Fifa 12 review

So another year, another Fifa and most followers of the series will expect what they've been given every year since this generation of gaming began; the same game, upgraded. Well, hold on to your pint glasses and scotch pies because EA sports have come out with all guns blazing in what many are describing as 'the greatest football videogame to date'.

It's a tricky job, creating an experience that is both accessible to newcomers and with enough depth to hold the interest of veterans but if anyone understands the struggle of that balance, it's the team at EA. This year introduces enough new content so that even to the untrained eye, it's a whole new playing field. Perhaps the most revolutionary of these features is the completely overhauled defending system, a system which put frankly, makes PES look like Tetris. Whereas previously, a change in possession took place by providing enough pressure on the opposition players to force a mistake, now every individual defender is under complete control of the gamer. It sounds difficult, but is really a matter of concentration. The ability to strafe ('x' button) in order to block off a shot provides an easy alternative for less experienced players. You'll find if you take the game seriously, this level of concentration will become sweatworthy. Sometimes it feels like stopping a killer pass is like scoring a goal.

Without beating around the bush, it's a lifesucker. What makes this year different to others is the sheer perfection in the application of ideas. For years, the game has seen new addition after new addition of features and game modes and with the bonus of 'EA sports football club', 'head to head seasons', 'online friendlies' and more, we're talking about dangerous levels of addictive potential. It's simple, if you enjoy football and videogames, you will never run out of things to do and the time has reassuringly been taken to polish each section so that from the moment you first press start, virtual football is painless. For the drones of Manager mode the experience is extensive, addition of press conferences, more in-depth transfers, news from all over the non-existent world and a really sexy interface will have you spending more time worrying about winning the league cup then earning your degree, or probably in some cases, eating.

Graphically, we're not talking about a massive overhaul, which is fine because if you played Fifa 11 you'll know the franchise is beginning to replicate real life from the playing screen anyway. In fact, the player likeliness is not improved at all but the animations and mannerisms are now so lifelike and varied it doesn't matter. When you're firing Lionel Messi into the box and dodging past center-backs like they're traffic cones, no one will deny they've got it spot on, Emile Heskey lugs his 16 stone self around like a rhino and Peter Crouch strides around the six-yard box like an Ostrich.

If you bought it last year and got some game time out of it, don't think twice. Even the most cynical can't argue, the next few months are about gaming and Fifa 12 has sports covered.

9.8/10

Blog attack!

Gamers in their passion are constantly setting new medical records. Amount of time spent in one position without food, amount of time spent in bed without sex, amount of unnecessary blood clots. This is discounting the glorious feats involving mountain dew and microwave burger consummation, that are sometimes bordering on world records. But even by gamer standards, I have found that a rather prickish illness, namely cancer, has gifted me with enough spare time to myself in order to go one step further in the path to obsessiveness. To write about gaming.

Following chemo and surgery, if you don't know, you don't feel like and are generally incapable of doing pretty much anything. Needless to say the most reliable muscles in our body still function at 100%, the ones in our hands. As a 19 year old male with no body part to use but his hands, it doesn't take much imagination to envisage what i've spent the last 5 months doing and when my hands are clean, that generally means playing with videogame characters instead.

By now, you're probably wondering to yourself 'where is this going?' Well, I have no means of bringing to you breaking news from the world of gaming any faster than the websites I already know. However I can offer something that most websites cannot and that is a fair opinion. You see, with all the internet gaming information sources there are problems with money. Or rather, desires for money. And while advertising is good enough for some people, for others bribery is too great a lure to be avoided. I'm talking about game reviews. The constant 9/10's for unchanged franchises, the completely unrealistic verdicts on DLCs that offer nothing more than a new character skin or maybe the sly placements of words like 'cheap' in a game revealing.

I'll bring to you opinions, reviews and all round good/bad humour on the subject of the videogame world. And at such an affluent time for our industry when better to start?

Apollo