Tech News on G4FIFA Street 3 ReviewMarch 07, 2008By Ted Kritsonis - G4 Canada |
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This is a game that takes a few liberties with its star players, though all of it is meant in jest. England’s Tim Crouch is as lanky as ever with his twiggy legs, while Australia’s Mark Viduka is a stocky bear that doles out punishment on the small concrete pitch. The caricatures of the players are definitely funny in some cases, but they’re also perfect for what this game provides. Teams in the FIFA Street Challenge mode even follow this pattern, as you’ll get a squad of brutish players like Viduka and Wayne Rooney, playmakers with flair like Ronaldinho and Francesco Totti, or even veterans like Patrick Vieira and Hakan Sukur. The over-the-top antics and trickery on all sides are equally matched by some outlandish moves that include running a few steps on walls and pulling off bicycle kicks. All this footwork comes off as dancing in some form, but ball control is sort of handled for you. Most of the time, the ball will have an imaginary string that seems to maintain a gravitational pull around your feet, but you’ll soon discover it’s actually pretty easy to strip an opponent of the ball. It just comes down to good timing. Cool moves like bank passes off the walls and aerial redirects are a joy to pull off and EA deserves kudos for making the animations look slick all the way through.
There’s a meter that measures all that showing off and when it’s full, you enter Gamebreaker mode, which is basically a license to score goals within the opposing team’s half of the court. But in order to fill the meter with your set of moves, you need to ensure that you take a shot on goal at the end of the sequence to “lock in” everything. Otherwise, the meter starts to retract and you’ll likely end up losing it all. If you can score when the other team has the Gamebreaker active, you can shift the momentum of the game (though there is no way to read that with a meter). As mentioned earlier, the FIFA Street Challenge splits teams into specialized criteria, but it also gives you stipulations for each match. These can be goals only by volley or header, most goals within three minutes or with the Gamebreaker turned off. The mix is pretty good, but it doesn’t really do enough to change the gameplay. In a way, you have to force yourself to be creative, especially after finding that a certain set of moves usually leads to a goal. Had the AI been strengthened to recognize the repetitious moves and counter them, then it would create seesaw battles with more creativity. This isn’t a huge detractor in the game, since playing online against human opponents would likely produce the desired results, but it’s enough to annoy you at times when playing through the Street Challenge. The other factor is that the launches of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 from Konami and UEFA Euro 2008 from EA in the next month or two. It’s hard to say whether FIFA Street 3 offers anything on an equal footing to those games. The street brand of soccer here is an improvement, no doubt about it. The game looks and feels nice, even if it isn’t as close to greatness as it could be. Consider renting it first just to make sure you’re cool with what this concrete pitch offers. FIFA Street 3 Rating: 7.5 / 10
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FIFA Street 3 marks the debut of the series onto next-gen platforms (no Wii version, unfortunately), and looks to expand and improve on what has been a so-so series thus far. The first two games had interesting ideas but the execution was either off or just didn’t look right.
You can juggle the ball between your shoulders or between your heel and calf. Volley it continuously with your feet to keep opponents guessing. Freeze an opponent by pulling off an ankle-breaker move that will leave them falling on his ass.
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