, with more severe referees and other British; less pleasant, on the other hand, is the bad management of the advantage in the event of offside, which systematically stops counter-attacks, while often letting it run when we are in the midst of doubling the marking by the player who ended up off-side.

Finally, as regards the managerial control of matches, we have several very welcome news. First of all, on loan from the competition, let's look at the statistics chart, an excellent tool to understand "by eye" which are the best players. Then the change of mentality of the team is more effective, with the external "defense to the bitter end" and "total attack" truly able to modify not only the center of gravity, but also the timing of insertion and positions on the field of the players of our team; also improved the control of custom tactics and schemes, with more user-friendly graphics.

Toh, a four-leaf clover

The visual impact with Fifa 15, always the excellence of the series, this year is difficult to evaluate. If on the one hand what has been said about the atmosphere of the matches remains valid, thanks also to a varied and numerous audience, to the coaches and to the whole life that animates the sideline, on the other hand the close-ups leave us perplexed, with an anti- aliasing that works so-so, blurring the contours of the athletes' physique to the point of deforming them. If, again, the grass of the playing field is so realistic that you can almost smell a freshly cut turf, the rendering of the features and movements of most of the players leaves something to be desired. In fact, there are many more or less famous players, with a few exceptions such as, for example, Messi, who can hardly be recognized during the celebrations. Even more, then, are those who get lost in the crowd during the games. From the first year of true generational change, we would definitely have expected something more.

On the other hand, the sound sector is excellent, thanks to the numerous tracks of good music, which will keep us company among the menus, and to the aforementioned new commentary items.

One of the now classic loading screen mini-games: arena mode

Final comment

Fifa 15 today it can be considered the best football title on the next-gen market. The atmosphere during the games, the new commentary and the various small improvements, graphics and game mechanics, fully justify the generational change for all those who had not yet made the "big leap" last November. For the others, however, the purchase should be weighed very carefully, given the persistence of historical problems still far from being resolved. 

The new football Ea Sports risks becoming, for them, one of the most expensive "corrective" patches in the most recent videogame history. Too few, in our opinion, the innovations introduced, especially in the era of "always connected" and continuous updates to the squads of our favorite teams.