FIFA Street Review: Hit The Streets With Some Fancy Footwork

FIFA Street Review

FIFA Street
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
EA Sports
Sports
Opening Statement

If you are into fancy footwork and pulling off all kinds of tricks to beat your opponent, then FIFA Street is the game for you. It features many different gameplay modes all set up for out-maneuvering your opponent with crazy moves for the score.

About The Game

FIFA Street takes the game of soccer to the streets with many game modes ranging from 2 vs 2 street matches all the way up to 6 vs 6 matches that take place on an indoor court. The main attraction to this game will be the World Tour mode where you create your own player and team and take them to the streets. This is the same team that you will be using when you play online matches. You get to choose the team name, colors, uniforms, emblem, as well as fully edit each player that you want representing your team.

At first, your players will start out with no skills but as you play and earn points you will level up each member of your team. You will be able to upgrade a decent amount of skill and abilities and you can also have a special celebration for each player. It will take you awhile to fully max out your players’ skills, but if you choose correctly on how you want to position each player, it won’t take you long to max out the goaltending skill for goaltenders or defensive skill for defenders.

World Tour mode takes you through seasons in which you play in certain regions around the world. You’ll need to win to qualify for tournaments in order to move on to the next season. Also, as you play in different areas throughout the region, it will include all game types from your 2 vs 2 player panna skill matches where tricks are key to winning. It also features a mode known as Last Man Standing where you need to score with each player on your team in order to win. Interestingly, as you score a goal with a player, that player will leave the match. Therefore, you will be short handed if you score the first goal or two. Then you have your basic 3 v 3, 4 v 4, 5 v 5, and 6 v 6 matches, each taking place on different streets and courts, also with different goal sizes changing up the style of play slightly.

As you play a match in World Tour mode, you can choose the difficulty type. From bronze, silver and gold which is your easy, medium and hard difficulties. In some tournament games, you can also choose to play a Gold match which is an online match against another player. Also, as you win these games, depending on the difficulty you selected, you will unlock gear. If you choose bronze and win you will only unlock one item. But if you choose Gold and win, you will unlock three items.

Besides World Tour mode there is a “Hit The Streets” mode where you can play with any of your favorite football club teams from around the world. This includes all of your favorite star players as well. You will also be able to select the game type as you wish and even customize your own game type to play in.

One of the things I wasn’t to impressed with is the presentation of the game. The menu’s and the way that it’s set up just doesn’t feel like it connects well. It explains everything to you but I just don’t like it. I think they could of taken a better approach to the menus. Small nag but I wanted to be sure and mention that, especially at first as you are trying to navigate your way around. Another thing I want to mention is the lack of strategic options for your team. You have three strategies you can set up for your team but that is all. Another thing I want to mention is that the only time you can officially set your line up is before each match. There were multiple times I had to change it up again to make sure I had the correct goalie in net. It just comes down to how the game is presented to you and its something I’m not a fan of and something that could have been done a lot better.

Gameplay – AI – Controls

The gameplay can certainly be a lot of fun and very interesting when trying to pull off certain tricks to beat your opponents with. The basic core of the gameplay when it’s just simply the game of soccer handles pretty well. There are moments, almost to many of them, when the defense breaks down and just completely acts stupid. Either by letting a guy walk right by them and leaving someone right in the open. I’ve had to make sure to bring a forward back to cover the middle of the court in every game to help sharpen up my defense. You’ll also have times when players pull aerial tricks on you, throwing the ball up into the air, and the defense reaction to that is horribly poor. Now I wonder if they had to do that to make sure you can pull off those maneuvers since the game is all about the tricks. That probably is the case, but there are moments when it’s just stupid and you hate giving up odd goals because of mindless defenders.

Other than that, the game flows very well when it comes to passing and your players spreading out to take the passes. It can certainly be a fun game to play and an enjoyable experience. You’ll want to make sure to pull forwards back though to help on defense and upgrade your players appropriately to your type of gameplay. If you are going to be passing a lot, you will obviously want to set your guys up with great passing abilities. If you are going to be tricking your way through the defense, then you will want to improve on your players dribbling skills. Same goes with the other positions, such as defense and goaltending. They too, will need improvements on their positions.

