Career mode on FIFA just gets better every year and the current FIFA 12 version is exciting, inspiring and difficult to stop playing.
However, whilst it is a brilliant part of FIFA 12, there are long standing issues that need to be resolved in order to make it more than just amazing.
Firstly, although it has been improved since FIFA 11, the waiting time whilst the calendar advances can be tedious and if it can be shortened or just changed then it should be; surely there needn’t be any waiting; the next game in the season should just role on from the last in a couple of seconds or less. Perhaps the calendar could be replaced by something more interactive for the gamer.
Also, there is an issue with old players signing new contracts and then, just weeks later, they say that they are considering retiring at the end of the season. For example, I started a career mode with Tottenham Hotspur and the first thing that I wanted to do, was to tie down 40-year-old Brad Friedel to a new contract to ensure that he didn’t retire at the end of the season. He signed a new two year contract but I then received a message from him entitled ‘Considering Retiring’. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I had to do to make him stay on and he did retire at the end of that season.
Thirdly, although a small issue, some hardcore players may want it to be not like a game that leaves out the little details, but like real live football. When the Captain in a game gets subbed off, the player that he is replaced by is the new captain. However, if it is a young, inexperienced player then there is no chance in real football that he would become captain. In FIFA 12 however, there is no way of passing the captaincy on to another player already on the field, unlike in real football where they just give it to whoever they want to. In FIFA 13 therefore, when the captain gets subbed off, a message should appear, asking the user to whom they want the captaincy to pass to.
Finally, in FIFA 12 as in all previous versions, players get tired throughout the season and squad rotation is necessary. However, it usually works out that the same team can play two or three games in succession without the starting line-up being changed. The niggling issue is that suddenly, when a big game comes up against the top teams after one previous game against a small team, many of the players are suddenly fatigued. Therefore, fatigue should be more realistic in the next FIFA. Also, many top players play every or close to every game in the Premier League season and yet in FIFA 12, after maybe five games with generally a week between each of them, their stamina is significantly reduced if they start every match.
Overall, as you may have noticed, writing about problems in FIFA 12 Career Mode is like trying to find holes in a solid wall, there are very few, if any. FIFA 12 Career Mode is truly brilliant; it allows the user to become a football manager in almost every sense of the word and what’s more, they can do it with whatever team they like. FIFA 13 Career Mode will probably eliminate these tiny points for debate and will only further extend the dominance of the FIFA franchise worldwide.
