FIFA 12 (Full Game)

FIFA 12 Case

So probably most have you have seen my demo review, so I am going to try and not repeat myself to much as ideally I don’t really want to go over the same points over and over again, otherwise it just gets boring for me and you.

Finally this year’s rendition of FIFA has hit our shelves, is it any good? Quite simply, it’s not good at all……..instead, it’s the best that EA have produced since FIFA came out. Everything, and I mean everything has finally come together, graphics, gameplay, career mode, ultimate team (even though Im still not a fan), online, the passing, the shooting, the crossing, the ball twirling in the air, the sound of the studs smashing into someone’s shin pad (well maybe not that one) but it is a masterpiece.

As usual EA tells you what difficulty you should have the game at when you first put the disc in, with my achievements from previous titles, apparently “football is my passion”, which sticks me on world class which is what I played at on FIFA 11, however the intelligence has been ramped up to the extreme this year, make one mistake and be sure to be punished, they will counter attack and nothing will stop them unless you can try and get a crutching tackle with the player on the ball, so I turned the difficulty down to Professional, I still now get my “arse handed to me” by the likes of “Crystal Palace” (I am my own town, Portsmouth FC) who beat me 4 – 0, all be it at the end of the game they put on a really good display.

Note: Do not leave a single player unmarked in the box when the com. is attacking.

The combination of difficulty and A.I.  is my favourite bit about this game, you will think that you have the game “dead and buried” at the 75^th minute, and then someone will lose their position and it will be 2 – 1, and be sure that the computer will pile on the pressure, because I have had many a time where they have drawn in the 88^th – 89^th minute. Believe me you have to work hard for the goals in which you score, it becomes extremely frustrating, however you have to learn how each team play, because the computer learns how you play, it will know what you want to do and it will counter attack at lightning speed.

Presentation is excellent this year, and they have really tried hard to improve the smoothness of the menus, it works very well. The VP (Virtual Pro) faces have been improved to with no more “Big Forehead Syndrome” as I liked to call it.

So I want to take a sizeable chuck of this review on showing you or rather telling you about the new online modes that EA said that would revolutionise the online gaming market in sports game and I say I believe in what they have said.

Keeper and Player Collide!

First we shall start off with “Head to Head Seasons” which has effectively replaced “Head to Head Ranked Match”, basically rather than just playing friendly’s (although I will touch on that subject) you play as the team you support, which is called “My Football Club”, so for example I will play as Portsmouth because I support them, then the server will search for another club which is a similar star to my club, in this case 3 Stars, thus eliminating matches such as Barcelona versus Accrington Stanley, which is a very good way from preventing people from moaning about the odd match ups and people playing against much harder teams. This isn’t the only improvement to this mode, in “Head to Head Seasons”, you also play for points rather than online XP, 3 Points for a win, 1 Point for a draw and obviously 0 points for a loss. There are 10 Divisions and you start at the bottom, there are 10 games in a season (however it only lasts a week, so you have to play 10 games in 7 days to complete a season) this gives your team points on the world wide leader board, so for instance last week (and this is true), Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United got relegated from the premier league because not enough people won with them, or played with them online, thus they were relegated to the championship. Currently Portsmouth are 15^th in the Npower Championship.

I hope you understand this, because to me it sounds quite confusing, however once you actually see the mode it all gets explained to you by Martin Tyler.

Also in the online modes are Online Friendlies, which I believe have taken over if you want to play with different starred teams rather than the club in which you support. That’s all I can really say about that mode.

So that’s all of the online modes explained obviously the golden oldies of Pro Ranked Matches and Pro Clubs return from previous instalments, I think everyone knows what they are.

Aaron Ramsay telling the gaffer that he is Unhappy.

Another massive addition to this year, is the all new XP system in which you have to do tasks, like score goals, get man of the match with your VP and win matches to gain XP points which goes towards an overall level and at the moment bragging rights against your friends, I have a funny feeling that will expand on this to buy things for the game or your VP, well hopefully they will.

There have been many small additions to the career mode this year, which truly make this game brilliant, things like players telling you that they are not happy because you have relegated them to the bench after a poor performance, but they want to make it up to the fans and you by putting in a better performance. Also clubs are bought by new owners, Brighton and Hove Albion have just been bought in my career and it says they will be competing with the likes of Manchester United and Barcelona by signing some of the best players in the world (very Manchester City-esque). There are 4 sections to the news section, so you can keep up with what’s going on in the world of football, World News, Breaking News, Transfer News and Club News, all these are updated every day in the career mode with new information.

Transfers are much more realistic; players won’t come to your club if they don’t feel you are a good enough club for them or if they don’t like the idea of emigrating. Clubs now offer you for your players that are in good form, this is shown by a new bar in the Team Management which shows how in form the player you have selected are. For example David Norris is in form at the moment and I had to stave off interest from Leeds who kept putting up their bid for him, first £1 million, then £1.2 Million and finally £1.4 Million. Transfer Deadline Day has been added too this shows how much your league has spent on transfer and breaks the day down in to 10 hourly instalments in which you can try and worm your way into deals and steal them off of other clubs or get that last player to complete your team, this part certainly adds depth to the game

Jack Wilshere taking on Didier Drogba

There are many other features too, like the all new youth squad, and like other FIFA instalments you now have a scout in which you can send them anywhere in the world to a particular country to search for talent, and you get to narrow down the talent and sign them to your youth squad before some other team signs them, so you have to juggle money and whether or not they are good enough or will be good enough for your team.

Finally the players improve in your team and not through time either, they improve if they are playing well, which is soooo more realistic than previous renditions of the game.

All in all, career mode has finally been ramped up to the ability in which we knew it could perform. This is the mode I mostly play and I am sure it will keep me going to next years edition.

So I think that pretty much ties it up for this years addition of FIFA, it is excellent, much better than its previous instalments, it flows and it does its job, it may take some time getting used to the way the players move and the new systems of tactical defending, but it is definitely worth holding out to master the system.

Graphics: 9/10

Game Modes: 9/10
Sound: 10/10
Replayability: 10/10
Overall: 9.5/10