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| FIFA Street |
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| Written by David Kyle |
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Tuesday, 19 April 2005
 New staffer David's passion for sports meant that he was the man for our FIFA Street review. A golden goal for EA - or does this one bounce off the post?
FIFA Street follows on from EA Big’s other street-based sports games, NFL Street and NBA Street. Both of these games were fairly well recieved by the gaming public, and, like FIFA Street, involve using big name players in smaller, street-playable teams. Another factor that separates these titles from their standard sporting counterparts is the fact that the play doesn’t really revolve around how many goals or points you score, but how stylishly you score them. The goals can be scored in any fashion from overhead kick to tap-in, but the warm feeling of satisfaction is still most definitely there when your player has just run the whole length of the pitch to backheel a one-time shot in the back of the net!
When I initially loaded the game up, I was expecting a poorly made, bug-ridden excuse for a football game, largely due to the wealth of poor reviews preceding its release. My genuine first thoughts on the game were shaded by the sheer delight of performing moves you could never do in a normal football game in a million years. The overhead kicks are a frequent sight, crossovers and nutmegs are performed constantly - and this is just through passing the ball. When running with the ball there are more tricks played before your eyes than even Paul Daniels could offer. This is not a game for somebody who doesn’t enjoy showboating - so if you're simply after a game of standard football without the odd backheel or other fancy manoeuvres, then this isn’t for you.
A common feature in all the previous Street franchised games is the point scoring system, which results in a “gamebreaker”. In FIFA Street, once you have tricked and turned your way to a 15,000 point total you are eligible to a “gamebreaker”, which is where you use the L1 and Circle buttons (on the PS2 pad, at least) to take a shot which is virtually unbeatable for the goalkeeper, and where you get a fancy slow motion cut-scene of your shot! This isn’t how you win games though - most games are played on a simple a first to five basis, as is common in real-life street games.
There are a few different modes to select for play - the main ones being a simple friendly or 'Rule the Street'. Friendly mode is more multiplayer based than the latter, but can be played against the computer if you fancy a quick kickabout. It involves national teams playing against each other, with a selection of 7 players from each nation, but only 3 outfield players and a goalie being eligible. Rule the Street mode is the single player voyage through 10 different cities being unlocked along the way as you progress through the ‘kick-about’ matches and upgrade your squad along the way, adding a thin thread of storyline and purpose to the title.
Rule the Street (the deepest gameplay mode on offer) consists of creating a squad of 7 from an initial selection of players and creating your own player to feature in every match. In each of the ten cities, ranging from Rio de Janeiro to jolly old London, you have 7 kick-about challenges, 5 upgrade squad challenges and the Rule the Street tournament to compete in. The kickabouts enable you to earn some points by winning, and performing as many tricks as possible, in order to earn 'skills bills', which allow you to purchase new challenges to upgrade your squad or to upgrade the abilities of your created player - so you can go from a squad including the likes of Kenny Cunningham and Clinton Morrison to a squad featuring Rooney and Ronaldhino! In the Upgrade Squad challenges, defeating a rival team allows you to win the captain of that team. In Rule the Street, however, the completion of a knockout tournament allows you to progress to other cities, as well as earning a much larger amount of skill bills. The format of the match is also timed rather than first to five goals, so the competitive edge is a bit higher.
Even though I tend to disagree with some the bad press that this game recieved, it's easy to see why some people might not enjoy this decidedly 'urban' title. Firstly, the visuals are unpleasing at the best of times - something particularly noticable when you perform a ‘gamebreaker’ shot, when it's simply baffling to observe how the ball can move to a player’s head for a header when it was almost chest height. The next complaint is that the players feel somewhat sluggish and unwieldy, and it’s not always as smooth flowing as you would hope from a game which is played at as high a speed as 4-a-side football.
Accompanying these rather shoddy visuals is an enjoyable soundtrack and somewhat entertaining commentary with EA Big utilising a proper MC to comment on the in-game action. While this bodes well with the street theme, it can grow rather tiresome - there are only so many times in one day you can tolerate the irritating exclamation of “OH MY DAYS!”. The music is superb to play along to, and well suited to the title - hearing the Brazilian drum and bass while playing in Rio itself was a particular highlight of the soundtrack.
So overall, thiis game isn't quite as bad as some may assume it to be. A lack of entertainment value for the lone player is certainly made up for when demonstrating the game to your friends, and there is always demand for a game where you can just play it in a five minute stint, given the hectic social schedules of many older gamers. Inevitably there will be a sequel to this title (much to the distress of certain people) and hopefully it will improve on the rather ugly visuals and somewhat unresponsive controls to create a more accessible title. Unless the urban theme that hundreds of games share these days makes you shudder, and you aren't after a 'serious' footy title, you might want to consider picking this up.
Score: 6 |
| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 19 April 2005 ) |
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