If you manage your training wisely, you’ll be able to increase the ratings and monetary value of the individuals on your roster. Drafting isn’t just for American football. Fut 16 Coins is one of the most popular features in EA’s soccer game. The mode lets players build teams using card packs containing randomized personnel and upgrades. Up to this point, the traditional FUT experience has consisted of starting with a mediocre roster and bolstering it with new packs as you play. Also livening things up on the pitch is the fact that players makes mistakes. Unlike the kind of things you see in other sports games, they're aren't obviously forced mistakes, either. In a full career mode season, we saw a single occurrence of a goalkeeper failing to spot an incoming striker and inadvertently passing the ball right to him.

 

Oh, and there was that absolute gift of a goal when the opposition defender drilled a pass back to the keeper, who mis controlled it, let it through his legs and then couldn't clear it away as it crossed the line. Then there's the time that the defender took a big swing at a ball to clear it away in the rain and it sliced off his shin and went back over his head, setting us up with a clear-cut chance. Mistakes are made as they are in real life, with very little in the way of predictability. In every game, something new might happen that you haven't seen before. It could be a defensive error, but it could also be a striker rounding the keeper and with an open goal, taking a shot while off-balance and putting the ball into the car park when it was easier to score.

 

Then there’s the undoubtedly largest hook for many gamers to FIFA which is Ultimate Team, a feature which has undergone several tweaks and additions for its 2016 appearance. First and foremost is FUT Draft, an ideal platform for users too impatient to build their team player by player individually. Online gameplay continues to be a sore point. Connectivity issues at any point just take the game back to the homepage. The number of coins you get after winning a game is not as generous as in the last edition. In the lower divisions, you get about 50 coins, but as you progress to the higher divisions, the amount increases. The lowest amount in Fifa 15 was 390 FIFA coins, and that too after losing a match.

 

More problematic is the AI. Your own AI on defense are as stupid as I can recall. It was an issue in FIFA 15 and I had hoped it would be improved this year around. I think it may be worse. Players seem to have no idea about positioning and no matter what you change in your strategy and formation it’s the same problem over and over. Player reactions are slow and unnatural at times. I can’t help feel that FIFA players still feel like they run on skates. If you try tackle a player and miss, it takes you about ten minutes to turn and chase by which time you might as well give up. It just feels unrealistic. Add to that the fact that slide tackles are a complete waste of time once again and you have a pretty frustrating experience. In fact, you never feel like you are in control in defence.

 

You chase and hope but miss that tackle and your player looks as though he is stuck in the ground. The other new mode to grab the headlines on the path to the title's launch is Ultimate Team Draft. FIFA's most popular mode has taken one of its main hooks - the fact that you can build a ragtag team and guide them to glory - and moulded it into a offshoot that has the potential to provide an easier route to satisfaction. Draft grants you a random assortment of players and formations, and tasks you with making it all work. Higher rated players are gifted to you far more frequently than in the standard Ultimate Team mode, and right from the off, it's clear that this is an addition which is built for those who want increased rewards for their time spent grinding for coins - the currency that's used to buy randomized packs of players.

 

FIFA 16 will certainly offer plenty to keep you playing until FIFA 16 rolls around. But adjusting to the changes in gameplay does take time. There’s still a good game here, but don’t expect to be entertained in every single game. Some are slogs, some are forgettable, but there is that occasional game, like in real life, where everything clicks and it sucks you right in.