If you check out my old site you can see I've reviewed a fair number of titles in EA Sports' FIFA Street series and I always find it difficult to review these games without lamenting what I wish these games were rather than concentrating on what the game actually is. Since this is my goddamn blog and only about 3 people read it, I figure I'm just going to lament-away.....
Dear Santa,
Thank you for FIFA Street. It was a late Christmas present using that Best Buy gift card you got me....I'm still surprised it cost a full sixty bucks but oh well. Nice move not calling it "FIFA Street 4" - you want people to realize that you're trying to position this as a break from the previous 3 FIFA Street games. This one's supposed to be more realistic and, for the first few hours at least, I kind of thought it was. It was really nice to pass the ball around and do some give and goes without anyone running along a wall or flying 10 feet in the air like in the previous games.
Unfortunately Santa, once you start playing the better teams you run into the same problem that plagued the other games. This stops being a football game with minor trick elements but instead becomes a trick game with minor football elements. Suddenly, even if the goalie leaves one whole side of his net open, rather than kicking the ball into a gaping net, you're more likely to have success if if you drag the ball back, flick it up in the air, catch it behind your neck, drop it down your shorts, do 10 push ups, make a long distance call and then back-heel it towards the goal. It's all kind of dumb and not much fun once you start playing against higher rated teams or on a higher difficulty level.
Santa, I wish this was simply a small sided (6 on 6 or 5 on 5) football game with emphasis on the fundamentals of football - pass and move. You could still have crazy tricks but only a few players could do them and even then they wouldn't be that effective.
To save you the trouble Santa, you could just get your elves to keep the core FIFA 12 gameplay - I mean you've done a good job keeping the same skill-trick system (using the shoulder buttons and directions on the right stick) - but the tackling and AI is kinda bunk.
I hope you don't feel bad, Santa. Everything else in FIFA Street is really, really good! The art style is no longer the silly cartoony stuff found in earlier games. The venues are brilliant - lots of neat gymnasiums, indoor and outdoor football fields, turf fields, concrete parking lots and a ton of pitch/court-side details. The gyms and indoor fields, in particular, conjure up a lot of nostalgia about places I played in my youth.
The music selection is great but the ambient/on-pitch sounds are phenomenal. Hearing realistic cries of 'man-on' and 'pass, I'm open' - it's great, great stuff. I also really like the format of the World Tour (career) mode. You start off with an evening kick-about with your friends (whom you can cull from your XBox Live friends' created players), from there you create a team and then move on to regional, domestic/national and then international tournaments.
All in all, it's a great package - particularly for the first few hours, but once you need a challenge it all falls apart.
Thanks anyway, though.
Lavan
PS Santa, anything you can do about Liverpool's season? Why are you laughing?
PPS I'm going to go and play Mass Effect 3 now.
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