Official FIFA 12 reveal, details

This is as close as it gets to being on the pitch.


A few years back, EA completely reinvented football (soccer for Yanks) with full 360 degree movement. FIFA 12 has just as significant an improvement, offering great player control and some excellent new gameplay additions. Seriously, once you play FIFA 12, it's impossible to go back to FIFA 11.

There are four major improvements to FIFA's gameplay: Redefined control, new physics engine, better defending, and player-specific AI. EA gave me its spiel, which sounded good, but then I got a chance to play a match in FIFA 12. It's not boastful on EA's part -- FIFA 12 is an incredible improvement over FIFA 11.


FIFA 12 Player Impact Trailer


True control

For the past few FIFA titles, it appeared you had good control of your player. But turning was an odd thing. Players circled as if they were in a car. Now, players can literally put their foot on the ball while standing and rotate around. Momentum impacts a player (as does his skill), but overall there is more finite control. This might seem like a minor change, but its impact is staggering when comparing how FIFA 12 handles compared to FIFA 11.

Footballers with great skill can dance with the ball, adjusting pacing, sucking in defenders and then exploding with a deft move to swing around them. And I mean roll right off their back. The sophistication of close contact is impressive, even with just two games of FIFA 12 under my belt.


It's Gonna Hurt

This is thanks to the new impact engine, which adds more realistic interactions between players. Players pull at one another, as they fight for position. Feet tangle. You'll see hard crashes, painful flips, and the physical toll a match can have. Nothing looks or feels canned and the level of detail is to the point of being able to see a foot get caught and an ankle turn the wrong way for a sprain.

In fact, injuries occur based on how players collide. FIFA 12 knows every major muscle and bone in a player's body and how force can impact them. EA promises players will hobble when they've pulled a hamstring and otherwise offer more believable reactions to their injuries. In my first game, I had two injuries and in the second there were three. Hopefully the injury bug isn't too prevalent. While realism is great, no one wants to see their team decimated after just a few games.


Get Defensive

I've always been a fan of FIFA's simple defensive system. Hold a button and you bear down on the ball. It's easy to use and even allows novices a chance on defense. But it can also leave you exposed, since you go right for the ball handler. FIFA 12 solves this. You still hold a single button, but you defend a zone around the other player. At any time you can move forward and initiate a tackle or whatever else you want to do, but if not, you keep some space from the ball to try and avoid allowing Lionel Messi to blow by you.



This allows players to try and edge offensive players into a corner or better intercept passes. It gives more control over how you defend the ball, which means that you don't have to defend every player the same way.

I found defending far easier and it was like my football IQ automatically jumped a few notches. Suddenly FIFA started feeling like a legit match. It's actually tougher for the AI to exploit the common mistakes a gamer might make in FIFA 11. Once you see the benefits of using spacing to defend against the ball (instead of always rushing forward for a tackle), it's hard to think about playing FIFA any other way.


Clever Girl

EA calls it Pro Player Intelligence. What the hell does that mean? Players understand who is on the pitch with them and act accordingly. If you have Peter Crouch, chances are Rafael van der Vaart is going to lob a lot of high crosses near the goal to take advantage of his height.

This also means players will play to their strengths. For example, FIFA 12 takes into a player's field of vision on the pitch. Kaka is going to be able to recognize an opening in the defense for a teammate running down the wing and get him the ball, whereas middies from the bottom of the table won't see the option.

It's tough to judge this from two games, but it sounds promising.




If EA can deliver, FIFA 12 will leapfrog FIFA 11's gameplay. At this point, the only real competition for EA is last year's FIFA. And the team seems determined to outdo itself. That's pretty awesome to see.

PimpMVP wrote: »

Fixed for the Americans

lol lol...........true true.

Live service adds more authenticity to the most revolutionary FIFA game yet.


EA Sports has shed more light on its new online in-game service Football Club, claiming it "is the heartbeat of FIFA from now on." Talking exclusively to IGN at a behind-closed-doors demonstration of FIFA 12 at E3, Line Producer David Rutter added, "This is not just for FIFA 12, it's for all FIFA games moving forward."

Rutter then went on to explain how Football Club will revolutionise FIFA's online play by adding a new layer of social depth to the game: "Everything you do in the game will accumulate XP and you can track your progress in FIFA 12 and other FIFA games in the future with your friends. You can compare yourself against your friends but also see how you're doing in the bigger global leaderboard."

In many respects it appears Football Club is FIFA's equivalent of Need for Speed's innovative Autolog, which enabled you to keep track of how your friends were doing and issued challenges in-game.


More FIFA Soccer 12 Videos

However, Rutter believes it will make the FIFA experience even more authentic because it'll take in even more aspects of the real game. "We're going to rip stuff from real life and put it into the game as part of the challenge system, which is a free live service that gives you different challenges throughout the year." One example given at the EA press conference was playing as Spurs in the FA Cup semi-final, tasked with changing history and overcoming Manchester City.

Interestingly there's much more to it than that though and Rutter confirms "It's not about the club you play as in the game, it's about the club you support. So as a Manchester United fan, as part of the challenge service, you might be asked to play as Blackpool and survive the Man United onslaught on the last day of the Premier League season."

Importantly, everything you do in the game contributes to your overall ranking, but performing well has a much bigger impact: "You'll be able pledge your allegiance to a club in the 'support your club' feature", says Rutter. "This is where you can say to everyone 'I support this club'. But when you accumulate XP for yourself you also do the same for your club, which goes into a ? . This amount is averaged out depending on the number of fans each club has and clubs will move up and down the league based on how good they are."

So if you're an Arsenal fan, you can help shift the Gunners to the top of the game's global leaderboard, although fellow fans need to be sticking in the goals in order for your club to enjoy success.

Rutter promises it won't just be the top flight clubs that are the focus for challenges either, stating "We have a lot of teams in the game and we'll be operating it as a live service, so we'll have people back in the office who are prepped to get everything ready. The scale of it at the moment is undefined so the plan is to run and see what people like but continue to make changes and deliver the best we can based on players' feedback."

IGN also spoke to Rutter about the player injury system shown off in an early demo of the game, and while he was hesitant to reveal too much, he did offer this: "True injuries are part and parcel of the new Player Impact Engine. We harvest information about the player so we know exactly where they've been hit and how hard. Self injuries happen rarely and it's based on fatigue, but if you're playing career mode and you're caning a player every single game he will come to you and ask for a rest. If you ignore that multiple times then there is a chance he will injure himself."

Clearly it's an ongoing development cycle in which the team behind FIFA is continually looking for new ways to innovate, something FIFA 12 promises to do when it launches later this year. "The Player Impact Engine has taken two years to get right in the game. Football Club will add a different type of authenticity and realism to the game based on real life. There are huge opportunities for the future but this is by far the biggest step in quality we've done in years."

WTF Wayne know bout Football? lol