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Review: FIFA 12

by Steven Williamson on 14 October 2011, 09:18 4.5

Tags: Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA), PC

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qa7nh

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It's all about the community...

Off the pitch, too, FIFA 12 also has a ton of new features. The cluttered interface of FIFA 11's career mode has been streamlined and - despite some awfully long loading times and lack of depth (no training mode, for example) - it boasts many of features you'd expect from career mode, including transfer-market activity, squad reports and news updates.

In the multiplayer arena, EA has once again innovated with some major enhancements. "Head-to-Head Seasons" is the highlight, offering a variation on regular ranked matches where league points are awarded for winning or drawing matches while pitting players against each other for bragging rights in online leagues.



"Flow" mode is our favourite new addition. This involves choosing various options, such as team and line-up, before being matched with an opponent. The matchmaking system then finds an opposing team of a similar skill level, which allows people to play with lower-rated teams online and get even more out of the experience. Finally, we don't have to take on the might of Man Utd with arguably the UK's best club, Walsall F.C.

EA has also ramped up its social-networking activities with a brand-new online service called EA Sports Football Club that tracks what players do in the game and awards XP, which is passed onto the team that you choose to support. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but it does show EA's intent on bringing the worldwide FIFA community together.

All of the favourite game modes make a welcome return, including "Be A Pro," and there's even the option to revert back to the old way of defending, via "Legacy Defending." Indeed, there are a comprehensive set of offline and online features in FIFA 12 that will give you enough variety and replay value to keep you going until FIFA 13 arrives.

Put quite simply, EA has all bases covered in FIFA 12 and it delivers the finest, most challenging, realistic and entertaining football experience since FIFA 11. All of the new features enhance play on the pitch and make it a more tactical game of football, while the online arena continues to grow incredibly, thus making FIFA 12 one of the most active and vibrant gaming communities on the planet. Yes, we like it.

The Good

An all-round more tactically challenging game of footy.
Responsive dribbling system.
Superb range of game modes, offline and online.

The Bad

Career mode could still be more in-depth

HEXUS Rating


FIFA 12


HEXUS Where2Buy

FIFA 12 is available to buy from Play.com.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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Been loving it so far….except for the player impact engine which seems a little too aggressive at times…
No Training Mode? Unless I'm misunderstanding, there is a training mode, when inside the arena, if you hit select you can set up a number of scenarios, create set pieces, practice free kicks & penalties + have full on training matches with 11 vs 11 & a number of other combinations like 11 vs 8, etc.

I've already put quite a bit of time into FIFA 12 already. It's far more challenging but it's got a lot of reward, for example your defense can completely crumble if you become lax, likewise you can score 2 goals very suddenly & they are both completely different. I also like the fact that I get given & concede more penalties, but I think so far one of the nicest additions is a smallish one. When a player is injured but play carries on, if it's serious enough & the player stays down, the ref stops the match, the player can get treated or substituted then the ref does a drop ball to which the team that were not in possession gives the ball back to the other team (it's automated to stop players abusing the AI) it's funny how such a small thing adds so much to the atmosphere.
This really is a big improvement on the previous game, not just a cash-in
great game and review
Defending in this game is super hard to begin with….until you get used to it and realise it is so much better then before and requires much more skills. Didn't really like FIFA11 but this years version is hella good.