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FIFA 17 has officially dropped. You probably won’t find two more dedicated fans of this illustrious franchise, so listen up potential buyers. Many people across the world are already playing this game, including us. We’ve already logged many hours on FIFA 17 since September, playing modes like Manager Career, Ultimate Team and Seasons. Hopefully by the end of this review, you will have a good image of what this game is like, and whether you should buy it or not.

First and foremost, the new mode added to FIFA 17, The Journey, features up-and-coming 17-year-old soccer prodigy, Alex Hunter. You follow him in his journey to the top of the English Premier League. Although this game mode is revolutionary for the FIFA franchise, it may be a bit too limited in customization. You aren’t able to choose the appearance of your character, and you are also limited to play for the 20 teams in the EPL. Another negative is that you can only play one season in this game mode. On the contrary, the game play and cut scenes are very immersive, which is a big step in the right direction in our opinion (the right direction being a player career mode similar to NBA 2K’s). Initially, we were ecstatic when we heard of this new mode, however, after learning of these flaws, it seems a bit one-dimensional. Some exciting game play and storyline make up for it, and we see great potential in this mode for future games. But as it stands, the mode is lacking a few crucial features.

Next, and our personal favorite, Manager Career mode. There is no doubt in our minds that this is our favorite mode in FIFA, and it has been for years. In this newest version, a few things have been added to make the experience more realistic. These things include manager tasks, new finance tabs in the menus of the mode and more storyline in games. While all of these do add more realism in the mode, there are still some much-needed features. At the moment, Manager Career mode is lacking some necessities. If FIFA 17 Career Mode had a more expanded youth academy system, and more transfer detail, it would be miles better than any version of Career Mode before. As much as this game mode is entertaining, there is so much potential for it to be better.

Co-op Seasons is a mode where you and a friend get to choose which team to play with as you face other pairs of players online. For many FIFA players (including ourselves), this mode can be really competitive. As you win more games, you move up the divisions and face even better players, and the intensity gets even higher. This mode is one of our favorites to play together, however there are many downfalls. The game play can get a bit disoriented at times in online games, and the referees often miss blatant fouls which can result in you losing the game. Also, goalkeepers are very inconsistent when it comes to saving shots from outside the 18-yard box. Even the highest rated goalkeepers make far too many mistakes. However, this year’s Co-op Seasons is far better than in games past. The downfalls that we previously mentioned were at least twice as prominent in FIFA 16’s rendition of the mode. Match making this year is much improved, considering we haven’t been playing Real Madrid in every single game. EA has drastically improved overall shooting in the mode as well. In previous versions, often times when your player was right in front of the goal, he would just strike the ball into the crowd. In general, we would say that Co-op Seasons has improved very much this year.

FIFA Ultimate Team has been easily the most popular mode for the last few games in the FIFA franchise. In this mode, you can build your team from the ground up and purchase players from all around the world, creating your dream team in the process. FIFA 16 had a very poor showing when it came to this mode. However, FUT has changed a lot this year. With the introduction of the new modes, Squad Building Challenges and FUT Champions, the game mode feels completely different. Many people regard FUT as a pay-to-play mode, partially because of the extremely high prices of good players, and because of the cost of packs. You can open packs to get a chance at world-class players instead of buying the player you want for more. The market for players this year is way more suited to the average player who doesn’t pay money. This is huge for us, as we fall into that category. Also, online play is much more entertaining in FUT this year. In past games, we would never play online, as the multiplayer game play was very distorted compared to offline. These things have really drawn us closer to FUT this year, but haven’t got us to ignore some small flaws, such as the pack prices. FUT has had a major overhaul in our perspective.

In retrospect, FIFA 16 was an enjoyable game to start, but fell very hard later on in its lifetime. This is why we were anticipating FIFA 17 so heavily. FIFA 17 has really hit home for us. Hopefully, it has a long, prosperous life and that many players enjoy it just as much as we do.