FIFA Street 2
Posted March 31, 2006
The Street series of games had it's moment in the sun when NBA Street was released, thanks to the fun involved in over exaggerated dunks and huge tricks that made your rivals spin in disbelief. EA felt that the success in the NBA world meant that other sports would also fair well with the
Street treatment, and eventually FIFA Street was released. The game didn't fair so well in the market, but obviously did enough business to warrant a sequel. Or as the case is, an update to the first release.
Gameplay:
FIFA Street doesn't have much in common with it's large field brethren, teams here consists of three players plus a keeper and the play area is as small as a basketball court. Finesse and highly structured plays that are found in regular FIFA games are thrown out the window here, with a huge emphasis placed on performing tricks, almost more so than actually scoring goals.
In the main mode that you will play dubbed Rule the Street, you get to create an in game persona including some very basic customization options such as face type and an initially limited clothing selection. Once your character is created, you work your way through various matches to increase your rating which in turn advances you through the mode.
Sub-categories within the Rule the Street mode assign you tasks to take on as you play. Initially you're ranked so low that you are auto assigned various teams in a mode called Kick Abouts, where you are tasked with benign goals like score two goals or obtain 10000 trick points first. Once a goal is accomplished in a game, the match is over. So if you're expecting a structured soccer match format, you'll be sorely disappointed. Games here take anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes to complete; and if you're a good player expect a lot of short matches.
Once you beat through the Kick Abouts, your character is good enough to be labeled captain of his own team and that opens up another mode of play, where you create your own home pitch with the easy to use customization tools. As you play you can recruit top tier players from the FIFA franchise to give your team that additional edge. Again the modes of play put high emphasis on tricks and not as much on actual teamwork and soccer skills. Eventually as you progress in rank you get invited to be on the international street squad and represent your country in a tournament; All the while, pulling off tricks.
Upgrading your character is an important aspect of the title. Sure you can spend all your hard earned Skill Bills on fancy new tricks but without increasing other statistics his tricks can easily be interrupted and the ball stripped from you. The real balance is trying to ensure that all players on your team are well balanced, if your goal-keeper is weak than you're not going to beat the challenges of getting two quick goals before your opponents.
Playing against a friend does add a little fun into the mix, because at least you can trash talk a buddy sitting on the couch with you. However if you have no one to play with in your immediate vicinity, be prepared to only be playing against hte CPU as no Xbox Live support is available. Why this was omitted, I'll never know.
One of the biggest things that perturbed me was the Gamebreaker that is common in EA sports games. As you perform tricks and combinations thereof, you build a meter. Once this meter is full a star marker appears on the court and once you pass over it, you are tasked with out-tricking three opponents in a row. If you can do this and then score a goal, you automatically win the match regardless of the rules and goals for that particular match. If you only deke out 2 players, and score a goal you get 2 goals added to your total, and -1 from your opponent, only 1 player…you get the point. This is by far the worst implementation of the Gamebreaker that I've seen EA do.
It might seem that I'm bashing the trick heavy gameplay here, and yes I am. However, the trick controlling is done very well utilizing the left trigger and the right analog stick, and the animations look quite smooth and crisp; it's just that I wanted to play a FIFA version of NBA Jam not Tony Hawk with a ball. Aside from the trick controls, the game otherwise is a little sketchy in it's controls. Defending against the opposing team is a muddy mess of buttons mashing and analog stick flailing, and the user controlled goal keeping (which is a nice feature) feels slightly off and not as intuitive as it should be.
Graphics:
Nothing too groundbreaking between the first Street game and this one with regards to graphics. Characters are smoothly animated in a slightly cartoony way that fits with the trick centric gameplay. The environments you play in are all actually quite small with a fair amount of detail from cracks in the cement to rusted out fences to keep the ball in play.
Thankfully since the game is super dependent on the tricks the animations for each trick is very smooth here in FIFA Street 2. Whether it's a simple ball juggle or bicycle kick or an advanced series of footwork and ball manipulation, the animators did some good work here.
Audio:
In the audio department, FIFA Street 2 actually stands out with a great soundtrack featuring multiple "radio stations" that feature various flavors of music. The tunes range from Afro-Cuban rhythms to some pop & rock, with a DJ popping on once in a while to add some station identification. The music draws styles from around the world helping bring the universal appeal of soccer into view.
Other than the great music however, the sound is somewhat mediocre and ultimately disappointing with nothing that stands out above the rest. Balls bounce off the walls and feet, and really that's all there is to it.
Conclusion:
I wanted to enjoy playing this game, really I did. I went at it with the trick focus fully in mind and tried to embrace that while playing the game. But the short matches compounded with winning a match simply because I performed three tricks in a row then scored a goal really took away from the enjoyment that I had in reserve. Because actual in match time was short and the overall flow broken up with the quick matches, I never really had time to fully become immersed and enjoy this title.
