UEFA 2012 - Did We Expect Too Much - Dazraz's Blog

Dazraz's Blog

UEFA 2012 - Did We Expect Too Much

Posted on April 26, 2012 at 12:23 PM.

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When EA announced that they were releasing an expansion for FIFA 12 to incorporate this years UEFA Euro Championship competition in the game my immediate response was 'what an excellent idea'. In previous years we have had to shell out for a full price World Cup or Champions League title so the idea of paying alot less for the inclusion of the competition within the original game seemed a great move.

However the outcome has almost universally been received as a disappointment. Why?

Well first of all it's almost inevitable that the UEFA 2012 expansion would be compared to previous stand alone games. This is natural but maybe a little unfair. After all to justify a full price game EA had to incorporate a new look & feel to the game in addition to modifying the gameplay from the previous iteration of the FIFA game. With the cheaper download option this wasn't deemed such a requirement.

What we ultimately have is something akin to a downloadable course on EA's Tiger Woods game. The same game with an additional competition & a little specific presentation. Should we have expected more for our money. Maybe, maybe not. EA of course never help themselves as they overhype everything they do & rarely back the hype up in the final product.

For me where this expansion really lets itself down is in a couple of ways. For someone who plays alot in a multiplayer offline mode the inability to play with more than one team is crazy. Especially considering you can user control up to 64 teams in the actual FIFA game! The other, almost unbelievable absence, is that of full licences for every team in the competition. Yes licenses cost money
but how on earth can a host nation not be fully licensed. These 2 are gamebreakers for me. If you're not bothered by this & you really want to play out a UEFA Euro tournament then this expansion may just be worth the money. Just don't expect a different game. The only gameplay change I've come across is slightly better collision detection but that's pretty much about it. At the end of the day that's not what the upgrade was about. After all FIFA 12 is already a very impressive game. But there is no questioning EA made
some bad decisions/oversights with the UEFA Euro product.

Comments

# 1 RUFFNREADY @ Apr 26

I agree with you 100%; how they could have tried to pull the wool over our eyes just goes to show their credability, which i believe is on the downside right now.
Just another EA cash grab; i am soo surprise that they didnt release NBA ELITE 11, and try to make some more money off of that!
cheers