Review: FIFA Street 3

By WolvesPat

FIFA Street: it brought a whole new dimension to the FIFA series on its first installment's release. This was a revolutionary street football game in which skills played a major part. The sequel swiftly arrived with a few new features, however mainly, beneath the surface it was very much the same game.

With FIFA Street 3 came a complete revamp of the series. The first thing you'll notice when you kick off is the new art style - cartoony, if you like. Players have exaggerated features, such as Peter Crouch being extremely (extreme meaning anorexic) skinny, and Wayne Rooney having a respectably life-like potato shaped nut. Obviously, to the die-hard original FIFA Street fans, change was not met with open arms. The demo was considerably criticised by many, citing the new fangled changes as game breaking (excuse the pun). I was one of those many. I swiftly deleted the demo and vowed never to buy it. Don't worry, I'm not guessing during this review. I do own it. Honest.

Contrary to the above opinions, it does, unsurprisingly, live up to previous FIFA Streets in most aspects. For one, it has a huge wealth of gamerscore. And it isn't reluctant to let it go. For me, this is one of the main attractions of a game. If an average game has terrible achievements, I don't go there. But if a below-average game has lots of achievements, then I like it. This, you presume, is probably why I like FIFA Street 3.

But it's not just that. The aforementioned art style does infact bring a lot to the game. It allows the environments to be a little less perfect and realistic. EA have managed to brighten up the bland browns and oranges of the FIFA Street series with some nice greens and this is reflected in the environments, in which bright colours are aplenty. While we're on the subject of environments, a nice addition is that of the moving boundaries. Fences, doors, windows, etc will all move or bens under pressure from a player. It's quite thrilling when a monster like Gattuso (whom, owing to the cartoony style, is absolutely huge in this game) manages to run up the side of a stack of barrels without them toppling.

Gamebreakers have had a few tweaks. Upon earning filling the score-trick-thing-total bar, you must then attempt a shot to make these points permanent. Should you lose possession before getting the chance to do so, these points will slowly degenerate, taking you back to your previous total. Unfortunately, there is an easy exploit for this. The Y (or Triangle) button has been turned into a 'juggle' button. This means you can constantly spam it, earning points for every keepy-up, and then just fire a wild shot at the end to save the earned points and secure the Gamebreaker. This somewhat ruins the online portion of the game, which turns into who-can-juggle-the-longest-without-being-tackled game. Despite this, a new mode has managed to rescue this a little. Player Picks is a playground-esque game type, in which one squad is selected to be shared between two players. Each takes it in turn to select a player from their squad to be on their team for that match. It is, I'll admit, quite gimmicky, but it's a nice touch.

There is one mode I feel is missing though. This mode being the 'career' mode, in which, in previous FIFA Street titles, you could create a player and build a team around him, making signings throughout to build your team up until it was eventually unbeatable and you got bored and traded it in. In 3, though, this has been replaced by a challenge mode, and despite it's namesake with challenges in the main FIFA titles, it is infact completely different. Challenge mode consists of different short tournaments, in which you can control any team that you have unlocked. Match types range from timed to headers and volleys. Most tournaments have either 3, 4 or 5 rounds. Unfortunately, there are only 9 and therefore could be blitzed in a couple of hours.

This is one of the main factors with which FIFA Street 3 loses its replayability. The online modes, aforementioned, quickly become tiresome and the challenges can be completed in super quick time. So, unless you have two of you there to play against each other after you're bored of the other modes, FIFA Street won't keep you occupied for long. But it's good while it lasts. And it's even better when its price tag was approximately £0.

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