FIFA Street

Written by D'Marcus Beatty  on February 23, 2005

Final Glimpse: The next football title from EA Big is closer than you think... If by football you mean soccer.

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EA Big has been doing fairly well in translating professional sports to the street. NBA Street in all its iterations was well received and implemented. NFL Street was also successful, taking the more athletic gamers back to youthful games of street football, albeit embellished with improbable and impossible tricks. Although the next expected street franchise might have been baseball, EA has chosen instead to explore the widely overlooked and, in this case, unexpected sport of soccer.

FIFA Street follows the formula made famous by NBA Street and NFL Street: Take famous athletes, throw away the strict, professional rules, and put the athletes on the street for a game more about style than simulation. Like the other street titles, showboating is as important as scoring. FIFA Street will allow the gamer to match up professional teams composed of four players each. The teams will consist of a goalie, defenders, midfielders, and forwards. Much like NBA Street, the players will have flashy moves that allow them to juke or fool defenders probably by using the C-stick. These moves are called УbeatsФ, and include outrageous moves such as kicking the ball between defender's legs or over defender's heads. FIFA Street also promises the ability to use the wall, probably in a wall-run or jump move similar to those lauded in NFL Street. Also like the other Street titles, the flashier the move the player performs, the sooner they will fill their gamebreaker meter. When filled, the gamebreaker gives the player the ability to do a super-kick which will result in a goal for the vast majority of attempts. However, the gamebreaker for FIFA Street seems more like the instant point of the original NBA Street as opposed to the defensive and strategic gamebreakers that became available in later Street titles.

FIFA Street is planned to have all of the expected gaming modes. There will be quick game mode, for pick up and play gamers; friendly match like quick game but uses team rankings to differentiate; rule-the-street mode, which lets players create a player and organize a team to challenge other street soccer players to pickup games to climb the ranks; and finally star team option, which allows players to organize a team of all-stars. There will also be a number of unlockables in the game, including venues, hats, jerseys, shoes, characters, and points to upgrade your created character.

The graphics already look great, as expected, with realistic player animations. The models seem a little more realistic than previous Street titles, without the exaggerated musculature of the NFL series. The music is also more varied than other Street games, since soccer is not as intransigently tied to American culture as basketball and football.