Gaming Fifa 12

[Solius]

I was disappointed when they didn't release Clive Tyldsley for FIFA 11 like they did with 10 (or 09, I can't remember which)

Get Clive in.

Like i said, he's in FIFA 12.

 

[Anderson8]

Like i said, he's in FIFA 12.

That 'introducing the commentators' thing makes it seem like it will be Tyler and Smith?

 

[Solius]

There are two sets of commentators, I already said this

Tyler and Smith

and

Clive and Townsend

 

[WR]

Smith is one boring feck. Guess it'll have to be Tyldsley and Townsend.

 

[Anderson8]

There are two sets of commentators, I already said this

Tyler and Smith

and

Clive and Townsend

My bad, didn't read through the thread enough.

 

[Solius]

So you’re going to notice that FIFA has changed as soon as you turn 12 on for the first time. I’m sure you’ve picked that up so far. You’ll instantly spot the new menu system – horizontal instead of vertical – and the improved presentation of the matches, which is now closer to the kind of package you’d expect to see on Sky or ESPN.

Once you’re done being quietly impressed with that, the game will kick-off and you’ll immediately see the new Player Impact Engine at work as players move about the pitch and react to what’s happening around them. It looks amazing, and some of the collisions and their effects will have you wincing… then quickly accessing the replay function for another look as you wonder just how the team at EA Canada have made this all look so real.

However, it’s not how things LOOK that will make the biggest impression on you initially, but how things FEEL. I’m talking about the new Tactical Defending feature, which is going to slap you in the face and shout ‘I’m new!’ as soon as you start working on winning the ball back for the first time.

In FIFA 11 you don’t really have to work all that hard on defence. The press and standing tackle feature take care of all that for you, tracking down the player with the ball and pressing them constantly until your team win it back. As the defender, all you are doing is holding one button to press – or two to double press – but as the attacker you feel a bit like the ball is a hot potato… something to get rid of quickly due to the heatseeking defender that is inevitably closing in on you.

Great for the defending team, but a little unbalanced and not really all that realistic.

Realism, as I’m sure you know, is something the team behind the game strives for and prides themselves on, so it’s no surprise that this system has been completely overhauled, but let me just explain what I mean when I say that the defending system in 11 isn’t as realistic as it could be…

For starters, constantly pressing with multiple players can rip a team’s shape and formation to pieces. I’m sure you’ve seen this happen in FIFA 11 and – if you’re anything like me – you’ve probably fallen into the trap of over-pressing then watched with horror as the opposition skips through a gap in your defence, which has parted like the Red Sea, due to both of your centre-backs being roughly 40,000 miles out of position.

You just don’t see that in real football (well, unless your unfortunate enough to be watching my amateur team play on a Saturday) and so you no longer see it in FIFA. Now a defender will track the path of the ball, but won’t go surging in to win it right away like he will do in 11. You now control the distance your defender stands from the attacker, and you also have control over which areas of the pitch you want to shepherd the attacker into. If he wanders into an area that would take your player out of position, you switch to a defender in a better position and begin the process again. Finally, and crucially, YOU choose the exact moment to make an attempt for the ball.

This is exactly how defending works in real football.

If you speak to any professional footballer, they will tell you that the first job of a defender is not to win the ball back, but to slow the opposition player down and direct him to areas of the pitch where he will either do no damage, face more traffic or be forced to turn back.

If, during that process, they get a chance to win the ball back then they will of course take it, but what they don’t do is go mindlessly rushing forward in search of the ball without any thought to positioning.

Neither will you in FIFA 12, and it’s this that will take the most getting used to.

I don’t mean that in a negative way though. Yes it takes time to forget the pressing system from FIFA 11 and you will spend the first few games instinctively trying to press, but once you get the hang of it – and you will – the experience is infinitely more engaging, rewarding and realistic.

Which brings me on to my final point; how you can prepare for this new system now.

The answer is simply to watch some football. As much football as you possibly can, paying particular attention to what is happening with the defending team.

Watch the body shape and positioning of the defenders and notice how they attempt to direct the attackers into disadvantageous positions. They will do things like force a player on to his weak foot by standing to the attacker’s stronger side. Wide midfielders will show attackers infield where they know they’ll have more bodies in the way to intercept and – most importantly – all defenders will stay on their feet until they’re as certain as they can be that they’ll get something on the ball if they go for the tackle.

