So another year brings another sequel to one of EA’s sports brands. Fifa Street 3 is the latest on offer from EA Sports BIG after a 2 year holiday and this means it’s a sports game with an arcade twist, an exaggerated artistic slant and a cool soundtrack to make the sport bigger and better than normal ‘soccer’.
The idea behind Fifa Street is simple. It’s 5-a-side football played in parking lots, on beaches and rooftops and you’ve just got to bang more goals in than your opponents, oh and it helps if you look cool whilst you’re doing it too.
The first thing you’ll notice when you boot up the game is how odd the player characters are. Odd in a good way, a bit like Peter Crouch who’s one of the faces of the game. I’m not sure how ‘street’ Crouchy is here and they make him super-skinny but somehow cool with it. A bit like Shaggy from Scooby-doo. Rooney’s built like a brick outhouse and all the other characters have exaggerated features as if someone in Leicester Square has grabbed them and made them sit still for half an hour while they’ve done a caricature of them.
So, you can pick your international teams in quick play and choose you faves from the many superstars on offer or, in challenge mode, choose your team by skills. Some are speedy, some stocky and some are tricksters. All these skills will help you show off on the pitch and score some tasty goals. As you play, with a flick of the right stick you can do little t ricks that boost your gamebreaker bar. Fill this up, tap R1 and you suddenly the music ramps up, the ball has a Technicolor trail behind it and you can strike from distance to surprise your rivals.
This one’s actually a lot of fun to play. It looks cool and it does feel good when you skin a defender by nutmegging them, doing a cheeky Croyf-turn or flicking the ball over their head. You can also run up walls and perform somersaults all in the name of showboating. It’s actually fun playing this simgle player which I don’t really like doing in footy games. I’m a massive Pro Evo player but I really liked the different gameplay on offer here.
And the games don’t last too long either. You can set a time limit to score as many goals as possible, or a goal limit. Or you can set challenges where you can only score with headers and volleys, then get your friends on or offline to see if they can rise to the occasion.
Fifa Steet 3’s great fun so it gets a very good 7 out of 10.
