Damn You, Momentum!

Here we have a nice video (if you can get past the terrible eurotrash music) showing the new skill moves.

How awesome is the Bergkamp flick!?

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When the new online league system was announced recently, I felt a long-forgotten, childish sense of anticipation for FIFA 12 rising in me. Ten leagues to fight your way through plus the thrill of cup knock-out rounds. For anyone who loves competitive online play as much as I do, this is madness. 

If you were planning on getting a little head start before FIFA 12 comes out in roughly two weeks, you will have eagerly awaited the demo that just got released. The most talked-about feature probably was the technical defending, which I thought to be just a slightly improved jockey. Boy, was I wrong. Before I go into the boring technical part I have to say that FIFA 12 looks and feels very much like real football, shooting is fun and crosses seem more dangerous (or at least more spectacular).

The demo starts with a tutorial of the new defense mechanisms and while it seems totally bizarre, you manage to pull it off fairly easily. Until you start a match. It messes with your head, it's mindblowingly counter-intuitive and basically forces you unlearn everything you have learned. This is, if all you ever did was press the tackle button. If you have mastered jockey defending in previous FIFAs it will actually seem like a logical step to prevent pressure abuse and make the game even more realistic. I played a game of FIFA 11 afterwards and it instantly felt old and arcade-like. 
Still, the button mapping seems odd. Other players have suggested to change a few buttons. I have tried both the classic setting and the custom one, which made it more like FIFA 11. I do, however, think they were put there for a reason. Having a new button for calling a second defender takes getting used to, but I feel the new Contain function is being underrated. It's too early to tell after only a few games, but it seems to be a good opening move when focusing on a new opposing player and I find myself using it all the time (which is why I will probably keep it on the X button), but letting go of it again very fast. It simply encourages you to use the button differently.


I think technical defending needs a lot more exploring before complaining about how it ruins everything. It will be interesting to see how much of a game changer this will be online and how fast the players can adjust.