The one saving grace was the great mix of tunes in the EA Trax section. Without the highly eclectic mix of tunes here I would have tuned out of the title long ago and not looked back. Skip it.
Street treatment, and eventually FIFA Street was released. The game didn't fair so well in the market, but obviously did enough business to warrant a sequel. Or as the case is, an update to the first release.
Gameplay:
FIFA Street doesn't have much in common with it's large field brethren, teams here consists of three players plus a keeper and the play area is as small as a basketball court. Finesse and highly structured plays that are found in regular FIFA games are thrown out the window here, with a huge emphasis placed on performing tricks, almost more so than actually scoring goals.
In the main mode that you will play dubbed Rule the Street, you get to create an in game persona including some very basic customization options such as face type and an initially limited clothing selection. Once your character is created, you work your way through various matches to increase your rating which in turn advances you through the mode.
Sub-categories within the Rule the Street mode assign you tasks to take on as you play. Initially you're ranked so low that you are auto assigned various teams in a mode called Kick Abouts, where you are tasked with benign goals like score two goals or obtain 10000 trick points first. Once a goal is accomplished in a game, the match is over. So if you're expecting a structured soccer match format, you'll be sorely disappointed. Games here take anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes to complete; and if you're a good player expect a lot of short matches.
Once you beat through the Kick Abouts, your character is good enough to be labeled captain of his own team and that opens up another mode of play, where you create your own home pitch with the easy to use customization tools. As you play you can recruit top tier players from the FIFA franchise to give your team that additional edge. Again the modes of play put high emphasis on tricks and not as much on actual teamwork and soccer skills. Eventually as you progress in rank you get invited to be on the international street squad and represent your country in a tournament; All the while, pulling off tricks.
Upgrading your character is an important aspect of the title. Sure you can spend all your hard earned Skill Bills on fancy new tricks but without increasing other statistics his tricks can easily be interrupted and the ball stripped from you. The real balance is trying to ensure that all players on your team are well balanced, if your goal-keeper is weak than you're not going to beat the challenges of getting two quick goals before your opponents.
Playing against a friend does add a little fun into the mix, because at least you can trash talk a buddy sitting on the couch with you. However if you have no one to play with in your immediate vicinity, be prepared to only be playing against hte CPU as no Xbox Live support is available. Why this was omitted, I'll never know.
One of the biggest things that perturbed me was the Gamebreaker that is common in EA sports games. As you perform tricks and combinations thereof, you build a meter. Once this meter is full a star marker appears on the court and once you pass over it, you are tasked with out-tricking three opponents in a row. If you can do this and then score a goal, you automatically win the match regardless of the rules and goals for that particular match. If you only deke out 2 players, and score a goal you get 2 goals added to your total, and -1 from your opponent, only 1 player…you get the point. This is by far the worst implementation of the Gamebreaker that I've seen EA do.
It might seem that I'm bashing the trick heavy gameplay here, and yes I am. However, the trick controlling is done very well utilizing the left trigger and the right analog stick, and the animations look quite smooth and crisp; it's just that I wanted to play a FIFA version of NBA Jam not Tony Hawk with a ball. Aside from the trick controls, the game otherwise is a little sketchy in it's controls. Defending against the opposing team is a muddy mess of buttons mashing and analog stick flailing, and the user controlled goal keeping (which is a nice feature) feels slightly off and not as intuitive as it should be.
Graphics:
Nothing too groundbreaking between the first Street game and this one with regards to graphics. Characters are smoothly animated in a slightly cartoony way that fits with the trick centric gameplay. The environments you play in are all actually quite small with a fair amount of detail from cracks in the cement to rusted out fences to keep the ball in play.
Thankfully since the game is super dependent on the tricks the animations for each trick is very smooth here in FIFA Street 2. Whether it's a simple ball juggle or bicycle kick or an advanced series of footwork and ball manipulation, the animators did some good work here.
Audio:
In the audio department, FIFA Street 2 actually stands out with a great soundtrack featuring multiple "radio stations" that feature various flavors of music. The tunes range from Afro-Cuban rhythms to some pop & rock, with a DJ popping on once in a while to add some station identification. The music draws styles from around the world helping bring the universal appeal of soccer into view.
Other than the great music however, the sound is somewhat mediocre and ultimately disappointing with nothing that stands out above the rest. Balls bounce off the walls and feet, and really that's all there is to it.
Conclusion:
I wanted to enjoy playing this game, really I did. I went at it with the trick focus fully in mind and tried to embrace that while playing the game. But the short matches compounded with winning a match simply because I performed three tricks in a row then scored a goal really took away from the enjoyment that I had in reserve. Because actual in match time was short and the overall flow broken up with the quick matches, I never really had time to fully become immersed and enjoy this title.
The one saving grace was the great mix of tunes in the EA Trax section. Without the highly eclectic mix of tunes here I would have tuned out of the title long ago and not looked back. Skip it.