FIFA 12 PREVIEW PART 4

Greetings, football fans! Welcome to the last of our 4 part preview of FIFA 12. This week, we are taking a look at some of the new modes included in FIFA 12.

Of the new modes, the coolest one, in my humble opinion at least, looks to be the EA Sports Football Club, henceforth referred by the much more manageable EASFC. Much like the gameplay innovations mentioned in the previous posts, EASFC is a completely new addition to the series. It is a rather unique concept that is truly unlike anything you or I have ever seen before in a sports game or indeed, any game.

Perhaps the most apt way to descibe it would be a sort of “Facebook for FIFA”, if you will. It has been billed as a platform for the millions of FIFA player worldwide to connect to one another and through the game, effect some sort of social.

Indeed, it is a level of social networking for gamers the likes of which have been thus far unavailable. But EASFC also promises much more than just merely somewhere to interact and issue challenges to other players of the game.

(Disclaimer: These features are subject to change as the EASFC platform matures but these are tidbits of info I have managed to gather so far from the Alpha Build)

Anything and everything a player does in FIFA 12 promises to be rewarded with XP points. Everything from playing a friendly match to much heftier tasks like creating players in Creation Centre is a XP-rewardable action, though I would reckon the amount would vary depending on the difficulty of said task. Obvious, but hey, you never know…

All that hoarded XP will go not only towards leveling up your own rank (mostly only useful for striking a sense fear in newbies you play online) but also to contribute to the bigger picture of the Support Your Club mode, which in essence, will hopefully be the world’s largest interactive football league.

So, the premise is that I, as a Chelsea fan, will earn these XP points to not only boost my own online ranking but also play own little part in Chelsea’s continued well-being in said interactive league. As will all the other Blues fans around the world. And Manchester United fans for the Red Devils, Real Madrid fans for the Meringues, Woodlands Wellington fans for the Rams… Okay, maybe not that last one but you get my drift.

Based on the fervent support and/or obsessive XP-whoring of their supporters, clubs will then be placed in the appropriate leagues with other similar-tiered teams, regardless of the actual nationality of the club’s actual league. Interestingly, it is entirely possible for team like the Seattle Sounders, with the catchment area’s wealth of IT and gaming enthusiasts, to be placed in a league above the likes of Manchester City, who for all their own money and diehards are actually located in a relatively poor area of the UK .

How? Simple. It’s not just about who contributes the most total XP but rather the AVERAGE XP per supporter that is taken into account. So fear not Nottingham Forest fans, after 30 years, you could be back rubbing shoulders again with the likes of Barcelona and AC Milan at the top echelons of football, provided your supporters are decently handy with the game, of course. Smaller clubs can finally compete on an equal footing with the giants of world football. Gone is the gaping divide between the perennial haves and have-nots. And we may finally get to settle once and for all the age old question of which club’s fans have the most passionate FIFA players of all.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa game brought with it the insanely popular Scenario mode and if you’ve played that before, you’ll have an idea what the new Challenges mode entails. However, EA promises that Challenges will be of a much larger scale and that there is a whole development team solely dedicated to constantly updating the mode with cool new things to do all year round with playable scenarios based on the most exciting matches and storylines as they occur in real life.

You’ll be dropped into a game with pre-defined teams, players, scores and more, and your objective will be to complete the challenge we give you. Whether it’s to recreate history or rewrite it, you’ll get to relive all the great storylines in the world of football, earning valuable XP for yourself and your club as you do.

Taking a leaf out of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit’s book, FIFA 12 includes its very own take on the former’s wildly popular Autolog system. The News Feed system that will share your FIFA news and accomplishments with your friends on the fly, so they can see what you’ve been up to and you can see what they’ve been doing. The addictive thrill of rubbing your friends’ noses in real-time with your newly-attained skill move accomplishment or the burning desire to trump their latest win that just propelled them to the top of your friends leaderboard is undoubtedly going to be a driving factor to play more FIFA 12, and one that never feels like a chore.

And while you’ll be kept informed of all this activity in the game, you’ll also be able to share the news outside the game, whether on the easportsfootball.com website  or on social networking sites. Cause sharing their shame on Facebook is just that much
sweeter, no?

All in all, do all these new bits and pieces warrant a purchase of a copy of FIFA 12? I’d say a resounding HELL YES! No self-respecting football fan should deprive himself of the chance to play the game which I daresay that promises the most authentic interactive adaptation of The Beautiful Game.