Game Room: September Roundup

According to anyone from anywhere but America, soccer is the most popular sport in the world. FIFA 12 does a great job of embracing that global popularity in this year's build with Support Your Club, the new feature that brings fans of teams together across the world. When you first fire up the disc, you must pick a team from one of the over 500 licensed clubs available. From that point on, everything you do goes towards improving your team's global online score. The scores compile the average scores of gamers supporting each club and ranks them in weekly standings. The concept worked with EA's college football title and should fit even better with a sport full of passionate fans like soccer.

The gameplay tweaks seem minor but have a major impact on strategy. Defense is vastly improved this year with Tactical Defending, which stresses positioning and angles. The game was getting more, almost unrealistically, offensive in the past few years, and Tactical Defending creates a better balance.

More realism is delivered with the Player Impact Engine, which means players joust, interact and collide with each other in more realistic ways, though those animations are harder to notice unless you're a true FIFA fanatic. Still, all of the attention to detail ensures that the beautiful game has never looked this beautiful on your console before.

Score: 9 out of 10