FIFA 12 (0)

First release date

2011-09-27

Platform

Mac PlayStation Portable PlayStation 2 Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 Wii PC iPhone Nintendo 3DS iPad PlayStation Vita PlayStation Network (Vita)

Developer

EA Canada HB Studios

Publisher

Electronic Arts

Theme

FIFA

Franchise

FIFA

Aliases

FIFA Soccer 12 FIFA 2012 FIFA Soccer FIFA 12: World Class Soccer FIFA Football

New Features

Impact Engine: The IE keeps track of individual limbs and the contact between them for the purpose of simulating realistic collisions and hit detection between players.
Improved AI: The AI is now capable of realizing which parts of a player's body may be injured, and players run the risk of getting injured off the ball (i.e. sprint abuse). The AI is also said to be 'more human'.
"AI Vision": This new system is poised to make passing more realistic than ever before by factoring a player's line of sight into the passing game (i.e. attempting to pass to a player behind the user controlled one is set to be extremely difficult to pull off.).
Enhanced AI: The AI will now adapt to the game and make better choices that will help the team.
New Arenas & Presentation: Three new arenas will be featured in FIFA 12 along with a new camera and match presentation.
Short Dribble: Flicking the left stick can cause a new short dribble. Further information is not known at this time.
UI Improvements: A brand new, supposedly ergonomic, menu system will be in place.
Tactical defending: This makes it possible to defend in a much more advanced way. It is now much more focused on zone defence than on tackling, and therefore allows a much more realistic defensive behaviour. Instead of holding the press button, you now have to perfectly time your tackles.

Impact Engine

This new feature will change the animation of players involved in tackles and collision, from full blown sliding tackles to slight nudges of the shoulder. The Impact Engine calculates the impact of two colliding players and the animation will be rendered in real time, judging by what body parts are involved in the collision. This makes for more fluid and natural movement.

Also added with the impact engine is something that EA have labelled, "true injuries". Injuries in previous games have been randomised, unrealistic and been a big talking point among fans of the game who want a more real experience. True injuries uses the Impact Engine to calculate where on the body is hurt, what sort of injury it is and how bad it is. This adds in a new element into the game of players injuring themselves because of playing too many games without rest.

You can already get a small taste of the Impact Engine with .

Tactical defending

EA listened to the users when it came to defending gameplay which was too easy and simple for many. You could easily regain possession and tackle while holding a single key/button. Now, that is all past with a new feature which is introduced in FIFA 12, 'Tactical defending'.

Instead of unrealistic pressure from defenders in FIFA 11, where you just stormed at an attacker, EA have implemented Contain. With Contain the defender will follow all actions of the attacker and will keep the same distance away unless adjusted by moving the left analog stick.

Also gone is the auto-tackle feature: to capture the ball, you have to time your tackles, else it will fail. This will make aspects of the game such as dribbling more rewarding as you have more chance of beating your man without being easily tackled.

Pro Player Intelligence

Pro Player Intelligence is an upgrade of last year's Personality Plus and works almost in the same way. The AI will be able to adapt and learn to cater for their individual and team needs. A small, fast team such as FC Barcelona will use their technical advantage and keep possession and keep the ball on the ground, while a more direct, counter attacking team like Tottenham Hotspur will get the ball forward quickly to taller players like Peter Crouch.

An example of how a player will adapt to situations is how they almost never send high crosses to smaller players because they cannot reach it because of their height and instead will choose to hit the ball low or look for more options.

Precision Dribbling

In previous FIFA instalments, EA tried to improve the dribbling of more skilled and technical players. With FIFA 12, they give dribbling a whole new face with Precision Dribbling. A quick preview of it's functions:

Touchline control

The players will now know their surroundings for dribbling. For example, if you are very close to the touchline, the player will know it, and will do everything to avoid the ball getting out of play by keeping the ball closer to their feet, shielding the ball from the line with their foot and rescuing any balls going out of play.

Jogging

A player with ball possession will now be able to run with smaller steps. You will go slower, but you gain much more control of the ball. This is a feature implemented in previous games and triggered using the left trigger and is now being vastly improved to make it a viable solution for close control problems.

Shielding

The players will be able to shield of the ball allowing them to block other players from capturing the ball. You can now move while shielding.

EA Sports Football Club

EA Sports Football Club is the new online in-game service for the FIFA series and will be included in every FIFA from 12 onwards. The idea of Football Club is to add more depth to online play and make everyone more connected to their favourite club. When you first put FIFA 12 into your system, you will be asked what your favourite club is, or what club you want to 'support' in EA Sports Football Club. Nearly everything you do relating to that club whether its online or off will contribute to its standings in various global and local leaderboards.

EA have commented on comments made by critics and fans by explaining that top clubs will not be the focus in this service and have implemented various systems to help prevent any one club having an advantage due to it's larger an base. One example of this is that every win, loss and draw also takes into account the fan base and works out an average so every club can move up and down the leaderboard, regardless of their stature.

Challenges are also part of Football Club. You will be able to get challenges based on the team you support. Not much is known about how this will work but examples have been given: playing as Blackpool FC against Manchester United on the last day of the Premier League and try to survive the onslaught or trying to win cups for teams that have previously lost in the final.