Here’s what FSB favourite and FIFA Street Producer Sid Misra had to say:

“The all-star adidas team will be a must-have for street football fans wanting to play with the most stylish and skilled team in the game. Along with the iconic environment inspired by Plaça de Catalunya, our fans will enjoy the added flavor and depth that this special pre-order offer delivers.”

For the full announcement in all it’s glory make sure you pay the EA SPORTS Football site a visit oh and there’s a nice little video too.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, if you weren’t getting FIFA Street before, has this bonus pre-order content persuaded you to take the plunge?

“Xperia Play owners can play the football game this “holiday” (autumn), whereas all other Android device owners will have to wait until 21st February 2012″

Interesting, there’s no suggestion that this will affect FIFA 12 release dates on other mobile platforms such as the iPhone or iPad which have been prominent in FIFA 12′s  promotional campaign.

[FSB] How does the tracking of EASFC stats between friends work, which features/statistics will actually be compared?  

We’ll be revealing more information on the functionality and features of the Leaderboards as we approach launch.

[FSB] It’s been mentioned that “real world storylines” will drive EASFC, how does this differ to the Scenario mode seen in FIFA World Cup 2010?

Challenges will be similar to the Scenario Mode in FIFA World Cup 2010 in that they follow real-world storylines, but as EA SPORTS Football Club will run season-long and cover the entire world of football, there will be a greater volume of challenges and timely storylines delivered by a dedicated EAS Live Team working within our FIFA dev organization.

[FSB] How frequently will real world story challenges be updated?

We haven’t set the exact number of challenges that will be injected into the game at launch, but will be able to speak about this closer to launch. Our plan is to have challenges based on key matches in a season available hours after matches finish, so ‘Manchester United just beat Chelsea to all-but guarantee the Premier League title….can you help Chelsea avenge this defeat?’

[FSB] Will you receive notifications when friends beat your scores in EASFC challenges?

Performances are recorded and uploaded to Friends and Global Leaderboards on easportsfootball.com for you and your friends to check. You can also share results and your progress on sites like Facebook.

[FSB] Will EASFC track and compare the stats of all the game modes in FIFA 12 or is it an individual mode of its own?

It’s not an individual mode. It’s a live service that will track your progress at all times whether you’re online or playing against the CPU.

[FSB] Is there any social media integration with Facebook and or Twitter?

Yes, you’ll be able to share your progress and achievements on social networking channels.

[FSB] How will EASFC make the FIFA experience “persistent”?

In a few different ways:

• EA SPORTS Football Club will be a connected service that continues on into future FIFA titles. Our vision for the future is that whenever you play, and whatever you play on, you’ll be earning rewards and achievements that fuel your one single identity …across platforms and through the years.
• It will also be persistent through its existence across our website easportsfootball.com and multiple platforms – Xbox 360, PS3 and PC for FIFA 12, with a vision to connect all the FIFA experiences our fans enjoy on all platforms.
• Your performance will be tracked both online and offline.

[FSB] Will you have the ability to change your favourite club once selected?

We’re not revealing the deeper feature set on Support Your Club until we get a bit closer to launch.

[FSB] What happens to EASFC once the football season is over? Will challenges and club battles continue?

We haven’t finalised our plans for EASFC out-of-season yet. But the football calendar runs pretty much 12 months a year and there’s always activities and challenges being generated by the real world of the sport.

[FSB] Will EASFC allow you to send challenges to friends the same way Autolog does in NFS: Hot Pursuit?

That’s a good question for later this year. We will be revealing lots more information on Challenges as we get closer to launch.

Huge thanks to the EA Football Live Team for taking the time to answer our questions and also to European FIFA Community Manager, Alistair Reid who helped out massively.

Eurogamer – FIFA 12 Preview

IGN – FIFA 12 Preview

Kotaku – FIFA 12 Preview

CVG – FIFA 12 Preview

Official Xbox Magazine – FIFA 12 Preview

Gamer NL - FIFA 12 Gameplay Footage

FIFABenelux – FIFA 12 Hands On

Made2Game – FIFA 12 Preview

FIFABlog.be – FIFA 12 Screens

Phew, glad that ones done and dusted. See you all on the other side and remember to keep a close eye on the Team FSB Twitter accounts on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Lets FIFA 12!

