For more on FIFA 12, check out our full FIFA 12 review. Or, for more of the best Nintendo Wii games for an 8 year old, why not try our Family Game Finder
FIFA 12 on the Wii is the latest yearly update in the popular football franchise. Boasting over 15,000 players across 500 teams, making up 30 officially licensed leagues, FIFA 12 is bursting at the seam with authenticity - and is accessible to boot.
With a wide variety of features designed to make it easy for anyone to pick up and play, FIFA 12 warns you when players are offside, makes it easy to pass the ball, and lets you choose a control scheme to suit you. Whether you want to let the computer control the movement of your player with All Play mode, or take full control yourself using a nunchuck or classic controller, there's plenty of options here for the whole family.
While FIFA last year lent itself perfectly to the younger children, though, letting you put together your ideal team by buying players using star points, this year, things are a lot more serious. Gone are the days when any player will join your team if you have enough points, replaced instead by cold hard cash. Players will also turn your team down if they don't consider you to be good enough, which may upset children after the ease of last year's game.
There's a definite shift towards more realism in this year's game, as rather than simply playing through the game with a team of your choosing, with any players you want, the various modes either ask you to manage a club, including the finances (which will bore younger children), or start by playing 5 a-side "street" games, before moving up into the bigger leagues. It's important to note that the latter mode tries to lock you to a single player to begin with, so it's worth parents knowing that you can disable this feature in the settings menu of the Streets to Stadium mode. Having aimed at an older market this year, many of the new additions may prove frustrating to younger players.
As a footballing game, FIFA 12 on the Wii is probably less violent than the real thing. There's no spitting or swearing like in real life, and no gore - fouling other players is as violent as the game gets.
Although the modes behind it may not be as addictive as usual, FIFA 12 still lends itself well to families who want to get together for a slightly more realistic game of football. With a variety of control schemes on offer, anyone can pick up a controller and join in - and as one of our writers (who hasn't played a football game in years) managed to hold me to a one-all draw, you can tell it works well. Letting up to four people play together, or against each other however they choose (2 v 2, 3 v 1), the only limitation here is the number of controllers you have - you'll need a minimum of four Wii Remotes, plus a nunchuck or classic controller for anyone who prefers the more in depth controls.
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: Nintendo Wii
