FIFA 12 Review

Not

Awful 12^th Man
There has been a seemingly small improvement to the crowd for this year’s instalment. They are far better than the cardboard crowd they used to be, yet still lack in both visuals and animations. When the crowd celebrates, the entire crowd seems to do the same stiff unpolished animation. The crowd especially sticks out during a goal celebration when the camera zooms in. Unfortunately the supposed 12^th man of the team is the lowest point of the games graphics, by a considerable margin.

Quick Actions Are Limited
The ability to take an occasional quick freekick or throw-in is by no means a bad thing: they help the game flow and also are very useful to counterattacking play. Alas, the opportunity to take something quick is still decided by the game and intermittently the player will run off the pitch for the ball, or stand next to the ball, but the opportunity will not arise to take it quickly. It isn’t game breaking and the ability to take some quickly is a great feature; however it would be nice to be able to take most – if not all – free kicks or throw-ins before the opponents defence is back in place.

Server Issues Remain
While some improvements have been made there is still a couple of issues with connection to the EA servers. Even with a decent internet connection, players will randomly lose connection to the server, forfeiting matches and in some cases not even being able to connect to play against friends. The server problems don’t end there, they even extend to the Ultimate Team Web App which players have often found they can’t log onto, as the maximum amount of people are already logged on. Hopefully this is just an issue due to the game being only just released.

Verdict

FIFA 12 does have a few problems but it also manages to fix plenty of issues from FIFA 11, as well as expanding and improving on successful concepts. The new impact engine revolutionizes the game and provides one of the biggest changes to the franchise in years. The overall presentation has been improved, in addition to almost every other aspect on the game. The gameplay is built for enjoyment and there are hours, days, weeks and even months of fun to be had. If you are a fan of football, FIFA 12 is the game for you.

[Editor’s Note: FIFA 12 was reviewed on the PlayStation 3. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]