FSB: High pressure, high aggression and auto-tackle have been community pet hates for a few years now, how conscious of this were you when implementing Tactical Defending?

Tactical Defending fundamentally changes the way you defend, bringing in an element of timing and positioning that we didn’t have before. These go against being overly aggressive and the auto-tackle that we had before. So, implementing Tactical Defending isn’t just about changing the mechanic of defending, but also to create depth and ask gamers to think about how they should defend every situation.

FSB: How has swapping the old pressing system for the new Contain mechanic changed the way you defend in FIFA 12?

The old system would do everything for you, and because it had only one thing in mind (go to the ball and tackle it), you couldn’t really defend differently in different scenarios. This also meant that you never had a lot of time on the ball, because there would always be a defender going full speed at you and launching a tackle as soon as he could. The new contain mechanic assists you to be in a good position to mark the ball possessor, which will make it easier to then manually commit to the tackle. In FIFA 12, once you lose possession, instead of just looking at the ball and going straight for it, you will need to see the big picture of the play developing, position yourself to contain first, and then go in for a tackle at the right time.

FSB: What are the main differences between Skill Dribble (FIFA 10/11) and the new Precision Dribble in FIFA 12?

Skilled Dribble allowed you to face the defender and then use change of pace at a 90-degree angle to try and beat him. Precision Dribble is 360 degrees, covers more contexts, and it is not so much a tool to beat a defender (although it is powerful at this too), as it is one to keep possession of the ball when there is a lot of traffic around you by having very close and responsive ball control. In addition, Precision Dribble gives you the ability to dribble while you are shielding the ball, which is something we didn’t have before. Also, while you would have to manually trigger Skilled Dribble most of the time, Precision Dribble is much more accessible and will trigger contextually in a great variety of situations.

FSB: How does Precision Dribble affect the pacing of FIFA 12′s gameplay?

It has a massive influence in the pace of FIFA 12 gameplay. For the first time, you will be able to slow the play down as the dribbler even if you have one or several defenders closing you down. This is only possible because of the new precision dribble touches – how close they keep the ball, and how responsive the turns are. You will now get into areas such as the top of the box, a crowded midfield, down the wing, etc., where you would have had to get rid of the ball right away (by shooting, crossing, or passing). I can’t tell you how much fun it is when you can get creative and buy yourself some time in these situations!

FSB: This new level of precision in player dribbling will undoubtedly make players like Messi more powerful than ever. How do you plan to balance this?

Players like Messi will be better at Precision Dribble than others, that’s true, but it is in no way an exploit or an easy way to score goals. Moreover, in the past we and the community have felt that players like Messi are not as powerful in our game as they are in real life, so this is a change in the right direction. Besides, Messi’s got 52 goals this season, I think real world managers and defenders are still trying to figure out how to neutralize him

FSB: You’ve described the Impact Engine as the biggest change to FIFA since rebuilding it for the next-gen consoles. How long has the Impact Engine been in development?

Around 2 years.

FSB: How does the new Impact Engine affect the physicality of FIFA 12′s gameplay?

It will make every player interaction follow real world physics; will prevent clipping (players’ legs and arms going through each other); will give you unprecedented variety and accuracy in all the falls and stumbles in the game; and it will enhance other features such as shielding, push and pull, etc.

FSB: Can you explain a little more about the new Self Injury mechanic and how muscle tears and strains will be calculated?

We can now determine how much a player is stretching on a shot, a pass, a clearance, etc., and we also know how tired they are. As in real life, exhaustion increases the risk for these types of muscle injuries. So, depending on a player’s fatigue, how prone he is to injuries, whether he is coming back from injury and not fully recovered, and the actions that he is doing on the field, we can determine if an injury is likely in a particular situation.

FSB: With the new physicality of the Player Impact Engine and self injuries, should we be worried about lots of players going off injured all the time? How have you made sure this is balanced and realistic?

The frequency of self injuries will be balanced so that it only happens at the appropriate times and reflects the frequency of these injuries in the real world. You will also be able to customize the injury frequency and severity in Game Settings, in case you feel it should be different. With respect to the Player Impact Engine and injuries caused by collisions, the aim is not to create more or less injuries, nor to flood the game with dramatic falls, but rather to give you an accurate result based on what happened on the field.