You will especially want to make sure you play solid defense and pull people back when you are playing online, that is the time in which you will notice the most about your defensive breakdowns.

I will say that learning the tricks will take you some time to get down and won’t always be the easiest. But once you do they can be fun to pull off. If you are like me though, you will only use them in the right situation and probably never get too fancy. My style is to make the quick goal, so I set myself up quickly for a goal and make a fast move instead of an overly fancy move. You have a lot of different moves to master though and once again it can be a lot of fun to experiment with. There is a practice mode available for those who want uninterrupted time to try things out.

Sound – Graphics

Visually I wasn’t too impressed by the game as it looks very average. I also wasn’t too impressed with the game’s soundtrack. I must also say that one of the first things you might want to do is go into the settings and turn down the sound effects for the player chatter. It is way to loud and can be quite annoying at times if you don’t turn it down.

Online – Multiplayer

Online can be a lot of fun. There is no simple online ranking match, but instead it’s an online season of 10 games. You’ll start out in a low division facing others who are in that same division. If you win games you will earn points toward your promotion into the higher divisions. Obviously the higher you go the more experienced teams you will face and the challenge will become greater. Plus, you can get relegated back to a lower division if you end up losing too much. I like how it is set up though and it is a lot of fun. Plus, your not stuck to playing one game type when it comes to playing those online matches. You can play either 5 v 5, 6 v 6 or futsal matches. Whichever is your greatest strength is the one you should stick to when playing those matches, especially if you start losing and you are getting close to relegation.

Another thing they have are cup matches for you to participate in which can also be a lot of fun. They are 4 v 4 matches which start you out in the quarter-finals. You can also take your create-a-player and play with other gamers’ create-a-player, in a online team match. Those are always a little chaotic but still can be entertaining.

Enjoyment Level – Fun Factor

After taking my time to get myself into the game and what it has to offer, I was able to start enjoying it. I didn’t like the style of the game to much at first but as I made my way through all the different modes, upgraded my players and started playing online, I began to appreciate it more for what it was. In the end I had most of my fun playing the 6 v 6 soccer matches that take place on indoor courts. It’s a much more open and wider area for you to play in and that made a big difference for me. I don’t mind 5 v 5, in either regular street style with sidings or futsal with no sides. I simply didn’t enjoy the 2 vs 2 matches or 3 vs 3, especially the ones where you have to earn the trick points. If you score a goal after you earned the trick points, it gets added to your score. Overall, I did enjoy this title and had a lot of fun building my team appropriately to my liking and taking them online against others.

Final Notes

If you are a fan of the game of soccer and the idea of FIFA Street interests you, then by all means you should pick it up and try it out. It can be a lot of fun and a good enjoyable time. If you are a fan of the game and can’t stand the silly tricks and fancy footwork, and you think you will get frustrated by all the ridiculous ways that the computer or other players can beat you, then you might want to stay away. I do want to say that I am more of a fan of the way the game is meant to be played and less on the fancy footwork.

However, I built up my team appropriately to my style of gameplay and learned all the ways I can get beat and then used that to my advantage. I built a team that can pass the ball perfectly and play great defense. I learned to pull forwards back to help on defense until I recover the ball again. Once I get possession, I pass it around like no other and I am sure I frustrate my opponents online. I am also sure they are saying something about the fact that this isn’t meant to be played like real football and that I am doing it wrong. The point of this is, you can create the players you want and play the way you want and have a lot of fun doing it. You can pass all over the court and keep possession until you pass it into the one area where you then, use a nice little step-over trick or whatever to beat the last opponent for the score. Or you can simply just pass it until you have an opening and then take a shot on goal for a chance to score.

Even though this is a soccer game with the intention to trick it out all over and earn special points for doing these tricks, you can still play it the way you want and pull off tricks as much or as little as you want to. I think anyone who is a fan of soccer can have fun with this title as long as you know what you are getting yourself into and plan accordingly to play the game to your style. It lets you, so don’t get frustrated by bad defense or stupid tricks that can beat you for the score because you can certainly still control the game any way you like just by passing the ball around.

Score: 7/10