Breaking Down What FIFA 15's Demo Reveals About Upcoming Release

The first thing that you are going to notice if you download the FIFA 15 demo is that the game just feels different. At first it can be hard to put your finger on exactly what it is that has changed. But once you start to notice the little differences, the gameplay feels much more realistic and much richer than it has in the past. 

I've spent about five or six hours playing the demo on a PlayStation 4, which may not seem like much until you consider that the only thing you can really do on the demo is play friendlies with four-minute halves and eight different teams. Plus, Destiny just came out and has sucked up my remaining video game time. Otherwise, I'd probably still be going pretty hard at the FIFA demo. 

Here's your first gameplay tip if you are going to download the demo: Use Barcelona, put Luis Suarez in at striker and play a 4-3-2-1 (it will show up as a 4-3-3 in the formations menu, but you'll recognize it by the player positioning on the screen) with Lionel Messi behind him on the right and Neymar on the left. 

Trust me, you'll have a lot of fun with those three in the attack. But enough of that—to the gameplay!

For starters, the collision physics are superb. Players grab shirts and jockey for position, but they also react pretty darn realistically to every little bit of contact on the pitch. While the emphasis on adding realism to tackles by having the defender quickly win back possession doesn't always actually happen, it's incredibly satisfying and feels quite realistic when you do perfectly time a tackle, pop to your feet and rip off a quick pass to start the counterattack all in one fluid motion.

The AI in general feels better as well. You'll notice at first that it feels like there is more space available to your player, that somehow the game feels a bit bigger when you play. But go ahead and try to sprint your way up and down the field and you'll see that defenders will play proper angles and often catch up to you on the break, either forcing you to give up the ball or take a different shot than the one you wanted, reducing your angle and leading to an easy save.

And my oh my, how the keeper AI has improved. In last year's game, if your player broke free and was in a decent position you'd almost always have success going across the face of goal to the far post with your shot. This year, that shot is tough to pull off, and your success rate has to do with where the keeper is positioned at the time of the shot.

If he's starting to creep out and has left a crack open at the near post, going there will be far more effective than going across his face. On the other hand, if he's protecting that near post a shot out wide will be your ticket. That may sound obvious enough, but video games are often formulaic with these things. Last year's version was. This year, you need to react to the keeper as much as he reacts to you.

On a cosmetic note, the new keeper animations are fantastic. You may not appreciate it when you've had your equalizing goal saved, but when it's your keeper doing the saving you'll be sure to enjoy those animations.

Another thing players will be relieved to see is that crosses into the box and headers have been powered down compared to FIFA 14, where the success rate on headed goals was unrealistically high (in online play, I made a living by playing as Borussia Dortmund with their speedy wingers and sending cross after cross into Robert Lewandowski).

Now crosses feel random and haphazard, which is how they generally are in real life. You can diminish that somewhat depending on how you set up your crossing settings, but in general you'll need to play with accurate crossers on the wing and a dangerous target man in the box for crosses to work. That's a good thing.

One thing I did notice, however, was that low crosses (on the PS4, triple-tapping square) from the touchline were incredibly effective. I didn't think that felt out of place, however—in real soccer, a low cross sent across the face of goal from the touchline is far more likely to lead to a goal than a swinging cross from out wide.

Finally, the passing in the game has been improved, namely the through balls. Now players will actually attempt to bend or lift their through balls ever so slightly to avoid defenders rather than inanely smacking them right into the path of an opponent. It's a huge improvement.

On one play, I played a give-and-go on the edge of the box, lifting a chipped through ball to my player. In last year's game, the move still worked, but even slightly tapping your lifted through ball sent a looping ball over the defenders head. 

This time, however, my player simply lifted the ball over the defender's outstretched leg, making it far easier for me to quickly control the ball in the box and rip home a near-post goal. It was seamless and reactive rather than formulaic. 

On the other hand, defenders will react to through balls, sniffing them out and cutting away your angle if you try to cut out a big chunk of the field in one fell swoop. And deep diagonal balls across the field will be sniffed out by full-backs who will track back and head the ball away. Keepers are also smarter about through balls, racing to clear anything that comes near the edge of their box with regularity. 

At times I would attempt to send a through ball to one player, and it would go to someone else entirely. That was frustrating but nothing new to the game. And I'd say it happened with less regularity than in the past, a positive sign. 

Defending at times can be quite tricky. Annoyingly, computer players will simply dribble laterally seemingly endlessly until they are challenged, at which point even mediocre players begin pulling off various dribbling tricks with frustrating success. They seem to waltz into the box by the touchline with ease, even if you man-mark them and call in a second defender to add pressure. 

In other words, if you play aggressively on defense against human opponents, be prepared to be slightly frustrated when first going against the computer. It will take more patience.

But those are minor gripes. Generally speaking, the game plays like a dream. You'll need to adjust at first, no doubt, but I found myself wanting to keep playing and trying new tactics with the improved gameplay. It felt like a big step in that particular regard. 

The demo was a tantalizing taste of what's to come. Hopefully the finished product will build on what feels like a very successful base.