Players won’t be getting injured all the time, and they won’t be subjected to types of impacts that don’t happen in the real world. You could play against a very aggressive team, but that doesn’t mean that half of your players will get injured. In short, just like in real football, you could go several games without a single injury, then every once in a while someone picks up a knock, and one match you may get two severe injuries and now it’s time to look at the depth of your squad, etc. – all based on authentic factors (impact or stress on a body part or joint, player’s propensity to injury, fatigue, and more.)

FSB: Developing Player Vision as an attribute must have been difficult, how do you determine whether a player has “good vision” or not?

We have experts all over the world that watch teams and players week in and week out, and we use their feedback to determine our players’ attributes. For vision, we will be looking at those players who, beyond their great execution of passes, are able to pick out options that other players (or you as a spectator) would not normally see. Xavi, Fabregas, Ozil, Modric, are some examples of these types of players.

FSB: Your team mates understanding each other’s strengths and weakness is a great addition but how black and white will this system be? Will players always cross early if Peter Crouch is in the box?

No, we are not ‘hard-coding’ that every time Crouch is in the box his team-mates should put a cross in. Rather, we are infusing players with an extra level of intelligence that modifies their decision-making. So, while it is more likely that a player will cross the ball in if Crouch is in the box, he is still analyzing the whole situation, and if there is a better option (still accounting for the fact that it is Crouch in the box), he will choose to do something else.

FSB: The Pro Player Intelligence vision maps “allow different players to capitalise on different opportunities” how hard was this to implement and balance?

It’s been a lot of work tuning the size, growth speed, and other factors related to the vision maps. Thankfully, we have a development tool that allows us to run a particular scenario several times, and only changing the players involved, to see what outcome we get. This way we could test several situations where someone like Xavi or Fabregas would do something different from J.S. Park, Malouda, or other types of players.

FSB: We’ve heard “threat” and “opportunity analysis” mentioned in relation to the player vision maps, could you expand on this a little further?

Basically, each player on the ball, at any given time, is faced with several opportunities – he could dribble, or he could pass the ball to his team-mates – and threats – all the defenders that are also in the way of these passes or dribbling options. A player like Xavi is able to very quickly process all these opportunities and threats, see the big picture, and make a decision based on all that information. Most players in the world, however, get distracted longer with all of these threats and options, and they tend to choose more obvious choices because you don’t have that much time on the ball in a real game. These differences in behaviours and decision-making are what we are replicating with the vision map.

A huge thank you to Santiago Jaramillo (who you can follow on Twitter @SantiagoJ83) from everyone at FIFASoccerBlog and also to Romily Broad who was instrumental in arranging this interview. This is without doubt the best interview we’ve ever done and we hope to bring you more exclusive FIFA 12 content throughout the year.

Official Playstation Magazine

Play Magazine

Official Xbox Magazine

So when you’re out and about make sure you double check the magazine rack as official FIFA 12 information could be just a few feet away and before anyone asks we won’t be posting or linking scans of any kind, you’ll just have to go out and buy the magazines I’m afraid.

Well in that case, we’ve got something to tell you. Just remember where you heard it first.

The online part of 2010 FIFA World Cup is a little bit different from what you’re used to.

So what is this world exclusive news? Online ranked matches will never be the same again. Fed up of constant random matches with no real meaning bar moving up and down a list of hundreds of thousands of people? Well, I was, and this new way of doing things sounds like a much more interesting system.

The new world league ladder will contain ten divisions. Every player begins in the bottom division, League 10. A “season” consists of ten league games, with the usual rules of a league season applying – 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw, and nothing but the look of disgust on your virtual players’ faces for a loss.

If you can accumulate 16 points during a season then you’re promoted to the league above (unless you’re in the top division, in which case you win a Championship title to add to your trophy case). However, if you only manage to scrape together 8 points or less, then you’re relegated to the league below (unless you’re already in the bottom division, in which case you’re banned from playing the game online ever again*).

If you finish with between 9 and 15 points then you carry on in the same league for another league season – and at this point, you will head into a four round cup competition. You are awarded ranking points based on your league and cup success for the season.

So there you have it. The online ranking system has had a facelift that it truly needed. Hopefully there’ll be even more information released soon so keep an eye on FIFASoccerBlog.com for more when we have it!

Huge thanks go out to EA (particularly Simon Humber) for allowing us to tell you the news.

