My first impression of FIFA 12 was that this was another turning point to feeling almost indistinguishable from modern FIFAs. Then I had one of those moments where the distance of years suddenly hit and I realised that my most recent conception of ‘modern FIFA’ was FIFA 18, and that there have in fact been as many FIFA games EA Sports football games between then and now as from FIFA 12 to FIFA 18. So I’ll correct it to saying that in so many respects, this is where it becomes the FIFA I remember.
What’s new in FIFA 12?
The new “player impact engine” is one of those back of the box things that could easily amount to nothing, and doesn’t jump out. Making on-pitch physical interactions more physics-based and weighty is a continuation of a long-running and rich seam of improvement, though, and once again the game ends up feeling subtly but widely more real as a result.
The Czech and Turkish leagues have disappeared since FIFA 11, seemingly due to licence negotiations breaking down.
Looking back, the final six words of the back of the box blurb turn out to have been even more important than any changes to the match engine. “FIFA Ultimate Team – Now on-disc!”. The mash-up of management mode and collectible card game where you hope to pick up better players for your team was no longer a downloadable addition, but a critical part of the package. There was even a pricier premium edition of FIFA 12 which came with a set of card packs for it to be handed out over the months after release.
Who is on the cover?
Wayne Rooney (ST, Manchester United, rated 90) is still there, this time paired with his latest replacement as England’s biggest young hope, Jack Wilshere (Arsenal, CM, rated 82). By the time FIFA 12 came out, Wilshere was part way through an entire season out injured and at the beginning of what turned out to be a rapid career descent. This lends a retrospective metaphorical reading to the encroaching frost effect around the edge of their picture which is otherwise rather lacking in point.
What’s on the soundtrack?
By this stage the number of acts who were well-known or have become more so since suggests that FIFA was actually getting ahead of trend rather than just following it. With the usual emphasis on lightly electronic alternative sitting in the gap left by landfill indie, it wasn’t what turned me onto Little Dragon or The Naked & Famous but it wasn’t far behind.
Who is the best player in the game?
Lionel Messi (Barcelona, CF, rated 94) is still out on top with an additional boost to his rating. Reflecting Barcelona’s ascendency, Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid, LW, rated 92) is only equal second place with Messi’s team-mate Xavi (CM, rated 92)
Who is the worst player in the game?
In FIFA 11, forty players shared the dubious honour of being the lowest rated. In FIFA 12, there is but one. Ben Garratt (Crewe Alexandra, GK, rated 40), an England youth goalkeeper at the time, is the one. As with some of his predecessors he is still a footballer today, following a career at Crewe and Burton Albion with a move this season to Nantwich Town in the Northern Premier League.
What do the players look like?
A bit like the physics, there isn’t any one thing that is very noticeable, but there is definitely a subtle feeling of a tiny bit more life in the eyes of some of the players. Some of the time.
How does it play?
If FIFA 11 slowed things down and made physicality a lot more noticeable, perversely FIFA 12 expanding on that and getting it so right lets it shift back into the background again. Instead it’s the chance to put together fluid passing moves that moves forward once again, the complications making it more satisfying to succeed at. This can go a bit too far particularly in the AI, as you can watch any team down to lower league Gillingham playing the ball out from the back, but it makes for fun games.
Let’s talk Ultimate Team too, though. You construct a team from the cards you’re dealt, and customise their look and approach likewise. There’s a bit of matching up players with the correct positions and teammates to make it more than a better of just putting in all the best ratings. Then you take to the field and see your carefully selected squad in action.
Except when it turned out I couldn’t play even the offline bits of it due to EA’s servers having closed, and I went on YouTube to watch the most popular videos of FIFA 12 Ultimate Team gameplay, it wasn’t the matches that featured. It was people opening player packs, and their reaction to that.
In pretty much the precise same way as the football sticker packs I would open as a child, the excitement is in the uncertainty and revelation, the potential that you might have Messi or Xavi in there. Or you might just have Ben Garratt.
You could earn packs through succeeding within the game. In my later Ultimate Team-playing days I never paid a penny for any of them. There was always also the option to shortcut that by paying real money for packs, though, and that is something potentially near-infinitely expandable if you want to get properly completionist. The 1993-94 Merlin sticker book that I once worked to fill up had 479 stickers. FIFA 12 has 8,534 players.
How does it score on the sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gif greed index?
The match engine has some bigger, if still subtle, positive changes. On the other hand, FIFA 12 was a big turning point on the route to becoming a football-themed gambling game. 0.8 sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gifs.
If FIFA 12 was a football team at the time, who would it be?
Dominant and with an additional intricacy to its passing, FIFA 12 can reasonably be placed as Barcelona. There’s a different parallel to be drawn there too, though. This was one of the seasons where Barcelona had a sponsorship paid for by the non-profit Qatar Foundation, as part of their gradual move from having no sponsors to just maximising revenue in whatever way possible.
FIFA 12 spent nine weeks in total as the UK’s #1 game. See what was top of other charts at the time after the page break.