Look out for these things, take a mental note of how they’re done and I guarantee you the transition to FIFA 12’s Tactical Defending system will be smoother.

And don’t worry that’s it’s the closed season either; there’s still plenty of live matches for you to check out. The Copa America starts on July 2 and there are more than a few players there who can teach us all a thing or two about defending. I know I’ll be watching.

I'm fecking delighted they got rid of the pressing system. Finally some skill required for defending.

 

[Anderson8]

Sounds awesome, with each year passing it requires more and more of a knowledge of football to be good at FIFA.

 

[Anderson8]

My predictions on the United ratings using our current squad:

Evra - 83
Ferdinand - 84
Brown - 77
Owen - 78
Anderson - 79
Berbatov - 84
Rooney - 87
Giggs - 83
Smalling - 76
Park - 81
Hernandez - 81
Vidic - 87
Carrick - 80
Nani - 85
Welbeck - 77
Fabio - 77
Rafael - 77
O'Shea - 79
Evans - 77
Fletcher - 81
Valencia - 83
Obertan - 75
Macheda - 75
Gibson - 77
Kuszczak - 78
De Laet - 70
Diouf - 75
Bebe - 68
Lindegaard - 75
Cleverley - 76
Amos - 70
King - 70
De Gea - 80
Young - 83
Jones - 79

Any other fringe players I wouldn't know enough about to give a rating.

What say you?

 

[Solius]

I reckon they'll do Young as an 82.

 

[Anderson8]

I'd agree with you, but he started FIFA 11 as an 83, so that would be a bit strange.

 

[Solius]

Yeah but he's a Utd 'squad player' now.

 

[Bear Attack]

Peter Crouch is an aerial threat now?

 

[WR]

Overall ratings should be removed imo. The attributes of a player are often depleted just to make him have a fair OVR, instead of changing his attributes so he can play how he plays IRF. A players quality on the field should be what determines his class and not a overall number.

 

[dejans]

is there an option ''Club Transfers'' on PlayStation? Haven't played on PS.

 

[Solius]

Yeah.

 

[Biscuit1871]

Am I the only one who thinks the main area FIFA needs to improve in is graphically? Visually it's barely changed in 3 years. Certainly a couple of tweaks with the gameplay but there should be a noticeable improvement in graphics.

 

[Arruda]

Overall ratings should be removed imo. The attributes of a player are often depleted just to make him have a fair OVR, instead of changing his attributes so he can play how he plays IRF. A players quality on the field should be what determines his class and not a overall number.

To me, the best thing there ever was the PES hexagonal graphic. Even they ended it, I'm unsure why. It was such a quick way to quickly judge players you don't know very well, and I love making tournaments with friends using less known teams and players. What better way there was to compare two players quickly? It became so intuitive at an instant. I can quickly tell that the Blue graph bellow is from a huge world class midfielder, probably from one of the classic teams, like Gullit. The Red on the other hand, whoever he is I know he's good with the ball at his feet but not very quick.

I got incredibly disappointed with PES when they took it off (it actually hastened my switch to FIFA) and I'd love FIFA to bring something like that.

 

[WR]

To me, the best thing there ever was the PES hexagonal graphic. Even they ended it, I'm unsure why. It was such a quick way to quickly judge players you don't know very well, and I love making tournaments with friends using less known teams and players. What better way there was to compare two players quickly? It became so intuitive at an instant. I can quickly tell that the Blue graph bellow is from a huge world class midfielder, probably from one of the classic teams, like Gullit. The Red on the other hand, whoever he is I know he's good with the ball at his feet but not very quick.

I got incredibly disappointed with PES when they took it off (it actually hastened my switch to FIFA) and I'd love FIFA to bring something like that.

Yes, I agree.
It actually meant something, it showed you strengths and weaknesses in a players game. Whereas the overall rating is often misleading and inaccurate.

 

[Arruda]

Well it can't be Gullit with that height, I wonder who it is, now I'm curious. Perhaps Matthaus? Or a custom made player...

 

[Arruda]

Am I the only one who thinks the main area FIFA needs to improve in is graphically? Visually it's barely changed in 3 years. Certainly a couple of tweaks with the gameplay but there should be a noticeable improvement in graphics.

