Fifa Street

Fifa Street - Review on Xbox

Fifa Street - Review on XBOX

Remember the Nike advert where the world's greatest football players went head to head in a cage, on an oil rig, with a solid steel ball? Well, Fifa Street is all about that type of football. Adrenalin fuelled four on four trick-tastic court football with attitude.

As with all EA Big titles the game starts with player customization, this consists of making your own player and buying him some skills, he can look like you or like any famous football star. Most of the modern footy stars are present within the available squads.

As I said above, this is four on four court football, which is a very different game to the beautiful and conventional eleven a-side type. Unfortunately EA seem to have bitten off more than they can chew with regards to changing the flow of the game. The core elements of real football attack and defense, formation,

Fifa Street - Review on Xbox

player position, counter attack and slow build ups of play have all gone out of the window and been replaced by in a nutshell basketball with feet? Fifa Street plays in a very similar way to how NBA Street 3 plays when a player has the ball it seems to stick to his foot, the first touch means nothing, and until you engage another of your players by passing to them they will just stand around watching and waiting for something to happen. These are the downsides.

As far as the positives go Fifa Street is all about individual player skill. You build up player skills by performing natty moves and combo moves that earn you cash. These moves include the obvious nutmeg and dumby and less obvious tricks such as bouncing the ball off the court wall to round a player. The more funky football you play the more money you will build up to spend on further trick skills. When you have the ball you are able to do some pretty cool moves and also link multiple moves together, if you manage a few tricks the end product shot has more chance of going in. If you perform lots of combos you will be rewarded with plenty of credits to improve your player, give him additional skills and further increase you chances of scoring.

The attraction of Fifa Street isn't as a football sim, I presume that is quite clear by now, it is the crazy skills and far out combos you can string together. Things you will never be able to pull off in real life good ways to embarrass your opponent be that the CPU or a gang of friends. If this sounds appealing to you then Fifa Street is pushing boundries in this department.

The graphics, as in all the EA Big titles are smooth and well built. The Xbox is handling everything very well and there is no apparent slow down or pixel issues. The player models do look very much like the real people. The skill moves look great and when you string a few together it does make for great viewing. The pitches also look very nice and there is a good amount of venues present from all corners of the world.

The sound is nice, with a decent amount of street music and again I must mention almost identical to Basketball court noise.

If the trick element of this game sounds like your kind of thing then this is a great way of performing a bit of Maradona style skill against your mates. EA have taken football into a new realm my main worry is to what extent does what they have achieved resemble football. I would have to say not much Fifa Street is more of a Basketball with feet kind of affair.

6.5 out of 10

Click Here to View FIFA Street Screenshots

Contactmusic