Before I write this, I feel obliged to mention that I am yet to touch any build of FIFA 17, whether that be the beta or the demo – at the time of writing the demo hasn’t been released.
No game can be perfect, right? That’s certainly a subjective statement, however, if some glaring issues were to be solved I don’t think FIFA 17 would be too far off. Firstly, what has FIFA got right?
Most strikingly, it is fully licensed, with 30+ leagues – this has proved to be the decider for many people when they choose between Pro Evo and FIFA. For me, the best thing about FIFA has to be its superb graphics, whether you’re ogling at the magnificent rendition of the Camp Nou or enjoying the head scans for the players of Premier League clubs, I’m sure you’ll be as impressed as I am at EA’s consistency in producing graphically stunning games.
The rivalry between Pro Evo and FIFA is massive, but whereas Pro Evo has been improving year-upon-year since making the leap to next-gen consoles – especially in regards to its player modelling – FIFA has somewhat stagnated dishing out very similar versions throughout the last few seasons.
So what do I think could really push FIFA 17 on to beat PES 2017?
1. Passing
Passing has been greatly improved since FIFA 15, and FIFA 16 is all the better for this. However, despite this, the game still lacks the satisfying weight of pass offered by Pro Evo. This holds the game back hugely and has led to many frustrating moments: whether it’s a misplaced cross-field pass which ends up with the other team or not being able to effectively play a tiki-taka style, my enjoyment of the game has been ruined by these infuriating moments one too many times.
If FIFA 17 could build on the improvements of its predecessor and make sure that the players actually pass like the professionals they’re supposed to replicate, it would lead to a huge step up in realism, and could allow you to truly play like Barcelona, something Konami has allowed you to do in PES 2017.
2. More different opposition styles
Again, this is something that EA said they had worked on for FIFA 16; but I just don’t see it, with Mansfield Town and Real Madrid looking all too similar at times. This is especially evident when you’re playing a game against League 2 opposition and you get passed off the park before Scott Boden finds the top corner with astonishing accuracy. For me, this is an enormous downer.
As a Yeovil Town fan, I like to play with my team, but instead of the scrappy battles I’m used to watching, I often find I’m playing against a team of La Masia schooled football geniuses. Pro Evo has improved on this big-time for PES 17, offering multiple tactical styles for you to choose from and adaptive AI, which learn how you play and how to counter it, in essence forcing you to improvise with your styles a bit, something FIFA never forces you to do, or does itself. This problem alone is enough to ruin my immersion in the game. Something I’d like to see for FIFA 17 would be different playing styles as I rise through the English Football Leagues with Yeovil Town.
3. Balanced offline and online gameplay styles
FUT and FIFA online is enormously popular, despite this, the recipe for online success has been the same for years now: pace all over the park and long passes. This takes the majority of the necessary skill out of the gameplay and leads to me facing plenty of “Pace BPL squads” on FUT. I personally just find this exhausting, because the skills necessary to win offline are not replicated in online gameplay, and it leads to inconsistency and imbalance between the different modes.
I can understand there being a difference of the playing styles of the CPU and a real person, but the fact that offline gameplay feels much slower than online gameplay is unfair to people who aren’t serious players and only occasionally play online. I feel the whole game of FIFA 17 needs to be more consistent, with either FUT being slowed down, or offline being sped up.
4. Better AI transfers in career mode
This for me is the biggest ruiner in career mode. You load up a new career mode, with a different team, maybe even in a different country, but still the headlines are hogged by “Alaba joins Juventus”. I understand that AI transfers are run off of algorithms, but it would be refreshing to see new and exciting transfers, which match their real life counterparts, in both prices and audacity.
On top of this, the fact that you can play through the entire 2 months of the summer transfer window and some clubs will fail to make a signing is ridiculous. With the way the transfer market is headed nowadays, clubs not making a signing is almost as ridiculous as clubs making signings for astronomical sums.
5. More customisation in career mode
You know when you get your team promoted to the Premier League in career mode and they’re lining up for the first big game, this moment has been ruined for me many times by noticing that they still have Football League patches on their arms and the font on their backs. Considering FIFA is fully licensed and supported by FIFPro, surely they could reach some compromise so that your team in game can wear the correct badges and have the correct font on their kits.
One other thing I’ve realised in Career Mode is when you play with a team without an official stadium and you’re forced to choose one, the seats are one fixed colour – this is especially unfortunate for Bristol Rovers, considering all the stadium designs close to the Memorial have red seats, the colour of their rivals Bristol City. But allowing these changes would add a welcome bit of user customisable content. This is something Pro Evo excels at with it featuring a full on kit and badge editor, it allows the user to customise their experience so that they can enjoy the game the way they like it, and not having to play in a stadium coloured for their arch-rivals!
If EA was to introduce all of these things into FIFA 17, it would make it the best FIFA game in recent memory for me. However, if they fail to address these issues it would dampen all my excitement pre-launch and probably push me towards Pro Evo, a game which has developed hugely in recent seasons and has recently dropped a very pleasing demo. What do you think EA need to improve if they’re to keep up with the rapidly improving Pro Evo?
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