I agree, one of the things that cost me the most when switching from PES to FIFA was the quality of the players looks.

 

[Snow]

I'd much rather that they improve gameplay rather than graphics.

I'd want more stadiums and make them like they are in real life.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Am I the only one who thinks the main area FIFA needs to improve in is graphically? Visually it's barely changed in 3 years. Certainly a couple of tweaks with the gameplay but there should be a noticeable improvement in graphics.

It's not a very good looking game by today's standards. Look at NBA2K and Top Spin 4. In fact even the player faces at times simply look like complete distortions of the actual individual. If anything, PES seems to get the faces far more accurate.

As for the improvements in the game, the changes in defending sound much better but I'm not holding my breathe on Ea making this a proper footballing simulation like what TS is for tennis. They earn millions from making an easy to pick up but unrealistic football game and it's hard to see them changing it too much.

If the defending system is as good as hyped up to be, I hope they also change the dribbling system which needs to be completely overhauled.

 

[Maajid]

I'd much rather that they improve gameplay rather than graphics.

I'd want more stadiums and make them like they are in real life.

Any excuse to post this.. ah the days of yore.

 

[Plan M]

Any excuse to post this.. ah the days of yore.

The music!

I didn't like that game although the goal nets looked so realistic. Nice to see the PES player skill thing further up this page as well, completely forgot about that seeing how bad Pro Evo has been in recent years.

FIFA 12 needs to have a lot more changes though, I am getting tired of the series now I have to be honest.

...and PLEASE EA, implicate a dedicated 2v2 RANKED mode! Me and my mate spend hours playing against other "couples" of an evening but hate it when some twat decides to make us a "threesome" because there is no dedicated game mode.

 

[WR]

...and PLEASE EA, implicate a dedicated 2v2 RANKED mode! Me and my mate spend hours playing against other "couples" of an evening but hate it when some twat decides to make us a "threesome" because there is no dedicated game mode.

It worked fine in FIFA10, but for some bizarre reason they took it away in FIFA11. Ridiculous decision.

 

[Plan M]

It worked fine in FIFA10, but for some bizarre reason they took it away in FIFA11. Ridiculous decision.

Yeah so many people are crying out for a 2v2 mode. The big games i.e. 5 v 5 just don't work. They are usually laggy borefests where every other player wants to do those pointless skills and holds the sprint button for the whole game.

2v2 is where it's at, everyone has a best friend who also loves football. I've grown up playing footy games with a mate against the CPU.

 

[Lynk]

My predictions on the United ratings using our current squad:

Evra - 83
Ferdinand - 84
Brown - 77
Owen - 78
Anderson - 79
Berbatov - 84 - 83
Rooney - 87
Giggs - 83
Smalling - 76
Park - 81 - No chance, 79.
Hernandez - 81
Vidic - 87 - 88
Carrick - 80
Nani - 85
Welbeck - 77
Fabio - 77
Rafael - 77
O'Shea - 79
Evans - 77
Fletcher - 81
Valencia - 83
Obertan - 75 - 72
Macheda - 75
Gibson - 77
Kuszczak - 78
De Laet - 70
Diouf - 75
Bebe - 68
Lindegaard - 75
Cleverley - 76 - 73
Amos - 70
King - 70

------------


Any other fringe players I wouldn't know enough about to give a rating.

^^


Also


De Gea - 80
Ashley Young - 82
Jones - 75

 

[beardsleybob]

What say you?

I think, if it was taken in the case of actual ability, and not in terms of experience, then Rafael would be much higher. They don't need an experienced head in a game, we're doing all the thinking

Any excuse to post this.. ah the days of yore.

What's that

 

[Snow]

Any excuse to post this.. ah the days of yore.

What am I watching and what does it have to do with my post?

 

[Solius]

Embargo on manager mode and online will be lifted Monday 11th July.

 

[WR]

Embargo on manager mode and online will be lifted Monday 11th July.

I heart skipped a beat as I first though that said manager mode online.

 

[Solius]

FIFASoccerBlog FIFASoccerBlog
Reminder: The #FIFA12 embargo covering #CareerMode ends at 8am UK time tomorrow morning. And we have 4 posts for your reading pleasure.

 

[Anderson8]

Sounds good.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Sounds good.

What sounds good?

