We can feel it in the air. The players are pulling on their boots, donning their freshly pressed home kits, coifing their hair and praying to David Beckham's right foot.
It's time to start the battle once more – the battle of FIFA vs PES. And this year it's all to play for.
As FIFA 17 squares up to PES 2017 , both have got a lot to prove. Is PES 2017 still the thinking gamer's footie game? Has FIFA 17 got enough to stay on top against its Japanese-made rival? Well we've had a first play of PES 2017 and it's looking great, but what EA Sports has in store for us with FIFA 17 might just take this rivalry into the penalties.
Here are the five features that currently make FIFA 17 the most realistic FIFA game ever.
1. THE JOURNEY REALLY PUTS YOU IN THE GAME
For the first time ever, EA Sports is delivering a cinematic, story-led new mode known as The Journey. It's basically the FIFA 17 story mode and sees you play as a young, up and coming, footballer called Alex Hunter.
Born into a long lineage of football players, Alex is a talented young thing and is looking to sign to a Premiership League team that can make him one of England's best footballers.
FIFA 17 is getting a story mode and here's why
But it's not a backseat experience. You're going to have to help Alex achieve his dreams. The Journey is actually all about your performance in the game, the decisions you make on and off the pitch and the story you weave.
It'll all start with the team you decide to sign with, although your offers will depend on your performance, so if you want to play for your own team, you better not party too hard with Vardy. You'll also have to choose what position you'll want to play. The options are sadly limited to attacking positions such as striker or attacking midfielder, because we imagine the career of a wing-back doesn't translate as well to a cinematic story as your average striker.
Regardless of the position you favour, it seems that the overall gameplay arc will be the same. A lot of your time will be spent training, as the professionals do, working to impress your manager in order to get a better chance at being in the Starting 11 and not on the bench. The training you do will also affect Alex's attributes and player growth too, allowing you to play to your own FIFA strengths.
For every big match, if you make it off the bench, you'll be given a variety of objectives to tick off if you can, ranging from making a certain number of passes, scoring the winning goal or even just having top notch tackling skills. Your overall score for each match is located in the top right hand corner and you'll be graded on everything you do.
But it's not just your performance on the pitch that will affect Alex's chances. Interviews with journalists, meetings with your coach and interactions with other players, all done by Bioware-influenced conversation wheels, will also affect what happens to him.
We've not been told yet how long The Journey will last, but don't fear, there's still your more traditional campaign mode to go with it.
Whether it'll go down well with the hardcore FIFA players will remain to be seen, but it's certainly a different way of tackling a football game.
2. FROSTBITE-POWERED GRAPHICS
FIFA 17 is the first game in the series to run on the Frostbite Engine. That's the same game engine powering Battlefield 4, Battlefield: Hardline, Star Wars: Battlefront, the upcoming Battlefield 1 and more.
And what that means for FIFA 17 is that you should expect more realistic player models, play that's more emotive and realistic, more impressive lighting – especially when playing at night – and gameplay that actually feels like a real football match, with all the footwork intricacy you'd expect from real-world players.
"We've been working on moving FIFA to the Frostbite engine for the past two years," explained Lead Gameplay Producer, Aaron McHardy.
3. FINALLY GET REAL CONTROL OF THE BALL
The big changes in gameplay aren't just coming to The Journey, you'll be relieved to hear. FIFA 17 is a marked upgrade on last year's FIFA 16, in more ways than one.
The new Frostbite engine has allowed EA Sports to introduce a number of new gameplay features the devs have been working on for two years. What you'll immediately notice is the new pushback technology, which allows the players to react in a more human way to how they receive balls and be more physical in their approach.
Suddenly you're able to jostle other players and fight to get in a better receiving position, especially for corners and throw-ins. It finally brings the added tension between teams that FIFA has been missing on the pitch.
