Fifa 12 Review

One could be forgiven for simply dismissing the Fifa franchise as the same tweaked gameplay and squad updates released and rereleased on an annual basis. That’s certainly been true of some past releases, but since the emergence of online patching on consoles, Fifa has been forced to rethink and reshape its franchise in recent years in order to substantially change the gameplay enough to warrant a new game altogether.

This year’s product offers three new changes to the core gameplay in Precision Dribbling, the Player Impact Enginge and arguably the most important of all: Tactical Defending, as well as the usual tweaks to Career and other game mode features. While some of the tweaks are welcome, it’s the big three that have the most profound impact on your enjoyment, as they directly affect the pace and quality of matches in Fifa 12.

Precision Dribbling is something that’s been attempted in past iterations but never really achieved the desired affect due to the way defenders would just steamroll over any attacker in their path with the grace and elegance of Emile Heskey. Precision dribbling allows for much more control of the ball in close quarters, and will allow you to dart and weave past players in a more realistic fashion. This is helped in part thanks to Tactical Defending, which completely reworks how you win the ball back and close down players. Gone are the days of holding X to charge down your man and instead, the jockeying function replaces this type of pressure. You are forced to contain opposing players and restrict their movement or force them into a mistake rather than dive in feet first. This slows the pace of the match down to a much slower, more tactical passing game in the middle of the pitch meaning your attack must be more strategic.

This may feel like a step backwards for casual players who enjoyed the end-to-end arcade football of previous Fifa generations, however, it’s a huge step forward in replicating real football, and it’s quickly noticeable to a keen footballing eye how much more realistic attacking plays seem because of these changes. These changes to the core gameplay come with a very steep learning curve, and it will take time to adjust even for veterans.

It can be very frustrating at first as the AI effortlessly thwarts your every attacking move and walks around your panicking defenders as you struggle to keep your players goal side. One wrong press of the standing tackle button will often leave your defender bewildered and stationary for slightly too long.

This can often be problematic as the game uses the same button for a standing tackling as it does for jostling a player off the ball from behind, and sometimes you’ll find your player doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, leading to dangerous chances for your opponent. But overall the pros outweigh the cons and if you can’t get to grips with the new system, you can always convert back to the old style of defending in the game options.

Finally, the Player Impact Engine has been reworked. Players now react to collisions in a far more realistic fashion based on the physical mass of the players colliding, their momentum and the contact of the collisions. There’s a much greater feel that the players on the pitch are living, breathing human beings and not robotic avatars with a set amount of reactions and animations. When a crunching slide tackle takes Nani’s feet straight out from under his legs, he’ll be sent flying head over heels. When John Terry charges Wright-Phillips off of the ball, the smaller winger will stumble and react to the shoulder barge and weight difference. This synergizes well with Tactical Defending and Precision Dribbling to create a much more flowing, diverse football experience.

Off the pitch there are a number of new features too. Online in Fifa 12 returns as robust as ever, and this year the popular game mode Ultimate Team comes packaged with the standard game for the first time. As well as this, there are a number of new options for online leagues and head to head games. Career mode has once again received its annual rework, and while it’s nothing groundbreaking, the interactions with players, scouting and youth team options, ability to talk to the press and transfer deadlines do help to break up the monotony of a season.

Player’s morale has a greater effect on your team in career mode, and big players will also express their desires to leave your club if they feel underappreciated or unhappy. In my first season as Spurs, Luca Modric made it pretty clear to me that he wanted to move to a bigger club, and while I initially refused to let him leave in the transfer window, the board eventually forced me to sell him on to Manchester United. It’s these little things that make a big difference to stopping the game from feeling like an endless onslaught of pointless matches and more like you’re actually at the helm of a top tier club.

For any serious Fifa fans, there’s a huge noticeable leap in quality from Fifa 11 to 12, and the latest in the series is a must have addition to your console collection.