FIFA Street 3 Xbox 360 review

25 February 2008

1 Comment

Posted by:Ferry Groenendijk

FIFA Street 3 takes your football heroes to the streets and experience their play in street football. International football superstars Ronaldinho, Peter Crouch, and Gennaro Gattuso will be featured worldwide on the front packs of FIFA Street 3, the newest iteration of the EA Sports Big street football arcade series.

Ronaldinho, Crouch and Gattuso represent three of the different types of specialist players created in game, where gamers can choose to play with Tricksters, Playmakers, Finishers and Enforcers for different options on the ball and a mildly different gameplay experience. Gamers get the chance to combine these different types of specialist players and associated skills to create the ultimate street football team.

System: Xbox 360, PS3, DS
Genre: Sports
Release dates: February 18th 2008 (USA), February 22nd 2008 (EUR/AUS)
Players: 1-8
Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Origin: Canada

Featuring over 250 of the world’s best players representing 18 of the top international teams, each player has been rendered into a stylized caricature with heroic qualities.

Decked out in authentic training kits, every player boasts their own, distinctive style of play with unique abilities to match. Whether you’re after brawn, brains, silky skills or crunching tackles to complete your team, the perfect street player is out there. Choose from Tricksters, Enforcers, Playmakers and Finishers to give you different options on the ball and make your mark on the street. Fill up your all-new Game Breaker to power your ultimate abilities and express yourself. Maneuver your players to leap past defenders, flip off walls, or perform gravity-defying one-timers to score spectacular goals.

From the urban playgrounds of South America to the rooftops in Asia to the streets of Europe, your players perform to an eclectic selection of music seamlessly infused into the surroundings, where the game’s environments pulsate, and explode to life with every well-timed tackle, outrageous trick move or unstoppable shot on goal.

Watch the FIFA Street 3 launch trailer.

So what are FIFA Street 3′s main features?

* Hit the streets with some of the best pro players and experience all the style and attitude of street soccer.
* Choose from over 250 of the world’s best players representing 18 of the top international teams.
* Ultra-responsive controls and an easy-to-use trick system give you instant control over your idols.
* Authentic training kits and street wear; distinctive style of play with unique abilities to match.
* Set in exotic locales around the world with an eclectic selection of seamlessly infused music.

As with all EA games, there’s a large soundtrack by EAtrax present in the game. The region for an artist changes when the featured artist and/or remixer is from a different region but featured on the song. The music list is split up by: Artist | Song | Region.

1. Hexstatic | Red Laser Beam | London
2. Hexstatic | Tokyo Traffic | London
3. Hexstatic | Bust | London
4. Tim Deluxe | Let The Beats Roll | London
5. Tim Deluxe | Let The Beats Roll (Rennie Pilgrim Mix) | London
6. Asian Dub Foundation | Stop Start | Bombay London
7. Bassnectar feat. Ms. Persia | Kick It Complex | San Francisco
8. Bassnectar feat. Ms. Persia | Kick It Complex (Bassnectar Remix) | San Francisco
9. Bassnectar feat. Ms. Persia | Bomb The Blocks | San Francisco
10. Bassnectar feat. Ms. Persia | Bomb The Blocks (Ghislain Poirier Mix) | Montreal / Canada
11. Bassnectar feat. Kristinamaria | Yo | San Francisco
12. Bassnectar feat. Kristinamaria | Yo (Speaker Junk’s Jackin’ Mix) | Brazil
13. Buraka Som Sistema | Yah! feat. Petty | Portugal
14. Chromeo | Fancy Footwork (Zdar Dub, Pee Thug Edit) | Montreal / Canada
15. Chromeo | Fancy Footwork (DIM Mix) | Montreal / Canada
16. Coburn feat. Solidstate | We Interrupt This Programme | London
17. Coburn | We Interrupt This Programme (Jean Claude Ades Mix) | London
18. Datarock | I Used To Dance With My Daddy (M.O.M. Mix) | Norway
19. Datarock | I Used To Dance With My Daddy (Subsource Mix) | Norway
20. Does It Offend You, Yeah? | We Are Rock Stars | London
21. Does It Offend You, Yeah? | Battle Royale | London
22. Forro In The Dark | Suor de Futbol Fina (Mawglee Mix) | Brazil
23. Innerpartysystem | Don’t Stop | Philadelphia
24. Junkie XL feat. Lauren Rocket | Booming Right At You | Netherlands
25. M.I.A. | Bird Flu | Sri Lanka / London
26. M.I.A. | Boyz | Sri Lanka / London
27. MC Amilcka | Humildade da Favela | Brazil
28. No Bizzi feat. J2K | Yeah Yeah | London
29. Sasha & Paul Rogers | Black Powder | London
30. The Go! Team | Grip Like A Vice | London
31. The Planet People feat. Afrika Bambaataa | Make It Break (La Resistance and Deemus Mix) | London
32. The Tigerpicks | Disco Punk Electro Funk | Manchester, UK
33. Underworld | Crocodile | London
34. Underworld | Crocodile (Huntermann Mix) | London
35. Walter Meego | Wanna Be A Star | Chicago
36. Walter Meego | Wanna Be A Star (Walter Sees Stars Mix) | Chicago
37. Wax Poetic | Bombeiro | Brazil

