E3 2011: FIFA 12 Hands-On Preview
By: Jeff Rivera
For the past few years, the FIFA franchise has really taken off for EA Sports. Edging out the competition, EA Sports' FIFA games have become the go to soccer franchise for most fans of the sport. Also with each passing year, EA Sports rolls out a list of promised improvements for the franchise, but many times they don't quite measure up to expectations. This year, however, it seems that EA Sports is finally making good on some bold promises with their annual soccer title.
At E3 2011, FIFA 12 was being shown behind closed doors. Before getting a chance to play the game for ourselves, we were shown what kind of changes and improvements are being incorporated into the game. The biggest changes involve updates to the dribbling and physics engines in the game, and both are expected to bring dramatic changes to the series.
The biggest change to the dribbling system is that they've completely ramped up the amount of control the player has over the ball. The introduction of the 360 degree dribbling helped, but it was a bit squirrely at best and totally unpredictable much of the time. Even skilled players struggled with the system, but at least it was some progress. This year, EA Sports is making it so that more skilled players will be able to keep the ball closer to their feet and make quicker movements in all directions. At slower speeds, players like Samir Nasri can break down defenses in a far more effective manner than the series has ever seen. And while less skilled players will have a harder time, the improvements are still quite noticeable. Finally players can effectively navigate through defenses without constantly losing the ball in circumstances where the situation obviously favors the offensive player.
The next big change involves the further integration of the physics engine into gameplay. In FIFA 11, the animations took too much priority, and you got wonky situations where players would clip through each other or players would come to a dead stop after being bumped lightly. The tweaks to the physics engine give priority to how the physics of a situation would play out rather than to a set animation. This allows characters to bump into each other more realistically, shield the ball using their positioning, and make tackles without worry that the player is simply going to waltz right through your defender's leg or body. This greatly impacts things for the better on both offense and defense, and more importantly, it removes a lot of frustrating randomness and weirdness from the game.
Along with the changes in how the physics affect animations in the game, it also has an impact on player collisions. If two players collide, but one is stationary and the other is running at full speed, the players will tumble realistically with the stationary character taking more punishment from the impact. In some cases the stationary player may go down, but the running player is able to keep their footing and continue forward. In addition to momentum having an impact, so will the player's size and weight, so EA Sports is having to do a lot of work with the player attributes to make sure these collisions end up working as fans are used to seeing on weekends when their real life teams take the field. Combined with the improvements to the animation, this greatly reduces the instances where people use a cheesy move to disrupt an attack on offense or cheat their way through a defense.
EA Sports is also ramping up the social aspects in the game. While they wouldn't discuss online modes or whether or not changes are coming to Be A Pro, they did show off some of the Football Club features. Similar to Season Showdown from NCAA Football, Football Club allows people to select their favorite clubs and then EA Sports keeps track of which teams are the most popular, which ones win the most, and they've even put together a ranking that is similar to the tables for a season. As teams become more popular, they'll earn promotion into the top tables while teams that are on the slide in popularity will be relegated out. It's a simple thing, but it makes you just that much more eager to win while playing with your favorite club.
No exact release date has been given so far, but the estimate is either late September or early October this year. FIFA 12 is poised to become a truly great soccer game, and for the first time in a long time I'm buying into the EA Sports hype and talk surrounding the game. If everything comes together as it looks like it's going to, expect great things this Fall.
