The team based sports game of the year is always the most popular award here at Operation Sports -- mainly because the sports represented in this award are also the most popular. Games in contention for this award include Madden, NBA 2K, MLB: The Show, FIFA, NCAA Football and other similar titles.

2011's year for Team-based sports gaming was a bit disappointing on many fronts. Several games shipped with major bugs and one in particular (NBA 2K12) took a noticeable step backwards in terms of fan enthusiasm. This is all to be expected as we have yet to have a game win the Team-Based game of the year back-to-back.

This year's winner was the game which managed to avoid the bug-a-palooza this year and seemed to generally garner the most enthusiasm from the staff: FIFA Soccer 12.

FIFA is the best selling game in our genre, but a huge bulk of those sales always come from Europe and Asia. While sales in America increase every year, the game is only just now starting to really become a sales hit in this country.

While the game isn't perfect, you can read Kelvin Mak's impressive review evidence of as much, it has taken some big steps towards realism. The impact physics engine is a huge step forward for the franchise, and the gameplay is a noticeable leap from last year's edition.

FIFA Soccer 12's Manager Mode is deep and well done, not Football Manager deep -- but good enough for this type of console game. The increasingly popular 'Ultimate Team' mode is a hit amongst FIFA fans, with some spending hundreds to build their online squad.

All in all, FIFA Soccer 12 benefitted from a rare combination of everyone else fumbling a bit in the AAA Team Sports arena and with the FIFA team doing a solid job avoiding huge bugs and negative backlash.

The question now becomes what will the FIFA team do next year to try to be the first game to repeat as the Team Sports Game of the Year at OS in almost a decade?

Other Staff Opinions

Kelvin Mak - It was a great year for soccer fans, wasn't it? Both FIFA and PES stepped up their game, went toe to toe with each other, and in the end gamers were left with two hugely enjoyable titles. From a potential perspective, both games deserve honorable mentions as they've each revolutionized a part (well, in FIFA's case, two parts) of their games. Having said that, their immediately releases this year still had a good amount of kinks needing to be worked out, and therefore my vote went to neither of the two soccer titles, but to that other one: Football Manager 2012.

How a game manages to be so addictive is beyond me. Make no mistake, this game is not for anybody with poor time management skills, because it will just steal your hours blind. Football Manager 2012 added a slew of features (and eradicated quite a few of last year's annoying bugs), all of which culminated in the most immersive management experience yet. The game is still has some ways to go towards perfection, but of all the sports game I've played this year, it's the closest one.

Bo McCready - Every major sports title this year had more than its fair share of flaws. But to me, one game stood head and shoulders above the rest: FIFA 12. FIFA has always been a deep game, and this year, the gameplay was much-improved. Sure, your AI teammates are inept on defense under the new tactical defending model, but that's a relatively minor problem compared to the major issues we've seen in other titles. Let's hope for a leap forward from some other titles in 2012.

Readers Choice

Winner: MLB '11: The Show  (31.42%)

Others: NBA 2K12 (24.13%),  FIFA Soccer 12 (14.76%)