FIFA Street 3 Xbox 360 Review

Not everyone wants a simulation in the same vein as FIFA 08, some prefer a more casual virtual kick around similarly to a street game where dodging cars is as important as dodging opponents and window smashes aren‘t uncommon. Whilst there’s no dodging moving vehicles or putting balls straight through your next door neighbours window, FIFA Street has always strived to be that casual kick around.

For those that don’t know FIFA Street is a slick and ostentatious series that doesn’t shy away from doing things a little differently, thus in no way should it be compared to the likes of EA’s own FIFA and Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer series’. This is a series that obviously doesn’t want to be taken seriously, and is one that is as silly as it is fun.

FIFA Street 3 carries on the silly arcade style fun of previous entries in the series, and as always it’s without the rowdy spectators, the ref, the green pitch (replaced by everything from an oil rig to a shipyard), and much of the rules.

I’ve got to give EA Canada credit for creating a very unique look for the game. The visuals are colourful and attractive, the player recreations are cartoon-like and amusing, and the over the top animations are slick and entertaining to watch. This means that the game is also a worthy spectacle even when your hands aren’t clutching a controller.

FIFA Street is one of those games that can be picked up and played to perfection within minutes. A repeat press of a single button can make you look like you have the ball under a possessive spell, as you keep juggling it in the air, bouncing it on your shoulders, balancing it on your neck and more. If this all doesn’t make you look like some kind of ball control magician, it certainly makes you look like a cocky show off. It’s these football players you know, they’re way overpaid.

Pulling off lively tricks and drags, and then ending your showiness with a shot on goal fills up your Gamebreaker bar. Once this bar is full, another single button press will have your entire team playing as if they are tanked up on some performance enhancing drug of the future. Shots are then true net busters and most will find their way past the man between the sticks. Gamebreakers can be kept alive by performing tricks and taking shots, as well as cancelled out if an opponent scores during the other teams maximised Gamebreaker state.

The FIFA Street Challenge is the destination to head towards on the menu if you are looking for a meaty single player mode. As the title suggests you’ll be undertaking various challenges that include tasks such as scoring a certain amount of goals (be it headed and volleyed, Gamebreaker or ordinary variations) in a given time limit, playing with the gamebreaker deactivated (how boring!), be the first team to score a certain number of goals and so on. It’s not the season mode that some may want, although I still think it’s a great mode with plenty going for it.

It’s also nice to be able to play all the gameplay variations from the FIFA Street Challenge against another player in the Head to Head mode. Playground Picks on the other hand involves you and another player (on or offline) taking it in turns to choose a player for your squad out of a selected team, cue plenty of arguing when the first player to choose, plucks the star goal scorer out of the team. Indeed, each of the featured 250 players are skilled in certain areas, so playmakers are the most impressive ball distributors, enforcers are the most capable defenders, finishers have the most accurate boot (always handy for scoring those goals), and finally tricksters are proficient at pulling off drags.

FIFA Street 3 is a great casual kick around that may be style over substance, although it does what it does very nicely. It’s certainly a nice alternative to the realism found in other football games, and sometimes it‘s nice to see my goalkeeper using a header to put the ball back in play, or to witness one of my overpaid players keeping the ball from hitting the ground as if he were attempting to break the keepy-up world record, indeed sometimes an unconventional take on a sport can be a nice change, and FIFA Street 3 is entertaining proof of this.

8/10