FIFA 12 - Xbox 360

The new football season brings with it the new FIFA from Electronic Arts Sports label. As ever, a host of additions and tweaks have been made to the long-standing sports series, the most obvious of these being the new Player Impact Engine.

This is in fact a brand new physics engine that aims at replicating the real crunch and thrust of the football field in attack, midfield and defence as player comes into contact with player.

Basically it’s the kind of hardcore collision detection that will make tackles and shoulder-to-shoulder barges more likely to result in actual impacts that can change the course of a game. They can also result in “True Injuries” where contact between players in real-time means tough times for player and manager as new types of injuries and different healing times have to be contended with.

Player Impact Engine is joined by the new Precision Dribbling tech that enables better and tighter control providing for more time to make decisions on the attack, and more control over the pace of the game.

It’s not all about attack though. Defence and defenders have also been improved with a new Tactical Defending addition which makes positioning and intercepting passes as important as hard tackling.

AI players are pumped up with “Pro Player Intelligence”, which enables them to make tactical and strategic decisions using stats drawn from their own skills and tendencies. FIFA 12 comes with 500 officially licensed clubs and more than 15,000 players from around the world of football.

All of this is wrapped in a redesigned menu system with customizable a Main Menu based on arena player, Virtual Pro and favourite club areas. more