FIFA 12 Review

Gameplay: 9, Superb.
Graphics: 8, Great.
Sound: 8, Great.
Value: 10, Prime.
Tilt: 10, Prime.

As it has been for the last few years, EA's FIFA franchise has outshone Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer games, and FIFA 12 is no exception building on the Superb FIFA 11 to make the best football game out there.

GAMEPLAY:

As with any game, gameplay is king and this is where FIFA 12 really excells, over 10 years of EA tweaking the gameplay has not gone to waste and FIFA 12 is a perfect example of how a game realeased every year can adapt and change. Pre-release there were 3 very important changes to the game engine, dubbed the 'Holy Trinity of gameplay changes' by line producer, David Rutter. These 3 changes promised to revolutionise FIFA and in some ways they have.


The first change was the 'player impact engine' which after two years of development has been implemented to convey more realistic collisions between players. This feature was the weakest of the three gameplay changes, it was very hit and miss and sparked a whole host of 'fails' videos on youtube. Despite the player impact engine working the majority of the time, when it didnt work the results where unexcuseable for such a big release like this. The main concequence of this (aside from looking extreamly ugly) was match officials often making wrong decisions which somewhat ruins the gameplay, especially when you lose a match due to a wrong call by an official.

The second change, the 'precision dribbling' feature was the least hyped of the three, and it was a nice feature and worked well. However it was rarely useful and at times you forget it is even there. It seems to be a tool only used by the higher skilled players to manipulate the ball more deftly; however for the average player it is totally unneccesary, though it can be fun at times.

Last but not least is the new 'tactical defending' feature. On the face of it, it doesn't seem like it changes much and was overlooked. But that was until you played the demo for the first time. In previous FIFA's defending was a one button press system, which made your player hone in on an attacker with no skill involved. But tactical defending changed this. Defending became a real challenge to master and provoked uproar in the FIFA community. For offline matches, players can turn the defending back to the somewhat crude 'legacy defending' but online there isn't an option for this, forcing players to use the new tactical defending, so it is unadviseable for players to do this if they want to play offline as well as online.

Overall, the gameplay is almost perfect, as you could expect from EA Sports' biggest franchise. The experience is very enjoyable, which is only helped by the seemless controls. One thing of note is the fact that I play FIFA 12 on my laptop, and a gamepad helps a lot, personally I recommend the Xbox Controller for Windows

GRAPHICS:




The graphics of FIFA 12 are excellent, with fluid and vivid animations. The little touches are very thoughtfull; from player warming up before kick off to getting frustrated after a decision hasn't gone their way, FIFA 12 looks amazing (aside from the unfortunate moments when the player impact engine doesn't work well, but this has a comedic affect so that somewhat makes up for it). Suprisingly, the graphical specifications are not too high for the PC versions of the game - which for the first time are identical to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, and personally I can run the game on its highest settings with my £400 laptop.




SOUND:

Being a sports game, it is hard to excell in the sound department. The in-game music is as ever excellent and is an excelent background when scrolling though the menus of FIFA 12. The commentary team for the first time is taken over by two sets of commentators (for the English version) and both handle their job without any trouble. Occasionaly, they try to make the commentary more realistic providing in depth anysis. However after playing with the same club or players for a few months, you bound to get repeats which can't be helped, but aren't the best either (for example there is a piece of commentary on Man City's Yaya Toure which I have heard at least 5 times, which gets annoying very quickly).

VALUE:

The one advantage of the PC is that it is generally cheaper, with a fairly steep difference in the price bewteen the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. which seems quite steep. But the amount of gameplay from FIFA 12 is immense and endless and it is still great value whatever price you pay.

TILT:

Being a massive football fan, I enjoyed the game immensely and I'm sure any other football fans will as well. I am glad that EA respect the PC gaming market and porting the next-gen FIFA games for PC gamers to enjoy.

FINAL RATING: 9.0, Superb

The Bottom Line: The Best Football Game of All Time has Gotten Better, a Must Buy Despite its Minor Flaws

(review was written by Parasect4win and polished by Rigas)