My comment is that I really enjoyed the 3 matches I played last night on the Origin Access.
There is so much subtlety in this year's FIFA that after playing the samey PES is so refreshing.
Positioning. Feel like I don't have to control all 10 players anymore. The human reactions of see the ball get the ball are there. The defenders gets past the halfway line to meet the forward. Do you know how long I've been waiting for that very fundamental concept to happen in FIFA? On default nonetheless. There is a sense of compressed, building of numbers, on both sides. You know the type of team you are playing if you just take a quick look at their CTT's. I played a heavy crossing team in the Div 3 Bundesliga, and it was true to form, they crossed at every opportunity - but played very narrow defensively. Liverpool plays very wide, and very aggressive, while Everton played down the middle to Sigurdsson and Rooney, but had the backing of Baines to prevent Ritchie from doing anything.
Ball physics. Yes, FIFA has decent ball physics. One little blemish would be the driven passing, but even then it's not terrible. Will be looking at reducing it though as it does "freeze" the defending players. at times. Noticed on short passes, even if overhit, they don't fly out of bounds. However, cross field ball, with a lesser skilled player brings in a lot of risk/reward. The ball doesn't just dip dramatically like in years past though. It floats for a decent amount of time. On manual, the pass speed needs a tad extra holding as I felt like I had underhit some passes, and resorted to using manual through pass as my choice. I used L1 cross a bit, and it was just a floating cross, that really posed no threat. Regular crossing felt fine. Shooting felt good, possibly a tad too floaty in some instances, so a slight bump in shot speed may be needed.
Physicality. You can't just glide by players like last year. There is a strong sense of physical match ups off, and on the ball. The players get in between the ball and player very well. Shielding is more contextual than ever. You no longer see the terrible False9 forward just shield the entire time, and noone able to get the ball off.
Fatigue. I felt like the fatigue kicked in at different times of the match, primarily later of course, but the effect of the fatigue seemed to result in some poor decision making by CPU - or just poor execution. Wide open passes going off the mark, more physicality, less direct passing. Was a very nice touch.
Player ID. Star players stand out. Wijnaldum alone stood out for me the most because of all the things he does in the middle of the pitch. He would distribute the ball as much as he could, but when faced up, he would try to dribble past, or fake me out with his Cruyff turns. On the user side Napoli's Koulibaly was an absolute beast for me. He was so reliable and such a force that I felt so confident in defending with him. He wasn't the fastest player, but his size and strength were sublime. The 3rd div Bundesliga opponent had a stand out, tall, striker, who just held the ball up. Again, not using cliche shielding like FIFA 17, but more so holding the ball to either set someone up. He had a decent shot on him too, but I managed to hold onto the win.
Atmosphere. Incredible reactions from the crowd. You can feel they are truly watching the match. The standout from last night's stream was how the home side of the Div 3 Bundesliga team was cheering on every good tackle, interception and terrible passing by me. It was exactly how real matches sound, it was a brilliant thing. That's what I'm talking about with FIFA's subtlety this year. The pan over to the crowd is also a very nice touch because that just engrosses you even more.
Areas to improve. So far, there doesn't seem a whole lot. However, some stand outs are wonky shooting animations. What is positive is that the CPU chooses to shoot from anywhere - the problem is they shoot a lot, and in some cases the animations don't make sense due to warping and terrible foot planting. The stream I'll post below shows so much of this, and having 25 sim enthusiasts on the stream with me did not let this go unnoticed. I also feel the shooting speed is floaty, and kind of strange at times. Raising shot speed up did show some much better physics, and goalkeeper animations. Speaking of goalkeeper animations, they are still not that good. They stretch out so much, that they forget to shuffle their feet. The best animations I saw was from Reina as he seemed to react more naturally and didn't try to fly with full extension every time. Eitherway, there are a lot of the same animations from 17 in the goalkeeping department. Drilled/driven passing will start to become an eyesore if the defending players don't have time to react, and/or the first touches aren't somewhat altered relevant to the skill level.
Overall. I am completely impressed and dumfounded that this is FIFA. Yes, the frostbite engine still has some rough edges in terms of lighting. However, there is some subtlety to the lighting as well with floodlights shining on the player's face, and you can see the sweat glistening, and or rain for that matter. It makes the close up replays/cutscenes that much better. The ball size is just a hair too small for me, especially after playing PES, but it's not as bad as 17. Like I said though, FIFA isa welcomed change of pace and a breath of fresh air so far. Some of the touches in Career Mode as well will help with being engrossed. I do hope that the areas such as wonky shooting animations can be fixed, but done without breaking the incredible display that is appearing right now.
Here is the twitch stream from last night. Sorry for some audio/video sync issues. My rig may be needing an upgrade soon:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/176806188
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