Fifa Street 2
Verdict: You can’t polish a turd.
Platform: Nintendo DS.
Rating: 1½/5
With the World Cup over and England’s predictable demise through penalty shoot-outs becoming something of a cliche, reviewing Fifa Street 2 seems a little ill timed. The ill timing is all mine of course because the game has been out for a couple of months, sat on the shelf at the bottom of the pile - it’s just that now we enter into gaming’s annual Summer drought I had nowt else to play.
As a reviewer I should pick up each game with a Jedi like cleansing of the mind, brushing aside preconceptions, pet hates and prequels but it certainly took me a while to finally plug Fifa Street 2 into my cherished, finger print covered (curse you gloss finish!) Black DS Lite.
I’d like to say my expectations were quashed and that it presented itself as football’s portable gaming opus - a magical combination of sublime play mechanics and innovative game design...but I can’t.
What I got was the gaming equivalent of someone spraying too much air freshener in the bathroom after a night on the tiles - EA’s trademark polish attempting to mask a broken, bug ridden mess of a game.
Which is a shame really because the basic concept and even some of the game itself has a lot going for it - 4 minute matches that are perfect for portable gaming, trick controls that use the touch screen in a way that’s actually usable, WiFi multiplayer, an impressive soundtrack, EA’s usual player creation and customisation and even a logo creator for your team.
Unfortunately it’s all wasted on the fact that it’s riddled with game breaking bugs, the collision detection is atrocious (in a game where accuracy should be utmost) and for all the supposed beauty of the sport and Fifa Street’s emphasis on skill and tricks it’s a particularly ungraceful, jerky affair.
Feeling like you’re running through treacle while chasing a ball covered in oil is not the kind of gameplay you want from a fast and immediate sport like four-a-side football. Perhaps if they’d spent less time making the menus look nice and designing unnoticeable sock types for your players to wear they might have spent some time on the bit that matters - the game. As a company of their size they have no excuses - shame on you EA.