FIFA 12 Demo - Some First Thoughts

So the FIFA 12 demo was released yesterday and my friend and I met up for a few pre-season matches. I'd ended up despising FIFA 11 for various reasons at the end of last year; just various important parts of the gameplay felt like they hadn't quite been perfected by E.A. I know it's early days, but I'm staking a claim and saying that these problems have been rectified in FIFA 12. These problems were:

Strength / holding up ability of the forwards.
Defensive movement and reactions.
The passing system.

I'm delighted to say that the forwards seem to have a lot more ability to be able to hold the ball up and shield it from opposition defenders. However the demo doesn't contain too many strikers which have low strength abilities, e.g. Neymar for Santos in Fifa 11. His strength was roundabouts the 45 mark (out of 99) and would be shrugged off the ball incredibly (and annoyingly) easily. So, I'm going to partially sit on the fence on this one, though the outlook is promising.

Now a lot of people have been saying that defending on the Fifa 12 demo is fairly difficult, but I found it to be a massive improvement! Their reactions and the control for the player to put them exactly where they want them felt great. I felt in full control of my defence.

The passing system was a big let down for me in Fifa 11. E.A. attempted to create a system to eliminate 'ping pong passing' which I concur was much needed; but what we got was something much worse. The passing was slow and sluggish, and I felt that I was always tracking backwards to receive the ball. On the Fifa 12 demo, the passing was very good. Every pass was of a decent speed and for the majority of the time, they reached their intended target.

One thing that bugged me was that Wayne Rooney was the player that featured on the 'arena', however Manchester United are not available to play as in a full match. It makes me think that, as on a lot of demos; there were more things that remain locked to the user. Though the teams that were included were pleasing; apart from having Manchester City rather than United! (But maybe I'm slightly biased.) The playable teams are: Barcelona, Manchester City, Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Marseille and A.C. Milan.

So, a big thumbs up overall and I'm looking forward to the full release on the 30th September!