 

[Solius]

Career Mode: The New Features

Visuals: Visually things are pretty similar but the whole front end has been nicely polished. The calendar for advancing matches now embeds in the main screen allowing you to track news and events while the game progresses. You can also halt the advancement at any time if you want to stop and read an article or deal with a transfer deal. There are new colour coded calendar items for league, cup, friendly and European matches too.

Scouting: Yes, scouting is finally back in Career Mode but only for youth players players. You can hire up to three scouts and send them to different regions around for a duration of your choice. The scouts themselves vary in quality with the best scouts demanding the most cash. To get accurate data on the quality of the youth prospects in a region you may need to scout multiple times, however if you wait too long a rival club could step in and sign the player you’re after.

Youth Academy: And once you’ve scouted your young prospects and decided to sign them they get added to your Youth Academy. From here you can track their development and when the time is right either move the players in to your first team squad or realise you made a terrible mistake and send them packing.

Player Stories: Throughout the season players will now approach the manager voicing their concerns or happiness at certain decisions. The topics range from injury worries, lack of game time, unhappy about a new signings, being played out of position, morale, retirement and many, many more. How you deal with these issues is entirely down to the manager.

Transfer Deadline Day: Is now a fully fledged feature of its own in Career Mode and on transfer deadline day the game advances hour by hour to allow you to wheel and deal before the window slams shut. You also have the option to stall transfer deals to allow your self more time to decide between multiple targets.

Form and Morale: Are both back and will need to be delicately managed over the course of the season. These two features plugin to the ‘Player Stories’ system where players will become and unhappy for any number of reasons.

Player Growth: Is allegedly fixed, but we’d need to play for multiple seasons to confirm this. However one very positive example came up when playing a Career Mode as Southampton. Just 3 games in to the season Alex Oxlaide Chamberlain recieved a substantial amount of growth receiving around 10 stats improvements. Most were just *** but there were a few, +2 and +3 upgrades too. Which when compared to FIFA 11′s *** growth for an entire season is surely a good sign. Alex is a player who you’d expect to have fairly rapid growth too so the scenario seemed to fit well.

This post covers the Career Mode features we saw six weeks ago but we’ll bring you an updated post with impressions as soon as we’re back from the Guildford play test.

Spoiler

Spoiler

FIFA 12 Producer Tour Paris:

With the second producer tour, we get another piece of the FIFA 12 puzzle. The puzzle marked ‘Career Mode & Online Modes’. Unfortunately, EA decided not to talk about Online modes in Paris and focus solely on Career Mode. That’s because they want something new to talk about at Gamescom, which I can perfectly understand. And let’s be honest, Career Mode is the heart of the FIFA 12 single player experience, so it’s certainly ‘heavy’ enough to talk about for a few weeks as more and more details emerge.

First things first, if you’re expecting a whole new Career Mode interface, stop. The interface is more of an update and looks 90% the same as FIFA 11. That’s not a bad thing per se, because that 10% change has given it a really nice lift and it’s primarily the homepage that’s had some new touches. With top/latest transfer deals constantly on your right, you feel that the world around you is finally doing something. (Which David Rutter was going for) The ‘news’ around the world is more structured and more varied; the press now have an important role to play. Also, the e-mail system has got a new look and is much more efficient. As far as looks go, that’s about it. Player searching is still the same; contract negotiations didn’t look any different to me as well as all the other features that were present in FIFA 11.

But that’s only looks; we want some real game changers and there are a few. With the new Youth Academy system, EA SPORTS is finally back on the right track with FIFA 12. It’s a two-fold feature. Firstly, scouts are back and you can send them to different regions in the hope they’ll spot some talented youngsters. As David Rutter mentions in the interview, you’re scouts need to go to the same region a couple times to get accurate information. So the first time they get back, the information will be vague. It’s also dependent on how long you send them to a region for, sound familiar? That’s because it’s the exact same thing as in FIFA 08. However, you can now send up to three scouts instead of just one. It’s still on the low side for top clubs, but it’s a step forward I guess. I do fear that scouting will be pretty straightforward (like in FIFA 08), with really no skill involved. You don’t have my final word on this, but I wouldn’t expect groundbreaking things involving scouts.

