Foosball as a recreational activity has a pretty dualistic nature. It's actually not unlike how games such as Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom are seen in the video game world. The overwhelming majority of people who play them have no idea what they're doing, but still manage to have a great time spastically spinning rods or mashing buttons. On the other hand you have a small, but passionate minority of players who elevate the game to a near art form. Who do you make your game for, then? In the case of Foosball 2012, the game was made for both, but sadly it largely fails to satisfy either.
It certainly isn't for a lack of trying though. I mean, if you really think about the mechanics of foosball, a series of 4 rods that get rapidly moved, angled and spun with to-the-millimeter precision, it becomes tough to imagine how a video game controller can do it justice. Foosball 2012 valiantly attempts to make these mechanics accessible with what are essentially a series of assist systems working in tandem, but ultimately they end up robbing you of any sense of control you might have had.
Take ball movement as an example. Rather than actually control your foosmen, the left analog directs where you want the ball to move. Depending on the ball's current position relative to your nearest line, the game will attempt to manipulate your men to move the ball accordingly. Sometimes, for the sake of being user friendly, the ball will even be magically “vacuumed” towards the closest man. Shooting is likewise simplified, with all basic shots being handled by tapping the right analog stick in the direction you want to shoot.
This may sound like a blessing, since trying to precisely manipulate your men as you would in real life would prove too daunting for most players. But remember, this is foosball – not hockey or soccer. It's a completely different animal. The mechanics are the game. The techniques used to maneuver and shoot the ball are the basis of all of its depth. Sure, we use our controllers to simplify the complex mechanics of throwing a football or doing kung fu to bad guy's faces, but those actions usually exist in a more fleshed out and strategic context. No such context exists in foosball. There's only one direction you ever want the ball to go and that's towards your opponent's goal. Taking out all the technique really sucks much of the fun out along with it.
Even if the technical nuances of foosball are lost on you, this set up also cheats you out of the joyous, mind numbing fun of drunkenly spinning and shoving the foosball handles (like I may have done myself once or twice). Incessantly tapping and holding the analogs to the right (or left for player two) until someone scores a goal isn't even good for a casual chuckle. What did eke out a smile from me, and even a couple of moments of elation was playing with a pair of Move wands. While motion control devices are usually there to make a game more accessible (and often less functional), the opposite proves true here.
The Move transforms Foosball 2012 into a full on simulation wherein you push, pull and rotate the wands as if you were actually standing over a real life foosball table. The level of fluidity and precision on display here impressed me, and while the lack of assist functions made everything harder to do, it also made everything a lot more fun. There's just something uniquely tactile and entertaining about foosball, even if you're mostly just flailing about like an idiot (my favorite tactic). That raucous fun gets swallowed whole by the standard control scheme, but the Move recreates it remarkably well. Though I probably put the ball in my own goal as many times as my opponent's, there were a few solid passes from the 2 line to the 3 line, and one brilliantly executed pull kick that felt so right I wanted to turn pro. 
The thing is, there aren't a ton of folks with a Move controller, and using one to play the game competently can be almost as hard as playing on a real life table. While it makes the Move experience more authentic and rewarding in the long run, playing locally or online against someone using a Dual Shock or a Vita is straight suicide. The automated systems that accompany the standard controller make it too easy for beginners to go wild on their analogs, scoring goals faster than even the most skilled pro player, and you can't filter opponents by control type. Still, taking on a buddy locally with both players using a Move controller is as close as you can get to the real thing without heading down to your local pub.
As a value proposition, the game presents a mixed bag. $7.99 gets you the PS3 version and the identical Vita version bundled together, which seems like a really good deal at first, especially considering that your progress in one is always reflected in the other. At the same time, the way the various “trick shots” must be unlocked leaves a sour taste. Foosball staples such as the snake shot and pull shot can only be pulled off by pressing one of the face buttons and having the game do them for you, thanks again to the lack of direct control over your men. But first, you have to unlock the right to use them by either grinding for them in-game, or purchasing them at the Playstation Store. For the uninitiated, this would be like buying a tennis game and then paying extra for the ability to perform a lob or a drop shot. It's exactly the kind of underhanded money grab we all think of when we hear the word “micro-transactions”.
Source : ign[dot]com
