FIFA 12 PREVIEW PART 1

Greetings, football fans!

Just like buying the new season’s kit of your favourite football team, buying a new copy of FIFA is an annual affair for most, if not all, football fans. In the past few years especially, followers of the FIFA series has been handsomely rewarded. Despite the initial slow progress and critical bashing in its early years, the series has grown from strength to strength, culminating in the ephiphany that was FIFA 10. While FIFA 11 was “evolutionary, rather than revolutionary”, it was critically acclaimed and managed to cement the position of FIFA as the “king of football sims”, a title forcefully wrested away from  Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer,  also known as Winning Eleven in our part of the woods.

All hail the new king!

As previously mentioned, a couple of days ago on the 10th of August 2011, the good folks over at EA Singapore invited me over to their swanky office at Fusionopolis to catch a sneak peek of an Alpha build of their upcoming game, which promises to be “revolutionary”. Over the next week, I will be sharing my insight and opinions of some of the new features on show in FIFA 12. Unfortunately, photography wasn’t allowed, so instead I will try to make my descriptions as graphic as humanly possible. (And enlist a little help from readily-available photos already online.)

Stepping into the EA Singapore office, I was ushered by a very friendly staff member to a private booth and was then left to my own devices. The build I was handed was for the Playstation 3 and had the words “Work in Progress” splashed across the background, reminding me that whatever I am experiencing may be subject to change before the game releases, though I was assured most of the basics were solidly in place already.

Clearly, FIFA 12 wastes no time in trying to carve out its own unique identity. From the off, avid FIFA followers will notice that the menu system of old has been completely replaced. Taking a look around the frontend menu, I notice that the navigation is now much improved with the traditional vertical, left-aligned menu now replaced by a set of slick-looking blades across the bottom of the screen, with sub-menu options popping up when these are clicked. The new menu style takes up less screen real estate and looks somewhat more professional. A small, some might say frivolous, interface change but personally, I kind of like it.

I like the minimalist look. Do you?

Most of the teams and leagues featured in FIFA 11 make a return in FIFA 12 with the added bonus of a couple new international teams such as Côte d’Ivoire/Ivory Coast. Same goes for the stadia, mostly intact with a few interesting additions, including one which resembles Johannesburg’s Soccer City, site of 2010’s FIFA World Cup finals.

As expected, the sexist-comment-slinging, male chauvanist Andy Gray’s no longer part of the commentary team. A nice addition to FIFA 12 is the ability to choose your preferred commentary team between the pairing of Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend or the pairing of Martin Tyler and Alan Smith, though frankly, I like them all. The more than 10,000 lines of speech recorded is massive and will go a long way in avoiding that dreaded feeling of stale, recycled commentary.

Sexist? No FIFA 12 for you!

Next up in Part 2 of this preview, we will take a look at the much-lauded gameplay improvements in FIFA 12 , including the highly-aniticipated “holy trinity”.

Till then,

ultimatefifafan