FIFA 2012 Demo Hands-On

"With FIFA 2012, soccer can be a beautiful game" 




Developer: Electronic Arts
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: Sep 27, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PSP, PS2, PS3, X360, 3DS, Wii.
Genre: Soccer Simulator




FIFA 12 is yet another installment of the popular soccer simulation franchise from Electronic Arts. This edition of the series introduces some new features over its predecessor. This time the engine was rebuilt and now contact between players is even more realistic. Artificial intelligence has also received some tweaking, making the "personality" of the stars much more elaborate. Thus, the behavior of the virtual players will be consistent with their real counterparts.





Another great new feature in FIFA 12 is the introduction of a social network within the game. EA Sports FIFA Football Club will integrate the FIFA gamers and football fans. In each round the Football Club will meet particularly interesting matches of the major football leagues in the world and turn them into in-game challenges. Moreover, their results are added to a personal online ranking and their favorite team, so you can show your player and elevate the status of your team.


On Tuesday, September 13, EA Sports released a demo version of the most anticipated new edition of football simulation, FIFA 2012. The demo, released for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 allows players to choose among six teams (Arsenal, Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City, Marseilles and Milan) to play games with two parts of three minutes.
 

Early in the demonstration, the game challenges the level of knowledge of the sport by the player and then presents a tutorial of the new defense system adopted by the series. In latest versions, one of the main defensive maneuvers consisted in using a button that made your team pressing the player of the other team with the ball. Instead, the company entered a command (found in older versions of the franchise) that makes the player try to steal the ball in a more friendly way.


For anyone who was uncomfortable with the change, the pressure feature is still present in the game, but has been remapped to the top buttons (for those who use a joystick), together with the feature that brings a second player to help on defense. While this may seem strange at first to fans of the series, the change is much less complicated than it sounds, and it's also easy to assimilate. Also, with all these additions, players now have more resources to prevent the advance of enemy attack.


In addition to the commands, one of the first news experienced in this demo is to change the team intelligence in the defensive aspect. It's good to remember those players who dribble a whole team, get to the small area and make the goal. To move forward, dribbling still remains important, of course, but moves and precision passing will be even more necessary to overcome the opposing defensive lines.
 

Since disputes are more intense, you can see a lot more game between the players, and the improvement in the animation is quite remarkable. So, from that pushing and shoving in the middle of the area prior to the bumping in the corners is now much closer to reality. Apart from a small change in the controls and improved artificial intelligence of the defenders, there are few apparent changes in FIFA 12. So much so that, if not for the visual improvement in some players and updating rosters, some might even say that they are playing the oldest version (FIFA 11).


While the Wii has received no demo version, the other console owners have FIFA City at their disposal in its version of FIFA 12. The city acts as a kind of interactive menu of the game. To increase population, the player will need to fulfill some tasks such as making fifty goals or win 200 games. Once these objectives are met, the town grows and earns items to accommodate new residents as well as new game modes. However, the highlight of FIFA City is the ability to scale players to the team and compete with teams from other users. Thus, each time your city takes on a new level (i.e., reaches a certain number of inhabitants) you can call another player for your team. It’s a neat feature that encourages users to continue playing.


The game will probably continue to please their legion of fans when it launches on September 29. FIFA 12 will be released by EA Sports for the PC, PSP, PS2, PS3, X360, 3DS and Wii.




Marco Cecilio, NoobFeed