Run, jump, and launch yourself towards the ball in any way you can. Watch the FIFA Street 3 big air video.

As a conclusion let’s see how much fun the game is to play.

FUN FACTOR – 6.0
Rather than going for real-life street football/soccer simulation, the game’s emphasis is on arcade-style fun. While FIFA fans might enjoy playing this, everyone else (even sport game fans) will tire of the lack of depth in gameplay after a few hours. The single player mode doesn’t have a career option and because you can only go through a series of samey challenges to unlock all teams, it gets rather boring early on. Multiplayer is where this game’s fun is at with Playground mode allowing two of you to take turns choosing a team from a lineup of 10, after which the competitiveness between the teams drives the matches. With varied match types like first to five goals, timed matches, headers & volleys, and gamebreakers goals only or without, it’ll fit in nicely with a casual crowd as a party game. I think this is definitely a game where you better try the demo first before you buy, luckily the FIFA Street 3 demo is available on the PS3′s PlayStation Store and Xbox 360′s Xbox Live Marketplace.

Graphics – 7.5
The game’s art style is fun-loving and makes the players look like stylized action heroes. The character’s trick and move animations are smooth to look at. While the playground is the same court everywhere with not much to see, the change of scenery is nice when you go from the urban playgrounds of South America to rooftops in Asia and the streets of Europe. Vibrant graphics.

Audio – 7.5
Not much in the way of sound effects. The music reacts very well to what’s going on in the field. Voice acting is limited to a few cheers or boo’s from your team-mates. There’s a wide variety of world music on the soundtrack with most upbeat soundtracks that enhance the gameplay experience.

Ingenuity – 6.0
With a heavy focus on arcade-style gameplay, EA made themselves a game that lacks depth in gameplay. What this results in is matches where you’ll often find yourself either performing tricks to rack up gamebreakers to win, or if you’re on the other side trying to steal the ball back with endless slide tackles. While the rest of the game is fairly balanced through the four player classes. But there’s no sense of constant action when you’re otherwise just moving around a bit too slow (for an arcade-style game) as you move around the field performing ball tips or doing wall runs to get a chance to do a one-time goal.

Replay Value – 8.0
The single player matches should last you a couple of hours, but most of the fun lies in playing with others! Multiplayer is both locally (with 2-4 players) and online (with 2-8 players) but there’s not a lot of content in the game to keep you busy for prolonged periods of time. Sadly you’ll likely end up tiring of the game after a few hours unless you and your (online) friends are FIFA fan.