That’s particularly the case for Electronic Arts’ market-leader FIFA franchise.

This year, EA has taken what is essentially the perfect sports simulator and given it a supercharge with the addition of a story-based campaign – something completely new for the series.

The Journey follows the trials and tribulations of a budding junior soccer star by the name of Alex Hunter. 

Young Alex’s career and pathway to the professional soccer ranks is determined entirely by your ability to make him perform on the pitch by picking up upgrade points so that he an improve his skills.

Improve them enough, and turn that skill into impressive performances on the pitch and Alex’s path to professional soccer stardom is all-but guaranteed.

This journey takes the form of a series of cut-scenes and a series of ongoing matches. Unfortunately, other than participating in the actual games themselves, your interaction in The Journey is limited to basically picking a team you wish to play for.

There have been a number of other smaller improvements made to the gameplay, including tweaks to throw-ins, the ability to jostle more effectively when in possession of the ball and without, and a new skill move that allows you to increase your power when shooting on goal, while keeping the ball low to the ground.

The regular career mode (manager mode) and the fan-favourite Ultimate Team is still including – that’s the game mode where you collect the game cards and build your team around the ones you manage to keep.

From a purely aesthetic perspective, FIFA 17 continues to lead the field in terms of sporting simulators. The sheer depth of gameplay alone makes it a must-have.

The new Frostbite engine helps maintain the extremely high graphics performance during gameplay, while the consistently realistic commentary continues to make FIFA 17 one of, if not the yardstick in terms of all sporting games on a console.