FIFA 12 - demo [PS3/Xbox 360]

[jimtendo]

I'll keep it short and sweet.
Seems to play slower this year round. Almost golden era Serie-A mid 1990's level here.
The tackling has been redone to include more options for jockeying/ containing, and foot-in tackles. The standing tackle button can't be abused as much, as if you spam it too early, you'll whiff the tackle, for an easy punish. Calling another defender over is mapped to the RB instead of 'B' now.

The shooting feels weaker. Not quite the rockets you can let off in FIFA 10/11

I do like the new collision engine this year. With humourous results:



But yeah, more of the same really.

[nakamura]

I found it an utter bore in the 90 mins I put into it. Tackling just feels stupid now, mainly with second press as RB, it feels wrong.
Pace is so slow too.

There are lots of positives too but I haven't the time now.

[hudson]

I can understand the reason to change defending a little bit, but it wasn't too easy last year. I believe that if you spammed the pressure button you would be punished. It was a nice mix of jockey (standing off) and commit (pressure). Now it feel like there's quite a steep learning curve in there.

Playing against the CPU wasn't much of a problem, but playing a human was squeeky-bum-time when a top attacker was coming at me and all they did was dribble using nothing but left analogue stick with ease.

I hope, it's just a case of practice, practice, practice. I can see this putting a few people off.

Everything else seems great. Maybe apart from some dodgy defensive headers that are being missed completely.

[glazza]

Out of the two big footy titles we get every year i feel this years Pes has left a better mark on me all round than this years Fifa with all its new player control specially defensively and the RB button thing is just wrong as it just dosent feel right,and PES is where my money will be going as you can bet same day its released there will be allsorts of patches ready to go if the demo is anything to go buy on the PC version that is.

Just my opinion though.

[MrMarbles]

Maaan, I'm struggling with the defending in this.

So I have to press LB to choose the player nearest the ball, then hold LT to jockey, as well as RT if I want to jockey fast, plus the A button if I want to stay close to the opponent who I want to tackle, plus RB if I want to bring a team-mate in for added pressure, then press X at the right time to tackle?

It's like Twister with my fingers.

[Tobal]

Same, like what i played but felt incompetent when defending, just to many buttons to think about for my liking... the A button function just wasn't needed, i found that just tapping shoot on it own produced tame shots when it came to heading and volleying on the cross, you gotta put at least 1/4 onthe power bar.

Still definitely plays better than PES after trying both demos out now, PES plays the same as always but fined tuned for solid gameplay which is great and all but old hat and the animation is still dogsh1t compared to fifa new engine. PES is a no-no unless whatever their calling BaL mode this year is a step beyond what they've been building on as i've always enjoyed it more than Fifa's 'lite' version legend/club modes. And Fifa... well the impact engine is fantastic and its using a solid base on 11's gameplay but so far i'm not a fan of the defending, gonna keep trying that demo till i learn and hopefully enjoy it.. i can see theres depth there but im not good enough to use it right now (feels like Street fighter3 of footy games now)

[hudson]

The impact engine is good, but a bit over the top at times. Some dramatic situations.

[tokyochojin]

Nice dive, at least he didn't hound the ref as they do in the premiership.

[jimtendo]

Yeah, I'm definitely having trouble with tackling, because I've been so institutionalised by previous builds where you can just hold the A + B buttons and do away with actually thinking over the process of tackling. This year looks like what you see in most real football matches. You have to keep your space/ zone them out, and just only tackle when you've definitely got the chance. Even on 'Pro' difficulty I'm nervous about sticking out a leg around and in the penalty box box as I've given away a fair amount of fouls/ penalties due to ill timed step in tackles.

I'm not sure whether this is FIFAs way of addressing issues online where you really don't have a chance on the ball, because everyone is spamming auto foot-in tackles/ team mate pressing tackles.

The way I see if (not that I'm thinking that it works well in videogame soccer) is that tackling this year is not a given, and you definitely have to work for it. Same with team mate pressure, where it won't give you a free meal ticket and tackle for you. Would be interesting to see how this plays online if everyone is having adjustment issues to tackling this year.

[MrMarbles]

Yeah, my worry is that this year's FIFA will end up like some kind of football version of NBA Jam with players getting clear runs at goal purely because of how hard it currently is to tackle.

I'm holding out hope that it's been further tuned for a bit more leniency since the demo was made but, right now, I feel that defending is erring on the side of being a tad too difficult. It's a tough balance, though.

Everything else seems great - I'm liking the facelift that the front end has received and everything seems to play exceedingly smoothly. The new collision system results in some unnervingly realistic reactions too (as well as some brilliant howlers).

Penalties are still rubbish, though. Someone needs to bring back the ISS '98 penalty system.

[wonderboy]

The PS3 demo is up now on the PSN. Looking forward to see what changes they're done over Fifa 11.

[nakamura]

Well after giving it a real good play it is streets ahead of Fifa 11.

Trapping is fast and control is excellent. Shooting is weighty and the ball physics are much more natural. Impact Engine is generally very good and subtle, you don't usually notice it is there and the players move naturally.

AI is much improved. They seem to take their chances a lot more than before and can hold possesion well. Also team mate runs seem to be far more intelligent, knowing when to support and not.

Tackling, solved it with a custom configuration. Contain is useless now so I mapped it to RB. Teammate pressure is back to shoot and standing tackle is back to pass. Now just have to manually jockey but it is no longer a finger nightmare trying to get around it and makes it an much more enjoyable experience.

Despite my first impressions, it is a great game that has evoloved nicely. Nothing incredible, just a lot of subtle changes that really make a huge difference. The only issue I have the passing. It is not just possible to hit a quick ball along the ground with pace, there is no snappyness. It is all a bit casual the moment. Hope the full game has the snappyness back.

[mr_sockochris]

Year after year it infuriates me as to why EA can't give us a 10 minute match for the demo. It's really hard to play the game how it's meant to be played when each half is a mere 180 seconds long

[rmoxon]

Year after year it infuriates me as to why EA can't give us a 10 minute match for the demo. It's really hard to play the game how it's meant to be played when each half is a mere 180 seconds long

They probabaly presume that alot of people buy it for multiplayer and if you could play a longer match then there would be no need to buy the full game. At least you get a full match now, they only use to let us play one half in a demo.

Anyway It seems good, as expected, I actualy like the new defending in general but I dont like the fact that RB/R1 is the button for telling a team mate to close down a man now, it makes things far too awkward IMO and will really take some getting use too.

[Stoppy2000]

I'm liking it overall, finding it hard to defend though. And score. Hopefully it will come to me after a few hours. Have scored a couple of crackers.