IGN spent some time with FIFA 18 and posted five features that’ll actually make a difference this year.
Dribbling
I suppose the easiest way to put this is that, in most football games, I feel as the though the best way to beat a man is to modulate pace: jog up, trap the ball, shift position, burst past, rinse, repeat. It requires a left stick, two shoulder buttons, and maybe the right stick if you throw a trick in there for good measure. Within a few minutes of playing FIFA 18, simply using the left stick felt both easier and more natural.
The Journey, Season 2
EA’s touting the main change as the fact that you can now customise Alex, gearing him up with the best sports-casual clobber and a ludicrous haircut.
Atmosphere
That’s pushed for partly by making clear the differences between countries’ approach to watching the game. South American crowds, for example, are peppered with gigantic, multi-tier flags, their stadiums lit to look warmer than their Western European counterparts.
Live Substitutions
As games wear on, any break in play will see an unobtrusive bar pop up, suggesting a possible substitute, perhaps to replace a tiring winger or a yellow carded defender. Hold right trigger, press A and the sub immediately comes on.
The Faces
Much is made every year of FIFA’s perceived style-over-substance philosophy – but it’s impossible to deny that there’s some real substance to its style this time around. 18’s Instant Replay feature looks more like Uncharted 4’s photo mode at this point, with beautiful lighting and depth-of-field effects playing across pitches full of immaculately sculpted, sweaty people. A fair portion of my time hands-on with the game was spent inspecting moments I’d already played…
Overall it looks like there’s definitely a lot of periphery items which impressed the IGN writer here. The improvements do sound good, but more on the edges and not on the pitch here as much. The live substitutions do sound like a pretty intuitive way to keep the flow of the game going while still making important tactical decisions.
However, two of the three biggest differences we are seeing really touted today are dribbling and player movement — both of which are more minor but will impact the fundamental flow of games and may not be huge back of the box additions.
You can check out some of the new features FIFA 18 is bringing to the table here.
We’ll have to wait and see how the new additions stack up to this year’s experience.
Related
