Reviews// FIFA Street 2 (PS2)

FIFA Street 2 takes up where the first game left off. The basic game structure has remained faithful to the Street series. In Game Modes you will find the sub-modes Friendly, Rule the Street and Skills Challenge. Friendly enables you to play against anyone in any location (choose from one of 20 national teams and several special teams, such as Legends etc). Rule the Street is the Career mode, and Skills Challenge gives you the opportunity to demonstrate infinite juggle skills to bamboozle your friends.

The area in which EA has undoubtedly done some much-needed work is Rule the Street. As you progress through this feature, you will come across an assortment of game types. For example, sometimes you will need to score the most goals, in other game types you may have to accumulate a certain number of skill points before your opponent, or score the most pannas (type of trick) and there are also times when you can only win by only scoring with Game Breakers. The added selection really does make all the difference to this aspect of the game and is a marked improvement on the original, in which most games are won only when a team scores five goals.

Graphically, FIFA Street 2 looks very much like its predecessor and is much the same with little improvement. The players’ figures are patchy and lack the overall quality of FIFA 06. However, there is a feature that enables you to build your very own street football pitch. This is a nice touch and it is a real shame there is no online gaming feature to show off your designs.

There are also several cool new locations, such as Barra Beach in Brazil and the backstreets of Paris. Perhaps, the main difference in the new version is the default camera angle, which has moved from the traditional sideline to an end-to-end view. With only close and far zoom features on both of these angles, we were left fairly disappointed at the lack of variety.

In conclusion, we were reasonably disillusioned with FIFA Street 2. Yes, there have been certain improvements made on its predecessor but the overall gameplay is distinctly average and we found it less enjoyable than the first FIFA Street. The controls are at times unresponsive and the player you control does not always do what you want them to do. For example, in a Game-Breaker situation it is nigh on impossible to tackle an opponent if they have already executed a trick which makes your player lose balance and eventually fall-over. You cannot switch to another of your players close by for help in tackling and the character you control seems to get lost in suspended animation. This is a scenario that repeats itself several times during games and is most annoying.

SPOnG Score: C

Some of us at SPOnG have been keen players of the FIFA series since its Megadrive days (although the rest remain ardent Pro Evo evangelists) and enjoyed the original FIFA Street game immensely. Even though we are what some would call football purists, we liked the arcade feel of the first game and its fast-paced action. Perhaps, we expected too much from the second game and were left feeling deflated. Overall, FIFA Street 2 is still very much an EA Street product, which is to say it is a trick-based arcade game and nothing more. The gameplay is based on tricks rather than actual soccer skills and knowledge of the sport. If you prefer traditional football games in the vein of Pro Evolution or FIFA, then you will most likely hate FIFA Street 2. However, if you just want to have some fast-paced arcade-like fun and not worry about formations and substitutions, then you might get a kick out of it.