FIFA’s biggest competitor Pro Evolution Soccer focused to improve their gameplay this year again. But EA’s tries to get new player by adding a new Story-Mode and to use for this game the DICE’s well known Frostbite-Engine. This Graphic-Engine used in games like Battlefield and its beautiful look impressed us from the beginning. After a long time of playing FIFA 17 we have unfortunately to confirm that we wished that the developers EA Canada would focused more on the essentials. It is like in real life, what counts happens on the field and here has FIFA some problems.

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At first we would like to take a look at the two biggest changes. We love it how great FIFA 17 looks with the Frostbite-Engine. This engine helps that the game has tons of new details and gives the models a much better look. But you should not wait for a technical wonder that happens. What we do not understand is that superstars like Ronaldo or Griezmann looking fantastic, but not well known soccer player like Stindl or Dahoud are not specially well modeled.

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We think unfortunately that the story-Mode that is called ‘The Journey’ is more a boni than the new big innovation in the sports-game-genre. We play in this mode the 17 years old newcomer Alex Hunter. He and his friend Gaz get a contract to play in a Premier-League-Club. We play all ups and downs of this young player’s storyline. What we love is that the cutscenes are very well played by the actors and great synchronized. We’ve been great entertainment by the story but we also have to say that it was a little bit boring when the slows down the speed. That means that from time to time you just play one training or one match after another until you get to see a new cutscene which tells you how the story goes on. What we like is that the game give us the opportunity to choose if we want to play only Hunter or the complete team.

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Unfortunately, we have to say that we think that the new additions of the career mode are unnecessary. It is possible to choose the avatar for your trainer and you have to fulfill tasks you get from the team’s Board of Directors but there are not any new features added.

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We can confirm that the developers updated so called standard situations. We like it that is possible to choose the direction and how hard you want to shoot the ball when you have to shoot it from the corner. In addition to the options you had from the previous version of this game series you have now a never seen before wealth of variations. It is also now possible to define much better the startup, direction and the strength of the shot when you have to perform a penalty. The controls might be a little bit unfamiliar because you have start up and control the direction of the ball with the left stick. In addition to that you can now protect the ball by holding the L2 button. This is a great addition.

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But there is also another side of the coin, too. Some of the gameplay elements been made more worse than improved. We noticed that the if you want to play the ball on the flanks. These tactic is more imprecise and weaker than in the previous game so that you notice them quickly. This also deletes a huge part and gameplay element of FIFA. We also noticed that for example scenes near of the goal are mostly the same. We have unfortunately to say that PES 2017 has a much better gameplay. And like known from other games we also have to confirm that the FIFA’s AI has still some issues. They updated how players take positions to close empty spaces. This helps that they take also more clever positions for an offensive and defensive play. But we think that unfortunately they still are not moving so much as they should or could.

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We noticed that unfortunately especially when you attack the enemies goal players try not to run away from the enemies, not using special moves or even keep staying behind players of the other team. We have to say that it happens too often that we started a counterattack which one we could not finish because our team mates did not react on this. We also noticed that the AI teams we are playing against often just play the ball from one man to another because they get no opportunity to play the ball much effective. We think that the developers should patch this ASAP. It also happened very often that players run with the ball so fast that we could not catch up to them. We also noticed that there is a little issue if you want to go into a duel. We think that this al is a huge handicap if the developers want that this game will be the next big start in the soccer-gameplay-series.

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And they released one. We love it that duels between players feels much more realistic and they reduced the speed of the player that has the ball. Now it is possible to catch them and fight for the ball. But we noticed quickly that there a still issue with the goal keepers. But there are still the issues we talked about before. Teammates still not playing very offensive and helping you not to succeed with a counterattack. We have unfortunately to confirm that the developers have still some work to do.

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What we like is that all version of this game are all the same. That means that it is not necessary if you buy this game for the PC, Playstation or Xbox One. We can only confirm that the game looks a little bit better on the PlayStation than on Microsoft’s console. We also can confirm that the PC version has the most graphical details. What we can say that we have not any issues with the game on any platform we tested it. The game run very well and we also had not crashes while we tested it.

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We can confirm that FIFA 17 is still a great game but still has some small issues with the gameplay. We think it would be much better if the developers had focused on the gameplay than the new engine and the story mode. This great new features can not make it up to against the issues in the gameplay. They have been on a great way with the gameplay last year. Unfortunately, we have to we have to confirm that there are still some work to do with the game’s AI and some tactical gameplay features. FIFA is a solid based game with all their Licenses, the new engine, the nice story mode and good presentations. We think that all FIFA fans will have their fun with it but they also should be patient until they delete all issues.

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