There are also more opportunities to protect your ball possession thanks to the addition of shielding. No longer do you have to stop to shield the ball, you can now execute a 360-degree shield dribble by holding down RB (on the Xbox One), which allows you to have much more control of the ball.
Another great new feature is in-air shielding. When you hoof a ball down the pitch, the receiver used to only be able to head the ball in the air. In FIFA 17, you can bring the ball down to your feet rather than having to head it out by pulling LT.
The same can be said for the new first touch control animations. If you watch the feet of your FIFA 17 players, their footwork is making a lot more sense. No longer do you have to travel around the ball to change direction after receiving, instead your player will actually work with the outside of his feet and sidestep the ball without an elaborate movement. Clever stuff – at last.
Tackles are a lot more dynamic now too, with across-body tackles carried out with a quick pull of LT, which is also used to jockey other players. Your tackles are more animated than they've ever been before, which makes the game a lot more charged, especially in the mid-field.
And if your timing is spot on, you can collide with the goalkeeper, charging him with Y. He may even drop the ball if you collide with him hard enough, allowing you another chance at goal. But, watch out, because the referee will be able to see if you foul him, so no messing about. It's much more like the tactics you could use back in the FIFA 98 days – without the slide tackles.
However, it feels like all these new additions means that there's going to be a greater gap between elite players and arcade gamers. You need to press so many buttons in order to execute one move nowadays, it's like Twister for your fingers.
And there's no getting away from the fact the teams lack any kind of identity – something which has been greatly improved in PES 2017. It still feels like it's just Team A vs Team B, rather than adopting the tactics and personality of your favourite teams.
4. CORNERS AND PENALTIES JUST GOT REALLY COMPLEX
Another big tech advancement that's gone into FIFA 17 is rewriting the set pieces in a way that you're taking control in every dead ball situations for more jump out of your seat occasions.
That means that how you take corners and penalties has changed exponentially. You now have control over your speed of approach, your run-up techniques, power on the ball, last minute directional changes and more for penalties and free-kicks, which makes pulling off a successful goal a lot more challenging. We're definitely going to have to practice the techniques a lot before we're confident enough to take on the goalie.
For corners, you can now choose where to aim your kick using a reticule that you can make invisible so your mate sitting next to you on the sofa won't see where you're aiming. Before you kick though, you can also switch to the receiver to make sure he's ready to get on the end of that ball you're putting in the box.
It's certainly a lot more complicated, but it makes it a lot more rewarding when you start putting them home.
You can also choose to have the camera angle stay behind you for either penalties, free kicks or corners, so you can see the trajectory of your ball.
Throw-ins have been slightly revamped too, with the player offered the option to move along the sideline, and even do a cheeky fake throw-in to put off the other team.
5. MORE INTELLIGENT AI
And finally, all your hard work will be supported by your teammates powered by a totally revamped new AI system – the Active Intelligence System. It's a huge leap forward for positioning of your teammates, where they have a better broader understanding and analysis of the space on the pitch. They will understand how the spaces are occupied and by whom, then moving to a position that exploits that space.
That means your players will move into the more strategic positions. No longer will they run straight for the box if there's an open space on the wing that you could curve a ball into for a better shot at goal.
There are far more diagonal runs and generally more activity from your teammates, so you're not left on your tod in the box surrounded by the opposition. They'll spot the moves that you're trying to make, automatically adjusting their pace and positioning to better receive the ball.
What the end result is that the defence is a lot easier to break down because your teammates are better aware of the spaces that are available. And gameplay has a lot more variety than it ever has before, which is great because often games can get into a bit of a stalemate.
FIFA 17 release date: TBC 2016
Available on: Xbox One (tested), PS4 and PC
Developer: EA Sports
Publisher: EA Games
via
IFTTT
Title : FIFA 17 Preview: 5 Features That Make This The Most Realistic FIFA ever
Description : We can feel it in the air. The players are pulling on their boots, donning their freshly pressed home kits, coifing their hair and praying...