Kevin Groves: The first thing that comes to mind when playing FIFA 16 is how it seems like a much more polished version of FIFA 14. While FIFA 15 struggled to achieve a proper balance, especially in defending, FIFA 16 has restored my faith in the ability to defend as a unit. While tactical defending could use a "teammate pressure" button, your CPU teammates for the most part do a great job at cutting off angles, blocking passes/shots, and in general being a nuisance. If the CPU does manage to break through your ranks, your goalkeeper is much better equipped to come up with a huge save as EA Canada has added many new keeper animations. Keepers in general also do a much better job stopping shots at their near post (a major flaw in FIFA 15).

Defense wasn't the only aspect that saw an upgrade. Attacking AI has also been improved as AI players make intelligent runs, show in space, and provide an outlet when the opposing team starts closing down. On the ball, "No touch dribbling" is a feature that will take a little time to master, but in tinkering with it in the demo it feels like it will bring another dynamic to 1-vs-1 challenges. The new "ping driven passes" is a feature that has divided the community opinion so far. With its ability to move the action further up the pitch much faster, bypassing the importance of build-up play, this new feature could easily be abused online. Thankfully, it appears that EA has attempted to balance this with heavier first touches by the recipient, but the final verdict is still out and won't be determined until the masses head online after the game's release. Crosses during open play are also much more dynamic as you can whip them in with real pace and bend. Strangely enough, getting this type of bend is hard to duplicate on corner kicks and set pieces.

Under the hood, all of the same sliders I have to come to love/loathe appear to be in the game with a few added Team/Player Instructions also at our disposal. No doubt the OS Slider/Custom Team Tactic fanatics will start their tinkering early this year with the hopes of giving us a great offline sim come September 22.

Lastly, I have had nothing but positive and enjoyable moments when playing with the Women's teams. The action, flow and overall feel of the women just seems spot on. Much like real life, the star players stand out and the animations seem to correspond well to what we saw on TV earlier this summer. Hopefully EA will continue to expand upon the teams and modes included in the game. A tournament mode would be a welcome inclusion!

The demo is not without its flaws, but so far the positives far outweigh the negatives.

 

 

Chase Becotte: Feel is always a tough thing to talk about with a game, but I played FIFA 15 right before playing the FIFA 16 demo just to go right from the old to new, and the "feel" is really whats stands out. And the change in feel exists on a couple levels.

First, players have more weight. The bigger players are a little less mobile but more physical. The little guys can pull off some quick turning more easily -- I still think that overall quick turning on the ball is still a little too easy -- but feel weaker on the ball. And overall, the physicality feels more controlled yet weighted. Players are not flopping around in ridiculous ways when they collide with others, and there's more fighting for loose balls without feeling like it's a no-holds barred, no-calls needed affair out on the pitch.

The feel continues on with the overall way players move away from the ball. It seems like there are acceleration animations in the game now, so players hustling after boomed through balls really look like they're hustling to run them down.

Beyond the players themselves, the ball really feels like it's finally an object in this world. FIFA in the past has actually made great strides in making the ball feel like it's independent from any one player, but now the ball feels and acts more like it has weight; it acts like it has actual physical properties. This may have something to do with changes to shooting and heading the ball as well, but just the way the ball is reacting off heads and feet is so much different (in a good way) than in the past. For example, I had a beautiful cross at one point that my striker got to and headed into the ground. The ball connected with his head and bounced hard off the ground and then back up into the air before beating the keeper -- something I don't really remember ever seeing in FIFA 15.

Moving beyond the feel of the game, KG mentioned "tactical defending" and is spot on with the mention of a lack of "teammate pressure" button, which I will upgrade to "teammate take the friggin' ball so I don't have to control every player on defense" button. Switching to "legacy" defending helps this, and I assume "tactical" defending acts this way so it's not abused online as people swarm every player with the ball, but it seems like maybe it's time to go back to the drawing board and define a new user-controlled way to defend the pitch. That being said, defending has certainly been upgraded. Fullbacks and outside midfielders/wings still don't pinch in enough -- and the center defensive midfielder still comes too far up the pitch even when you change his tactic to "stay back on attack" in the menu -- but the back line holds together and works together. It also feels much better linking up the defense to the midfield as they seem more in sync with each other when moving back up the pitch.

Speaking of moving up the pitch, passing percentages still seem high when moving up the pitch. When you play the AI on higher difficulty levels, all the teams still seem to hover around 90 percent passing (whether it's the Sounders or Barcelona), but user vs. user games should be more in the muck as lanes are covered better, and I feel like I have more weapons at my disposal to stop attacking runs. The last point on passing is I'm slightly concerned about driven passes. I love the creativity they bring to the game now, but I feel like players of all types are a little too good at corralling these lasers. I don't have a problem with the longer-distance passes being handled, but the handling of driven "ping-pong" passes when players are closer together seems a bit out of whack.

I also echo what KG said about playing with the Women's teams; it's a blast. Whether it's a placebo effect or something else I'm not sure, but the USA vs. Germany games I've played have been my favorite in the demo. The game feels a little more open, and just does a good job of mimicking both the style of play and individual stars on these Women's teams. I try not to gush much in previews because the play sessions are limited, but it really has been a joy playing with the Women's teams.

All that being said, a big thing with FIFA this year and beyond is how do individual teams feel? It's fair to say FIFA has made progress making star players stand out as authentic individuals, but the same can't be said about individual teams. While we can only play eight-minute games in the demo, I have doubts that teams will feel really different from one another. Obviously there will be team tactics and such to tweak the way each team plays, but I feel like this is the next great gameplay undertaking the FIFA developers have to look into solving in the future.