FIFA 15 review: football fantasy

It was beyond the 90th minute in a match between FC Barcelona, one of the best teams in the game, and Tottenham Hotspur, under my frantic direction. We'd given up a goal at the end of the first half and now I was looking at a 1-0 loss. I sent the entire team into an all-out attack.

Then the miracle happened. Not only did it look like one, it felt like one.

My goalkeeper scooped up an indifferent Barcelona shot and boomed the ball well past midfield. Federico Fazio chest-trapped it and, in one motion, turned and lobbed a soft ball to Emmanuel Adebayor, steaming in from the left. The striker headed it into the back of the net past the bewildered defenders and a frozen goalkeeper. It must have taken less than 10 seconds, start to finish.

Adebayor raced to the corner flag, pursued by nine delirious teammates, and was pinned to the ground. White Hart Lane shook; the speakers poured forth the crowd's joy. The camera vibrated as the images cycled — there's Messi! Head down, hands on hips! Absolutely stoic.

In that scene are the key ingredients of the FIFA 15 experience: the new television presentation, the emphasis on player reactions and emotions, a lucky bounce or two from the new momentum-based physics added to the ball, a goalie caught flat-footed, and a big goal. Absolutely the big goal.

That may not sound like much of a change over the past four years of best-in-class offerings, and indeed, structurally, the major modes and components of FIFA 15 are only modestly adjusted. The player emotion would be nearly unrecognizable without the broadcast package that highlights it. Conversely, a video game approximating a televised event needs something compelling to show. FIFA 15 goes over the top to highlight exhausted, jubilant teammates hugging it out on the pitch as the crowd goes bananas, but not to the point that it feels unearned.

Scoring helps drive a lot of the game's emotion, of course, and scoring gets a lot of help this year with new momentum-based ball physics. Defenders and the goalkeeper will get in the way of more shots, but their rebounds will be less predictable and more apt to bounce further away. In past editions, the absence of momentum meant balls would stop dead and fall to the earth once they hit something; that made it easy for the defense to take possession of missed shots, and thus shot opportunities were almost too precious. The chance to get a second bite at the apple is nice, knowing the scoring chance I so carefully created doesn't go entirely to waste if I can keep the ball low and try to play a rebound.

That's critical to enjoyment of this game, considering how much work usually goes into moving and securing the ball in the game's compressed time span (most FIFA halves last between six and eight minutes in real time). Even more work is necessary this year, as FIFA 15 has increased the number of ways you can be jostled off the ball, and faster defenders seem to hang with you every step of the way. Passing, trapping and dribbling on a sprint is more precarious, but it also makes a counter-attacking strategy more viable.

The modes through which FIFA 15 serves all of this do not differ greatly from previous editions. Playing as a manager or as a single professional is still largely the same experience. Player fatigue still has little palpable effect from game to game (or much within a game, either). Ultimate Team brings in the ability to loan out (or be loaned) players they way they are in international club competition.

The breadth of FIFA 15's offering is still strong, and still as seductive as its forebears ever were. Avid football fans can still lose hours on end to it without a care; newcomers trying to understand the culture of the sport will be exposed to an authentic landscape of player, rivalries and interactions between clubs of the major domestic leagues in Europe.