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.
