FIFA Street 2

FIFA Street 2 is everything a back-yard kick-about should be – fast, entertaining and just a little tricky.

From the start you get to pick from a pre-defined football team. Whether you want a South American side or wish to go for a European team to even Australia, you have quite a few squads to pick. All the well known names are in there, from Tevez to Ronaldo and you can pick your players from the extensive list to give you the right balance to your 4 a side squad. To be honest, why they went for 4 a side rather than the conventional 5 or 11 players per team, I believe, is down to the limited space of the pitch and to offer you slightly better controls in terms of passing play.

The overall appearance of the game is simply superb, and the attention to detail is clearly evident and it does make a difference to the overall feel of the game. You can pick the typical things like sound, difficulty, handicap, colour of ball and also the number of goals you need to score to win. This makes the game one of the most customisable and flexible games that I’ve ever come across – and on par with the larger format versions available.

Sadly the controls don’t have the same quality and do let the game fall at the last hurdle from being a top five-star game. You have the keypad or d-pad to use for your direction of movement and the OK or 5 buttons to hit the ball. Depending on the length of time you touch the button; you will switch between a pass or a shot (with the ball) and a step or slide tackle (without the ball). By pressing the softkey, * or # keys, you will perform tricks – which makes your player harder to pin down and more likely to free up a bit of space to shoot with.

Injury or fouls are non-existent in this game, in fact you can hack your way through the game without any problem and if done correctly, you’ll easily wipe the floor with your opponent.

You can play either a quick game as a friendly or try your luck at the campaign mode where you ‘Rule the Streets’. If you do decide to Rule the Streets, you get to play for money where you can purchase better players for your side to win with. Nicely, you get to develop your own players – in terms of speed, accuracy, tackling, passing etc.

To advance in the game you will have to get a skill rating of 25 points and 1,500 ‘skill bills’, which will let you enter the race for the cup. You have 10 locations to pick from – which means you have 80 matches in total before your career finishes.

So, if you love football, fancy your chances in winning the cup of the Streets, masterminding a career and enjoy performing football tricks, then this is certainly going to push all the right buttons for you.

Rating 92%

Positives

Great depth and flexibility in play

Different difficulty levels

Highly addictive and challenging

Negatives

Chunky and less effective controls (the amount of times you end up passing rather than shooting will probably make you cry!)