Good morning guys, i have not posted in a while as ive been busy.. However this is a post worth posting so im hoping you enjoy reading this.
FIFA 12 – First Impressions
Morning guys, A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to a private webcast with a few other community members (Tom, Dave and Adam from FSB amongst others) to view some upcoming features that FIFA 12 would have. Going into the podcast I will admit I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. David Rutter had previously stated FIFA 12 would be a revolution but even hearing that still made me not quite sure what we was going to get.
Would FIFA 12 be the Revolution Mr Rutter said or it would be FIFA 11.5….. Read on!
Going into the podcast we were met with Aaron McHardy and Santiago Jaramillo. They spent about an hour and half showing us things about FIFA 12. I sat back and then enjoyed what they had to say about FIFA 12. Here is a breakdown of what they featured mainly in the webcast
Tactical Defending
First and foremost, Holding down the X/A button will now not work, as the defensive part of the game has now been changed drastically. Pressing the X/A button will now result in containing the defender but not fully committing yourself. You then have to commit yourself at the right time to make sure you get the tackle timed right. Timing the tackle wrong will mean that the attacker can just go past the defender with much ease. This is due to the Precision Dribbling which I will explain later. Tactical defending reminds me very much of the defensive system in PES 2011 and I am optimistic that this defensive system will make the game a lot better. From a personal point of view, playing FIFA 11 and watching a player hold X all the time and take the ball off me with ease is very frustrating. Hearing this has been fixed/replaced with a better defensive system has made me very happy. However, I say very happy but with a hint of cautiousness due to the fact that I’ve not had the chance to try this out for myself yet. By containing your attacker, you can adjust the distance of which you are from the defender by using the Left Stick.
Precision Dribbling
This for me, was the most impressive feature that we we were shown. Dribbling has gone through a massive overhaul and now players such as Messi and Ronaldo will now to be found very very dangerous. Having sprint and jog in FIFA 11, we were then introduced to a new speed which was slower than jog. This was called Close control. This can make players take closer smaller touches with the ball which will result in players getting beat by the player taking close touches and then bursting past them with pace. Also, players can also dribble while shielding. In previous FIFA games, the player stood while shielding and was not able to move. This has now been changed in FIFA 12. This gives even more options. One video we were shown was 2 players mistiming a tackle and Theo Walcott being able to go in between them with ease. I for one am very exciting at the battles i will be expecting defending against a good dribbler and dribbling past a good defender.
Pro Player Intelligence
One thing that should make the FIFA community very happy…. The AI has been given massive leaps in performance which should result in some very challenging AI. One of the situations we were shown was the team having an understanding of their star players. This built on the (Successful?) Personality Plus. Teams will now play to their strengths and we were shown examples of this. One example was that Tottenham kept crossing in the ball because Peter Crouch was in the area. This was very good to see because it now seems that Bigger/Taller players will now have a distinct advantage in the game. However, most of us asked the question will they be too good? but we were assured that there will be a good balance between attacking and defending. Another example was that David Villa was in the box. The winger went to cross the ball but then seemed to realise that Villa was in the box so seemed to hesitate and pass back to someone in midfield. Another part of Pro player intelligence was Vision. This means the vision in which players have which will result in their ability to pick a pass out from long range or see a player doing a darting run. Players like Cesc Fabregas will have a high vision in which they will see most of the pitch and have the ability to see a player making a run. Players in leagues such as league 1 will not have such a high vision which will result in only being able to see players in front of them or just beyond that. Also, facing a team that has messi etc (Manchester City next year?) will result on them trying to find messi every time so that he can try and take your team on with precision dribbling.
Impact System
The impact/collision system that we saw was very very impressive to say the least. Players can now collide with each other at many different angles. This can result in Real Time Injuries. An example of this can be if a player collides with another. The player getting tackled could then result in landing badly on his right knee. The player will then be seen to hold his right knee and start hobbling. The player could then get injured if used too much or just pull up when trying to run which would then result in an injury. This would seem to suggest a very good move for Career Mode. It seems overall that animations are no longer linked together in the sense that the result is always predetermined. The video that we saw would suggest the possibilities are endless and also Injury Prone players will result in getting injured very frequently.
Overall, from a personal point of view I am very excited on the possibilities of FIFA 12. I use the word Possibilities because:
1. I have not played the game
2. We have not saw everything that is in the game yet.
Cheers guys,
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Other websites to view for great content about FIFA 12 are FIFA Soccer Blog and Sweetpatch
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