Genre: Sports
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Sports
Release Date: February 28, 2006

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With the World Cup taking place this year, it was easy to get caught up in the excitement of the world's most popular sport. Having received more airtime this year than before, partly due to the United States' exciting run back in 2002, the World Cup in 2006 arguably pushed soccer into the minds of more people in the US of A than ever before. It's too bad that the US didn't make it nearly as far as they did four years ago, but there's no doubt that the exposure the sport is now receiving in the States will boost popularity here. So it was with some excitement that I sat down with EA's FIFA Street 2 and anticipated some of the excitement of the sport the rest of the world calls "football."

EA's Street series is their attempt to make their popular sports "simulation" games, such as Madden NFL Football, edgy and hip. Utilizing real DJs, thumping rhythmic music and various eclectic musical groups and artists, as well as graffiti-esque menus and urban locations for the levels, the Street motif is one of hip-hop cool. Likewise, the gameplay of the series focuses more on performing tricks and over-the-top moves than the actual scoring of points or goals. For some sports, this works out well and can be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, soccer doesn't seem to be one of them.

FIFA Street 2 starts with a character creation mode that has become the standard for the series. After choosing your character's face, hair, and other bodily attributes, you can clothe him in different kinds of licensed gear, like Adidas shoes or shirts. Much of what is available is locked in the beginning, so you have to play and earn points to unlock the goodies as well as improve your character's stats. You are given a limited number of points to put towards your attributes, like Power, Defense, or Trick Ability. As you progress, you can put more and more points in these attributes and turn your player into a digital Ronaldo.

FIFA Street 2 also sports an interesting feature called the pitch editor, which allows you to create your own field to play on. There are a surprising amount of options, so you can make it as nice looking as you want, or turn it into a slum of a pitch. Really, it's just a scenery change, as you can't alter aspects of the field like where the goals are placed or things like that, but it's still a fun little diversion to make your own fields and then play games on them. It adds some variety to the fields provided by the game, which is needed.

Speaking of Ronaldo, he and other soccer stars make an appearance in the game, but don't expect to see a ton of big-name stars, as there are really only a few in the game. It would've been nice to see some more familiar names playing alongside you, but it doesn't detract from the overall experience, since most players won't even miss them. The Rule the Street mode is where you'll likely be spending the majority of your time. In this mode, you progress through the ranks, playing various stages and completing various goals, not all of which involve winning the match.

This is where FIFA Street 2 ultimately fails as a game. Some objectives rely on accumulating a certain number of trick points before your opponent does, winning with a gamebreaker, or just plain winning a soccer match. At the beginning of the game, when you're trying to master the trick system and get by the tremendous sluggishness of the controls and the extremely delayed response time of your players, it can seem almost impossible to beat the AI opponents. On the flip side, once you've mastered the controls and gotten used to the poor response time, it can be too easy to just string together tricks until you win. Rule the Street is fun for a while, but the objectives are the same from level to level, and only the required quantity changes.

There are other modes that you can play as well, which focus on tricks or just playing a quick game. There is a multiplayer mode but you can't play online, which is pretty much unacceptable at this stage. Online multiplayer is quickly becoming a standard feature in games, and EA has consistently made strides by taking titles like Madden online, so why not FIFA Street 2? Multiplayer with friends is fun, but being able to get the multiplayer experience whenever you wanted by jumping online would've been much better. Since the multiplayer experience outshines the single-player experience, it would've done this game a favor to include a more robust one.

Graphically, FIFA Street 2 is stuck in the past. The models are well done but not extraordinarily detailed, and the game flows smoothly. The worst part of the graphics are the pathetic cut scenes and after-match celebrations. It's getting quite ridiculous to see stilted characters waving their arms in celebration while their faces remain static and their heads bob around to imitate the fact that they are supposed to be shouting or talking or cheering. When actually playing the game, the animations look good for each of the tricks, and the goalies and players react realistically when kicking, passing, shooting, and blocking. Each of the fields looks decent and is appropriately designed to reflect the area it's in. While they won't win any awards, the graphics do the job.

Audio in FIFA Street 2 is solely focused on the DJs and the various musical artists. While not nearly as annoying as some of the DJs and music found in previous Street titles, they still do manage to grate a little bit. Thankfully, you have the option of choosing from a couple of different stations, or customizing a playlist from the included songs to exclude the ones you don't like. Unfortunately, it seems like the whole budget for sound went towards these DJs and the music. Sound effects are sparse at best, and kicks, goals, and other soccer sounds aren't particularly varied or impressive. When you win a match and your players are jumping around in one of the aforementioned lame cut scenes, looking as if they are cheering or celebrating, you don't hear anything. No generic cheers, no shouting, just nothing.

While FIFA Street 2 manages to succeed on almost all fronts with the Street aspect of the game, it fails on the soccer level. I hate to say that it's all style and no substance, but after playing for several hours, you'll begin to say to yourself, "That's all?" The production values are slick and well done, but the game itself could've used a bit more tweaking to make it more enjoyable than it wound up being. If you're a fan of EA's Street titles and soccer, you might find something to like here, but if you're undecided about soccer or dislike elements of the Street style, you should avoid this one.

Score: 6.5/10