The NBA Street series makes slightly more sense in our eyes, at least basketball is a sport that's played in that context, but this NFL thing gets a plain thumbs down. It's not really NFL, because it‘s not about the actual League; it's not very street, because it's just not; and it's doesn’t really deserve the 2 suffix because it‘s so strikingly similar to number 1. And so, perhaps more so than any other EA game of recent times, we don’t believe there’s any place for this game in this market. We’d love to see EA Big do another SSX game, and we know that it’s already working on Streetifying its other franchises (most notably FIFA Soccer)… but another NFL Street title is totally superfluous in the land of PAL.
Perhaps if we had a more passionate feeling towards American football itself, we might be able to look beyond the obvious franchise-milking that’s going on. But unfortunately for many of us here at SPOnG we’re no more interested in American football now than we were when the first John Madden games were universally claiming top-level review scores in the early 90s. We do appreciate that the ESPNs and Maddens of the world have now got the serious simulation of the sport down to near perfection, but that understanding serves mainly to make NFL Street 2 seem even more pointless. For the few American football devotees in Europe, there are already technically superb full-price games on the shelves: and these full blown sims are arguably much finer titles. And because NFL Street 2 isn’t extreme or street enough to really differentiate itself from more serious interpretations, it strikes us as even less appealing by comparison. You’d need a hearty passion for American football to want a Street version as well as a proper version, and presumably you’d need to be
thoroughly obsessed to want two Street versions. Either that, or you really,
really want to try out NFL Street online.
We like to think we’re fair and non-judgemental, but this is an occasion where we just can’t take the game simply for what it is. As solidly produced as it may be, it represents a thoroughly exploitative attitude towards consumers, and if anything it undermines the decent reputation that other iterations in the Street series have established. By releasing a sequel, it’s an admission that the first wasn’t perfect: but by leaving most of it unchanged, the flaws seem even more dislikeable. It’s not like an FPS sequel where developers can get away with the same game plus different levels, it’s a sports game and so requires either crucial roster updates and/or fundamental gameplay tweaks. Sure, you can now do nifty ‘wall moves’ when you’re near a wall and there’s also a new type of ‘game breaker’ (effectively a.n.other special move) but anyone forking out £40 to sample such minutia deserves what’s coming to them. And when we’re not entirely convinced that all of the moves that have been carried over from the first game actually work like they are supposed to, these couple of extras seem even less important anyway.
