FIFA 12 REVIEW
by Ruben Slegers
For a lot of people the yearly release of FIFA is the same as their grandmother’s Christmas party: it’s always around the same time every year and they wonder how it’s going to be different from last year. Maybe the only difference from your grandmother’s Christmas party is that you are really looking forward to FIFA’s release. And yes, I am one of those people who have this feeling every year.
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GAMEPLAY
FIFA 12 has made three important gameplay-related improvements:
Precision Dribbling,
Tactical Defending and
Player Impact Engine.
Precision Dribbling
Do you know that feeling you get when you are playing against Barcelona and players like Messi, Iniesta, Xavi and Fabregas are just walking through your defense like they are taking a walk in the park?
That’s because of this Precision Dribbling. It enables technical players like Messi to turn even shorter, keep the ball even closer to his foot and make complete fools of his opponents.
This new feature makes the game, believe it or not, even more realistic. It gives you even more control over the ball and gives you many more possibilities in possession. You are able to dribble your wayout of little spaces, which was not the case at all in FIFA 11.
A little downside to this feature is the fact that players like Messi and Robben, for example, are sometimes just too good for your defense. As I said, they can literally walk through your defense as if they are taking a walk in the park. It takes the tempo out of the match and that can be really frustrating sometimes.
Tactical Defending
Previous FIFA releases had some sort of automatic intervention by your defender every time an attacker came too close, but that’s no longer the case.
When and how you make the move to intervene is totally up to you. You decide when to step in or when to slide tackle. This is an asset to the game, as it makes the gameplay much more realistic.
On the other hand, this feature definitely needs some improvement next year. The “defensive intelligence” of your players is sometimes totally below the quality it could be.
For example, when your opponent’s winger is countered and you use your full back to defend the attacker, your left- or right-back will never come inside to mark the central attacker.
This puts them in a scoring position and you will probably concede a goal 90% of the time.
Tactical Defending surely makes the game more difficult. Therefore, if you’re new to FIFA 12, you probably need some time to get used to it, and your first matches might include heavy losses.
Player Impact Engine
This is probably one of the most important changes in FIFA games from others in the last few years. The Player Impact Engine is a revolutionary feature that gives you the opportunity
to experience a very high level of physical confrontations between two players. Every physical contact between two players is different: no fight for possession will be the same.
Every contact has different, plausible and natural consequences.
GAME MODES
Online
FIFA online has definitely made a huge improvement this year. There are lots of new features that are really fun to play, and a wide assortment of different online modes. You can still enjoy the classic Ultimate Team, together with cool new features as 1-on-1 Seasons. Some modes can really suck you up and you might find yourself still playing at 4 o’clock in the morning. But that only means that it’s good!
Offline
Offline modes suck, it’s as simple as that. Career Mode is terrible this year. I mean, when you give a young player with, let’s say, an overall of 64, lots of minutes on the pitch, and your “assistant-coach”tells you he is a “very talented” player, and your scout tells you he has the potential to grow to an overall of 90, you expect him to grow at least some points at the beginning of a new season.
This was the case in previous FIFAs. I can tell you, they don’t grow at all. When they play well and often, you will see them grow 5 or 6 points overall. But that’s it! In previous games I had so much fun buying young talents for nothing, giving them lots of opportunities and selling him for 20 million. Forget about that in FIFA 12. Another thing in Career Mode is the fact that really weird things can happen. And I mean really, really weird things. I have seen managers getting fired after a promotion. And the reason?
Not performing well against the season objective. Can you believe that!? You are getting fired for performing too well? You are rewarded by getting fired!?
And if you are a fan of tricks, don’t go offline. When you do a trick, your opponents know every single move you make. They always see you through. That can be really frustrating.
The only thing I like about Career Mode, is that the way you connect with your players, will have consequences for their performance and form. When you don’t give a player enough playing time,
he/she will complain and perform remarkably badly. After a load of unrealistic, pointless and weird facts in Career Mode, it’s fine to discover a realistic aspect to this.
But basically, I highly recommend an internet connection when you buy FIFA 12.
FIFA 12 has definitely made some really good and even revolutionary gameplay improvements – maybe even the most important and remarkable changes in the long history of FIFA.That makes it a FIFA game that can’t be missed in your collection. If you haven’t bought it yet, find your way to the nearest Game Mania and buy your FIFA 12.
Ruben Slegers
Belgian freelance writer and gamer
E-mail: ruben.slegers@hotmail.com
Facebook: Ruben Slegers
Twitter: @RubenSlegers
EDITOR’S NOTE: We hope you have enjoyed this review of FIFA 12
on The Meek Geek Video Game Blog http://www.videogamersoasis.com/blog
See you again for future game reviews.
Enjoy your gaming everyone!
