The EA Sports division of publisher Electronic Arts has announced that the official launch date for FIFA 12, the football simulation that it creates, is set for September 27 in North America and for the last day of the month for the rest of the world. FIFA 12 is set to be launched on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 from Sony, the Nintendo Wii, the PlayStation Portable, the Nintendo 3DS, the PC and a range of iOS powered devices. The new game was widely expected to be launched towards the end of September, as it has been for some years, about one month after the scheduled launch date of EA Sports' other biggest franchise, Madden NFL 12, which should be coming out in late August, officially kicking off the autumn launch season. I got some Hands on time with FIFA 12 at the E3 2011 trade event at the beginning of June and I am happy to report that this game seems like a genuine evolution for the football powered series. The biggest change is the new Player Impact Engine, which has been specifically designed by the developers to bring the game closer than ever to the real experience of playing the game. There are no more predetermined, pre rendered animations that the game uses when two players and the ball interact and everything is decided on the spot based on real physics, allowing for variety and for realism. EA Sports has also made tweaks to the Artificial Intelligence of the players, making them better able to support the gamer controlled ball bearer on the attack and more capable on the defense, focusing on closing down the biggest threats instead of launching into tackles all the time. FIFA 12 is said to include licenses for more than 500 clubs and the Career mode of the game has also been tweaked to include series of challenges based on real life football matches.