FIFA 20

peggior gameplay degli ultimi anni, peggio di lui solo il 19 a causa di quel tornado cross. Croquette annullate a gogo > tornado cross

People say “It's the same game every year, just with updated squads”. This is incorrect. FIFA 20 has a new mode, Volta which is like a 5-a-side mode which has been missing since FIFA 98, or the spin-off FIFA Street. Also, FIFA 20 launched without the latest squads. I don't understand how it didn't have the latest squads on launch. I thought the whole point of releasing it late September was so that the Transfer Window has shut, and the team's squads have been finalised.

In terms of main gameplay, things feel very similar to FIFA 19. I enjoyed FIFA 19, but thought there were some things that needed tweaking like set pieces. Set pieces have been revamped. You aim a targetting reticule for free kicks and penalties and can use the “timed finishing” mechanic for extra accuracy. For free kicks, you can add extra spin. Corners remain unchanged, so getting a goal from them is still more like a 1 in 100 chance. I think the free kicks are an improvement over last year, but penalties are awful. The reticule is very sensitive and tries to recentre, also the margin of error is huge so it might not actually go where you aimed it. The computer seems bad at penalties too though.

Crossing seems to have got way worse with players being more likely to overhit the ball. I often found that when you did make a great cross, then it would essentially come down to A) the player controls the ball and ignores your instruction to head it B) the player does lame header, mainly downwards into the ground with low power C) the player completely ignores the ball and hopes the team-mate behind him will get it instead. This also ties into why corners are so hard to score. EA did put out a statement saying that people complained about crosses being overpowered in FIFA 19, so they made these changes and won't tweak it. So because crossing was overpowered: now crossing is bad, headers are bad, and the player-switching is also bad. Why can't they just make a tiny change and see what happens?

I always thought EA prided themselves on authenticity. Not only is there no sign of the VAR video technology, they also have lost the licence to Juventus, so now they are called Piemonte Calcio.

Volta mode has a story, so that replaces “The Journey” which concluded with FIFA 19. You play various tournaments around the world with your fictional character with fictional female goalkeeper Syd. There's a weird bug where Syd plays for every team in the game. Even after multiple patches, it still wasn't fixed as of November. Sometimes it will be 3,4, or 5 players, sometimes with no goalkeepers (Syd will just play sweeper). Some venues are walled arenas that you can play the ball against. To win each tournament, you normally have to win 5 games in a row. Lose, and you have to start the tournament again. Although it's an interesting mode, sometimes it can seem a bit too random and very much depends if the AI actually stay back to defend the goal. Some matches Syd loved charging up to try score some goals. In the story mode people don't wear standard kits, so is quite hard to tell who is on your team at a glance. I customised their clothes but you aren't allowed to choose the same clothing item, so I ended up choosing similar colours instead. That doesn't stop the opposition wearing the same colour as you though. Outside of the story mode, when you choose official teams, they do wear their official kit.

EA promised to revamp Career mode. They added press conferences which are very basic, so I skipped the majority of them. If you followed any FIFA news, you will know that #FixCareerMode was trending on Twitter. The best teams in the league were fielding their worst team and getting relegated, fixtures where scheduled on consecutive days (this has been a problem for years but EA claimed they fixed it), European Cup/Champions League stopped working after a few years, gamers were getting sacked for renewing contracts. By November, these issues were fixed. I think they could have done more tweaks to the mode. I always find that there are only a small number of players on the Transfer List, and they are usually old, obscure players. There's rarely anyone decent available for loan too.

Ultimate Team is a good mode in theory. You buy card packs to acquire players and items like attribute boosts, contract renewals etc. Even though you can play it in single player, if you lose connection; you are kicked out of the game with a 3-0 loss. It's a brutal punishment, because maybe you were on track to earn 500 coins, but then end up with nothing, a loss against you, and all your squad's contracts are 1 game closer to expiring. I played several games until this happened, then abandoned the mode.

The game features all kinds of signs that there was a lack of polish. From T-Posing stewards, wrong team names showing in the news feed in Tournament mode, Sheffield's scoreboard shows Sheffield in the away slot; therefore shows the incorrect score.

If you ignore all the annoyances, FIFA is largely the same games as FIFA 19, only worse.