What might be ground breaking are the Youth Squads. But again, I couldn’t really test it. I started a Career Mode with Chelsea and when I went to the Youth Squad, there were no players (probably because I didn’t get past the pre-season friendlies). Hopefully, Dave and Tom, can provide more information on this subject. But if it’s anything like the Youth Squads in Pro Evolution Soccer, I’m all up for it.

The second ‘big’ feature in Career Mode is ‘Transfer deadline day’. Which now is a whole game in itself with the day progressing hour by hour, giving you time to get that last deal in the bag. Alongside this, it was great to see you can now ‘stall’ a decision on whether to sign or reject a player. But players might lose interest if you stall for too long. It actually happened in my Chelsea game….
The Lukaku-Cole Story

I tried to sign Lukaku, but didn’t really look at Chelsea’s transfer budget, so I probably bid way too much. The day after my Lukaku bid, Real Madrid contacted me for Ashley Cole and they offered me 22 million dollars. I didn’t want to accept, but didn’t want to refuse either, so I decided to stall the transfer. The day after that, Anderlecht accepted my bid and let me talk to the beast that is Lukaku. After a day or two, he accepted my contract. But then I saw a problem. I’d really overbid, in fact I couldn’t afford Lukaku at all. So I decided to stall that deal as well. I went back to the transfer negotiations panel (that’s really well done, by the way) and reopened the Ashley Cole case and I accepted Real Madrid’s offer but sadly it was too late. In the press a big article with the headline: ‘Lukaku stays at Anderlecht’ appeared quoting the player, “I still feel I can progress at Anderlecht.” So the stalling tactic ruined this deal for me, and I lost Ashley Cole to Real Madrid… Great managing, right?

The transfer deadline day is heavily tied with the ‘player stories’, which Rutter made quite a big fuss around. Basically it’s the press understanding your decisions as a manager and judging them. He gave a Mark Van Bommel example, who had just come back from an injury. The press didn’t think he was ready to play, but Rutter played him anyway. Milan won the game 3-0 and the press posted an article about the excellent judgement at Rutter’s decision. See what the game did there? It tried, again, to give you the feeling that the world is turning. I don’t know how many situations the press ‘gets’, so it might get a little linear after a while but Rutter did talk about situations involving player happiness, injury, morale and retirement.

And then we go on to the little details. David Rutter said he had a list full of improvements in his pocket and he couldn’t remember all of them but I did notice a few. The season previews and the board’s objectives are a little more elaborate now with the commentators talking about these objectives in the beginning of the season. You can now save squads, so if you have a B-squad for cup matches, you can now instantly change your team. (Solius here: THANK feck) Swapping players in Team Management is also easier now with a new quick swap feature (triangle for PS3, Y for 360). Also, you can now substitute more than 3 players in friendlies. Not career mode related but Rutter announced that Live Season will be entirely free this year. EA Sports Football Clubs is not limited to ‘Live Season’ teams. You can pick every team that is available in FIFA which sounds great.

So, that’s Career Mode. I was a bit disappointed that manager mode didn’t get a complete overhaul. But I came to realize that if you get rid of the bugs from FIFA 11 and add the new features, you’ll have a pretty cool mode. But that’s something you can only tell after playing a couple seasons. Player progression is supposedly fixed, but I can’t neither confirm nor deny that of course. Have to mention that the game isn’t finished yet, but don’t expect new ‘big’ features coming in. Some nice little tweaks, maybe. Rutter mentioned that they’re investigating the possibility to arrange you own friendlies, so that proves that there’s still some room left for alterations.

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[iSparky]

im going to probably get a bit fecked off with players constantly telling me they dont want to sit on the sidelines tbh

 

[Solius]

Fifasoccerblog are playing at right now and ashould have their impressions up later.

 

[VeevaVee]

im going to probably get a bit fecked off with players constantly telling me they dont want to sit on the sidelines tbh

Yep, EA will undoubtedly balls that up.

 

[Anderson8]

What sounds good?

What Solius just posted.

 

[ha_rooney]

Youth academy sounds interesting, the players being upset is a good idea but I think they need to have different levels of expectations - players like Owen or Keita should not be complaining about being benched but if you bench Ronaldo or Rooney then they should.

I hope they fix the EA servers. It might just be a problem for me but more often than not I'll get signed out of the EA servers (and lose the online game I was playing) but I'd still be signed into the PSN.