* – This bit may be a slight fib.

This time with FIFA 09 has served a purpose though; I put together a list of my gripes with the game, along with important questions asked repeatedly on the FSB forums (and various other FIFA-loving forums across the web). Eventually we had a list of seven key questions that needed answers. Now, courtesy of the FIFA 10 team, we have them.

[FIFASoccerBlog] First off, a question for the Online Team Play guys. It’s been said that 5v5 play will be available again in FIFA 10, but will you be able to set a specific amount of players pre-game (e.g. 4v4, 6v6, 8v8)? Or is it a flat-out 5v5 or 10v10 option?

[FIFA 10 Gameplay Producer Aaron McHardy] A free flowing Chelsea move that my Gunners seemed that they would be unable to stop. It resulted in a break from about 35 yards out, and I seemed to be doomed. Gael Clichy took off running as fast as he could from a position near the sideline 5 yards on the wrong side of the ball and a breaking Drogba appeared in the centre of the pitch. Drogba rounds the keeper with a fake shot, the keeper bites and is caught wrong-footed, an off-balance falling Drogba fires a ball toward the back of the net, Clichy throws himself at the shot and gets a leg on it. The ball settles in a somewhat dangerous spot, and Kolo Toure comes in to safely clear for a throw. We all jumped out of our seats! Then the throw in, it’s taken long, there’s a flick on and an outlandish back heel attempt from Drogba… Almunia parries, and Toure again clears to safety. At this time, I am actually holding my chest because of the palpitations…

Huge thanks to David Grant, Santiago Jaramillo, Christophe Labrune, Aaron McHardy and David Rutter for – yet again – sparing enough time to listen to us.

If you’re wondering what the text running across the screen is there for, the game is currently in development and so obviously it’s not what the final game will look like, don’t worry! Huge thanks to the guys at EA for letting us share this with you.

To see the full-size image click here.

Thankfully he’s also ridiculously accomodating and after a barrage of questions from yours truly – Manager Mode’s #1 fan – he took the time out from his busy schedule to give us some answers. Thank you Marcel, the community salutes you.

[CD] Will the financial/sponsor system be overhauled? Currently you get so much money from sponsors at a lower-league level that you could literally afford one new player every single week, where in reality you would have very little money at your disposal.

[MK] The financial system has been rewritten for FIFA 10. The sponsors are still in the game, but they are not THE big source of income anymore. Each sponsor will pay you a small bonus off the bat and in addition offer you a win bonus that gives you some extra money. But the centre-piece of the new financial system in FIFA 10 is the board of your club. We’ve split the financial system into 2 parts, Club Budget and Wage Budget. Club Budget will be used to purchase staff upgrades, pay for player transfer fees and so on. Wage budget is used to determine how much cash you have left to spend on wages & your wage budget during the season will only change when you buy or sell players. When planning to get new players for your squad, you now have to balance these two budgets and the wage budget in particular will now make it harder to purchase new players. The only way to have the board grant you more Club and Wage Budget is to fulfill their expectations before the season is over. Another cool sub-feature related to the financial system is the Board difficulty level we’ve added this year. By changing the Board Difficulty level, users that are trying the mode for the first time can start off with a well-filled wallet and sign players right away, while seasoned Manager Mode veterans might challenge themselves by having less budget and work their way towards being able to sign a star player.

[CD] If you get fired, can you look for another job instead of seeing a “game over” screen and having to start a new game from scratch?

[MK] Once fired new clubs are going to try and hire you based on “Manager Reputation”. The higher your reputation is, the more likely it will be that better rated clubs are going to bid for your services. This will not only happen when you get fired, being successful will mean that you will be tempted with offers from other clubs at the end of the season as well. Manager Reputation will be used to judge your long term performance over multiple years, only the best managers will be able to clinch the level of reputation needed to coach top clubs such as Manchester United, Barcelona or Bayern Munich.

[CD] Will you get job offers mid-season from other clubs instead of being end-of-season only?

[MK] Unfortunately we couldn’t get this feature in this year. That being said, new clubs will actually tempt you to change clubs at the end of the season, especially if your past season was a successful one.

[CD] Will your choice of jobs be restricted to your prestige (instead of being able to pick a job at any club you like)?

