5. Impact Engine
This year's revamped Impact Engine is by no means completely fixed after the problems of FIFA 12, but a lot has gone into revamping the system to bring some more realism to player collisions and cut down some of those unintentionally hilarious animations that were so well documented last time out. Thankfully, the impacts are still there - though at times it still all gets a bit over dramatic when a player is wiped out by a maruading defender or goalkeeper in the box, but that's a far less frequent occurrence than it was with FIFA 12, whose broken Impact Engine was a major cause for concern among fans. The Push Pull system has also enjoyed a revamp, making it far more likely of an actual outcome either in favour of attacker or defender, rather than the perpetual push-me-pull-you games that seemed to go on forever in FIFA 12. Frustratingly, too many of those situations ended with a free-kick, but this time when players come together, the situation is usually sorted out a lot quicker and a lot more cleanly without the need for a referee's interference. The march towards realism is also said to be furthered by the introduction of better and more authentic True Injuries, but in more than ten games in the demo, I failed to witness any.
3. Tactical Free-Kicks
A big improvement on FIFA 12, and indeed all of the older FIFA's is the new Tactical Free-Kick system, which brings in a raft of new options for taking free-kicks including having multiple players standing over the ball, choosing from multiple dummies and fakes, as well as new options for defending them including wall jumps and creeping, players charging and the adding or taking away players from the wall. It's always felt like a fairly major oversight from the developers, and while there's no overhaul in how free-kicks are actually taken, this brings them up to date with player expectations. It doesn't make scoring any easier though.