It's no surprise that with a new FIFA game arriving each year, there's going to be an element of 'feature creep'. With such a short development cycle, there's only so much that can be binned and rewritten from scratch. Not to mention the fact that with so many people umbilically attached to FIFA's take on the sport, tearing out huge chunks of the game is a risky business. In light of that, there aren't going to be many people prepared for just how profoundly FIFA 12 will change the simulation of Blighty's most beloved sport.
Key to that change is what the dev is calling the FIFA Impact Engine. The result of two years of head scratching, pencil sucking and equation scribbling, this is a physics engine that dramatically increases the realism of player interaction.
Clearly these situations can rear their ugly heads in exhibition matches, but they'll have a far more profound effect on Career mode, where if you play a recently injured player too soon and he takes a hit to his gammy limb, you could be waiting another six months before you can play him again. There are even specific animations to account for reinjuries, with players throwing miniature hissy fits because they've been sent out without adequate recovery time.
As if reworking the entire physics engine wasn't enough, there have been dramatic changes elsewhere in the game as well. While it may not be as glamorous as scoring 30-yard screamers, the defensive side of football, which in an even match-up should be around half your time spent, has been completely reworked.
In previous FIFA games the Press button was so effective that it was very easy to let your eyes glaze over as soon as you lost the ball. You could just rely on the 'heat seeking missiles' to chase the player in possession and put in a standing tackle when they got close enough to you.
For FIFA 12, Press has been replaced with Contain. Now the player will keep at a distance, tweaked using the left analogue stick, and track the dribbling player waiting for the right opportunity to strike. The tackle itself is then a question of timing - the idea being that it'll be far more satisfying when you dispossess a player.
EA's hoping that by making defensive play more strategic, even nil-nil draws will be gripping and more players will actively select defensive positions in Online Team Play rather than all descending vulture-like onto the strikers and central midfielders.
Completing what EA has rather dramatically dubbed 'the trinity of gameplay innovations' is Precision Dribbling. While 360 dribbling had a profound effect on player control, in FIFA 11 they still had a turning circle like a canal boat. Real players can take multiple touches and barely move, but try that in last year's offering and you'll be snaking all over the pitch. To remedy that, the developer has added a third pace to accompany Sprint and Jog.
Precision Dribbling allows you to slow the game down, offering finer control and allowing you to dribble while shielding the ball from a pursuing player. Whereas before it was impossible to loiter at the top of the box, where teams like Barcelona regularly operate with deadly effectiveness, that portion of the pitch is now viable for probing the area.
Being able to hold up play until your team-mates provide options makes holding onto the ball a much more viable tactic, further reducing ping-pong passing without resorting to hobbling the player's skills. Strategy is now far more important than simply getting rid of the ball before you're closed down.
All this makes the latest in the endless line of FIFA games feel shiny and new. Whether or not you understand or care just how profound the under-the-hood fiddling has been, the end result is a game that looks and plays far more like a real game of football. There's going to be plenty to relearn this year.
9/10 - looks fantastic
