FIFA 12 Review

I know to get the most in-depth OXM reviews, we should all buy the magazine but c'mon guys, six paragraphs for "the best sports sim going"?........

Sadly there isn't always time to enlarge our mag reviews, which are written to a strict word count, for the website. We'll almost certainly do follow-up coverage of FIFA 12 though. In fact, let's get that ball rolling now. What do you want to hear more about in particular?

I would like to know whats different online- all of the information seems to be about single player which I have seen.

This is a review?
Fair enough the mag review is obviously more expansive but this just reads like it has been taken directly from the games box cover. Is this a review or an advertisement? Its no wonder that EA release bug ridden, half finished games when it seems they could release Valdano's 'sh*t on a stick' and the gaming press would still swear its ice cream.
Having played both the FIFA and PES demo's i can see the great strides that both games have made, particularly in relation to the defensive side of the game but the AI in FIFA is still rather static and one dimensional in comparison to PES. The ground passing is cumbersome and there is still little variation in the types of goals one scores. The impact engine is a bit of a nothing feature in terms of its impact on general gameplay. It seems like a bit of a gimmick of the type that EA tends to indulge in far too often.I just don't get where this score has come from. Did anyone play Career Mode? Has player growth been fixed? . As a predominantly offline player this will decide whether or not i bother with FIFA 12. I know this sounds all very negative but having bought the last 4 FIFA's and seen the obviously unfinished nature of the final product (which somehow eluded the gaming press) i have learned to take all the hype surrounding FIFA with a truck load of salt.

Erm....nobody notice that rooney's eyes in the main picture are completely screwed up and like he's wearing mascara?!

Really, the only games that seem to have barely improved at all in 10 years are football games. But then again, how much can you really improve kicking a bit of leather around a field. And the fact that they release one every single year is just totally unnecessary, they should wait 2 years at least and bring out a product that shows real, solid progress, instead of the yearly tweaks.

I didn't notice any difference in the fifa 12 demo, so I wont ever buy this, like mr monkey said; I need some real change or upgrade to make me interested in footy games.

Not big on sports games though.

murphyr - calm down, like you said the mag will be more in depth (probably) so people who buy the mag don't feel shortchanged if all the content was available online. I think a few paragraphs giving the basic impression of the game is enough for free.

Seriously, 2-2 thrillers? I played the demo with another, we are both relatively good at football games, and in the 3 games we played they were all 0-0

This got a 9/10 rating? Really?

I'm absolutely appalled at just how crap this game is to play online. I'm only a casual gamer, but can honestly say that I bought this today, and will be returning it tomorrow. EA's whimsical, laughable and retarded approach to fifa and indeed any of their sports games these days is "lets make things as pointlessly difficult as possible".

Defending now is a shambles, and goalkeepers let pretty much everything in. So, what is the point in playing a sports game that is supposed to be as realistic as possible, when in fact it's not. Only die hard fifa fans will like it, anyone new to fifa will hate it. There's absolutely no hope for them, I lost 9 games in a row, all of which I backed of at 3-0 down because there was no point in trying to play. I would like to point out however, i'm not actually bad at playing fifa games, but these pointless tweaks just left nothing but a sour taste in my mouth. Also, with what, over 150 or so teams on the game... After playing Barcelona for 8 out those 9 times made it distinctly boring too.

For the amount of features, this would be lucky to hit 3/10, but online play makes it a flat 1/10. And the 1 is solely because playing against the computer isn't that bad.

You do know you can change the defending back to the "simpler" version?...........Don't you?........

This got a 9/10 rating? Really?

Yep. Really. Rightly or wrongly it got it from a lot of other magazines etc too.

I actually really liked the new FIFA when i started to play it so to suggest "Only die hard fifa fans will like it" is cack, as for about 11 of the last 13 years i've been a die hard PES fan, only recently 'turning to the dark side' while PES goes soul searching.

The more i play it however, the more i'll admit that the novelty is well and truly wearing off and there are some serious longstanding flaws within the game that distract from what is other wise a quality product.

Defending now is a shambles, and goalkeepers let pretty much everything in.

Again, i can't agree with this, but that is your opinion vs mine so no-one can win that argument. The defending is very different and until you get the hang of it, yeah its tricky. Playing online until you've mastered it is also suicidal because the dribbling is so much improved on this years edition that a half decent player will run rings around you, especially if like you say, they're all playing as Barcelona/Real (which happens every single year on FIFA for the first few months). The keepers i think too are far from rubbish, if anything i think they're too bloody good!!

I feel like i've really got to grips with the game now which in a way makes it more disappointing when its dawning on me more and more just how useless the AI is in this years edition. It may sound like a contradiction but the AI is either completely ruthless or toothless. I'm half way through my second season on career mode as crewe on world class and have lost just 5 games (3 of which to premier league teams) which to my mind is nowhere near enough. More irritating is the fact that of the other games, about 60% of them end in draws because the majority of the AI teams play in the same way, regardless of tactics etc. To see league 2 teams play possession football of the standard of barca is frankly ridiculous, but what's even worse is the fact you realise they're keeping the ball and doing absolutely nothing with it. Until you make a cock-up, that's when the ruthlessness kicks in. I think what I'm getting at is it's too reactive, and not pro-active, putting all the onus on the player to make mistakes in order to get a result.

I've messed around with the sliders to try and fix this which can lead to more open games (up the cpu passing errors to about 62, line width to 55 etc) and a bit more of an authentic game, but i still cannot get the AI to come at me. One of my losses was in an FA cup replay against Man City which finished 1-0 thanks to a (ridiculous) Ibrahimovic (yes, really) strike. Nothing wrong with me losing, btu in all honesty i wanted to be completely battered, it finished with me having more possession and shots in both games with hart saving them each time

This isn't all intended as a direct reply to you Wonky, you've just prompted me into writing/ranting because i've been noticing this more over this last week and was going to anyway. I really want to love it cos i think the new career mode is pretty special indeed but the more i play it the more I'm getting disillusioned with it - just seemingly for completely different reasons to you!