By Mark Baber
September 8 – EA Sports FIFA 16 is today (depending on geographical location) available to users in demo version. The company has been promoting the new game through release of its ratings for players, including a top 50, with the full version of the game due for release around September 22.
FIFA 16 breaks new ground in a number of ways, including in particular the inclusion of female players for the first time – with women’s national teams from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden and the United States now available.
Other enhancements include the ability to train players without actually playing them, ability to choose friendly competitions to play in pre-season and improvements to the transfer system to make it more realistic.
As part of its promotion of the new game, EA Sports has been releasing details of its top-rated players – with the full top 50 now being available. According to the games developer these players “Are the 50 top-rated players in FIFA 16 and FIFA 16 Ultimate Team based on last 365 days of performances in league and cup play.”
Little seems to have been revealed about the mechanism behind these ratings, although it seems it must differ substantially from that used for the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index used for the Premier League – not least since Cech played few games last season as he was Chelsea’s second choice keeper.
The top 50 come from just 12 top clubs – all from Europe with the only exception being Boca Juniors who feature on the list due to Carlos Tevez having moved there from Juventus this summer. Whether this is a rather worrying reflection of real life or just due to the limitations of the EA Sports scouting network is difficult to tell.
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