We're not ready to put a score on our thoughts yet, but we've put 20 hours in EA Sports FC 27 to see what's new and improved this year.
It always takes a while to form definitive impressions of EA Sports FC games. As the community gets to grips with the intricacies of the new gameplay mechanics, the exploits come to the forefront, and the game is patched, the full picture becomes clear. However, having played 20 hours of FC 27, there's already plenty of good and bad in this year's game.
The single big ask from players was that defending was improved for FC 27. A move away from a focus on AI defending to make manual actions more rewarding has become a necessity, and EA Sports has insisted pre-launch that they've managed it. Thankfully, their work has mostly done the job.
Defenders make tackles more reliably. You have to press the button to do it, and defenders taking the ball off the attacker without any input from you is much, much rarer. Tackle at the right time, and you'll come away with the ball more often than you don't. That also means you can't sit back and wait for the AI to do the work for you. This is a hugely welcome change that's been top of wishlists for years, and it removes a huge amount of the frustration that FC 26 caused.
It may be partly by design to ensure players don't rely on AI defending, but the intelligence of non-player-controlled defenders - fullbacks in particular - is really poor. Left backs and right backs often wander off when players run towards them, or are five yards too deep when defending on the edge of their box. And since attackers are so agile, it's difficult to keep switching back and forth to move them back into the right position when they go for a stroll in the wrong direction. Hopefully, better players with the Defender++ Role won't be so out of position, but I don't have the funds to buy them just yet.
On the attacking side, things have improved, too. Forwards genuinely make better runs off the ball. They'll hang on your opponents' defensive line, making runs at the right time; they'll make curved runs to stay onside, and even run from outside to in. Even when using players with basic Roles, attackers will still make decent movements, at least in comparison to recent games.
The game feels quicker at the start than it often has in previous entries. Gameplay feels smooth, and passing is reliable, even if I've had some matches with terrible input delay. I put that down to my limited matchmaking options pre-release, though.
One area in which EA Sports hasn't quite achieved what they set out to do is balancing playstyles and ensuring there are lots of ways to score. While the finesse shot has absolutely been nerfed, with it seemingly impossible to score the curved shot from outside the box, the low-driven shot is at FIFA 17 levels of overpowered. Low shots towards the front post, or low-driven finesse shots from around the penalty spot, are the most reliable ways to score. Headers? Forget about it. Long shots? Don't bother. Run down the wing, pass to the player free at the edge of the box, and low-driven shot it towards the near post once you have some free space. Simple as that. While I don't want EA Sports to overdo it with the updates, I hope a balance patch for shooting comes relatively soon. Elsewhere, though, Playstyles have been balanced well. Bruiser is no longer overpowered, with players' attributes having more of an impact on whether they're good enough than in recent years.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.pcgamesn.com/fc-27/ea-sports-fc-27-review-in-progress-sometimes-maybe-good-sometimes-maybe-less-so