[MK] At the beginning you will be free to start with any club you wish, as we didn’t want to prevent users from living out their dreams of becoming the Manager of Manchester United or Chelsea. Managing these high-profile clubs will come with a trade-off though, the board will watch you very closely and have very high expectations. Any signs of you not being able to bring home silver-ware at the end of the season will result into drastic reductions of the “Board Confidence”, which means there’s a good possibility of getting yourself fired really fast.

[CD] Will you be able to become an international manager?

[MK] This is a tough one for me as we looked into this for a long time and tried to find a way to integrate this into FIFA 10 in a meaningful way. But given the state of the Manager Mode, we had to admit that we have too many fundamentals to fix before we can add this. That being said, I really like the idea of becoming an international manager and it not happening this year doesn’t mean that the idea is dead and off the table forever.

[CD] Will you be able to see the scores of other games in your league at half-time (so that you can keep an eye on the teams around you)?

[MK] This is very closely linked with us improving the result sim engine, and while half time results won’t be in for FIFA 10, we’ve made great improvements to the way we simulate results, match events and especially final league standings. A lot of factors will be taken into account when you simulate a game in Manager Mode, formations and even individual player skills will make a difference in the outcome of matches. This way we were able to fine-tune the system, get more realistic results, ensure that the right amount of goals are being scored and the correct amount of cards are handed out over the course of a season.

[CD] Will you be able to play pre-season friendlies?

[MK] At the beginning of each season you can fine-tune your starting 11 and tactics by playing friendlies, which your assistant coach will schedule for you. In addition other clubs will play friendlies as well, so you can judge their pre-season form before playing against them.

[CD] Will the pre-season friendlies aid the players’ fitness come the first game of the season or will they be shattered by that point (which isn’t what happens in reality)?

[MK] Player fitness will be affected in a similar way as last year, you play games which will tire out your players. We’ve tweaked this system to avoid players from getting tired too fast, as we’ve felt that professional players should be able to play a few consecutive matches before tiring out completely. In addition, you can use the pre-season friendlies to improve your players form, which is a new concept we’ve added to Manager Mode. Form was introduced into FIFA via Live Season last year, this year we will also apply it to Manager Mode. That being said, we will NOT use the real world player form we use for Live Season for the Manager Mode. The Player form in Manager Mode will solely be based on the performance of the player within Manager Mode. When playing well over a significant period of time, the player’s form will go up and increase some of the players abilities for the time being.

[CD] Will fitness throughout the season be more realistic? In FIFA 09 at lower-league level you found your CPU opponent’s entire team down to 10% fitness after barely any games.

[MK] The CPU did not rotate it’s squad based on fatigue last year, it based its decisions simply on overall. Therefore the top players got tired really fast and another, not less annoying, side-effect was that even when new players were purchased by the CPU, they were never introduced into the line-up. This year the CPU will rotate it’s squad based on overall, fatigue, injuries, suspensions and so on. One really cool thing is, that when the CPU is playing a game it thinks of as lower importance, i.e. Manchester United playing a 1st round cup game, it will rest it’s better players so they’re fit for the more important matches. You will see different CPU line-ups and better rested CPU players as a result.

[CD] Will the loans system be more realistic? In FIFA 09 you could only do two one-season loans, whereas in real life (in the lower leagues) you tend to see three or four loans a season, around three months each time.

[MK] We didn’t have a lot of time to work on the Loan system for FIFA 10. I was not aware that you can only do two loans per season, we will look into this issue and try to address it!

[CD] Will the staff system be tweaked? When starting as a lower-league team I always have to upgrade the fitness coach to at least level 5, that way you still have to rotate your players without them all being wrecked after one game.

[MK] The staff system especially in relation to fatigue has been tweaked. The fitness coach definitely had too much of an impact on the recovery rate, it is now more based on the conditioning of a player and since all players included in FIFA are professionals, their conditioning is of a very high standard.

[CD] Finally, will the scouting system be tweaked, allowing you to find real players instead of randomly created players? (For example, playing as a lower-league team your scout could look at reserve players of big teams looking for first-team football, or rising stars in leagues lower than yours looking for a step up.)

[MK] The scouting system remained relatively untouched. The one thing we fixed is, that you will get more “appropriate” players based on your team skill. That being said, there’s still a small chance that you will scout a gem, that will develop into a great players.