FIFA

(Dammit, did I wait a long time for this game! Well we all did, but it feels like I waited longer and harder than anyone else. Sorry.)

People who find FIFA 11 or 12 too realistic, way too technical and complicated and not close enough to an arcade experience can now stop whining. FIFA Street 2012 is here.

Just some of the features that await in FIFA Street 2012: player setup and management of your own squad, unlocking and ramping up of tricks, skills, athleticism, goalkeeping abilities and a collection of the most impossible and yet strangely real tricks you can imagine.

The Players
The first thing you’re going to notice is that the players in FIFA Street 2012 are much, much more realistic. Gone are the days of the lanky, elongated Ronaldinho’s with awkward gaits and super-human abilities. Everything is in proportion and running according to the laws of gravity.

Drawing on the awesomeness of FIFA 12, EA have brought in similar stylings to FIFA Street 2012 and the game is better for it. This has implications too on the game play where characters, ironically, are a lot more agile and you as a human can be more creative with the plays because you know what is possible in the real world.

In all you feel like your players are a lot less retarded and you have a lot more control over their movements and tricks.

Setting up
I’m ashamed to say that I spent 12 minutes selecting a voice region for my character. Irish, before you ask! I didn’t even spend that much time setting up my entire Fable character! That’s how engaging this game is.

But, I quickly learnt though that a 5’2” Welsh speaking resident of the Bahamas who has
longer than average hands but the sickest white dreadlocks and the most trendy red eyebrows isn’t the best idea in a street soccer world tour that may take you a few hours to finish. Back to the settings then.

Gameplay
The game itself takes some getting used to, especially if you’re familiar with the previous FIFA Street iterations. The controls are more similar to FIFA 11 and 12 than they are to the previous Street games, so get ready.

Also don’t expect to hit the pitch with your arsenal of tricks bursting to be free (the cartoony GameBreaker feature has also been tossed). Everything in this game is unlockable, even your most basic tricks. Don’t make my mistake of entering a Freestyle tournie (where the only thing that counts is how well you can trick) with only a stepover and a flip-flap to your name. 45 bloody minutes later, I tell ya!

In games like this, an all too often obstacle is the AI ability of the computer. So much so that the casual gamer (who is on Medium) will seldom dare flip one more level up to Hard. Not so here. In no time you’ll be finding the Medium level too easy and start taking on teams at a more advanced state. Sure it’ll mean more chance of losing, but why else are you here.

You’ll play on some creative and well designed courts from around the world, take control of some famous players and compete in a variety of street soccer games like Futsal, the most formal of indoor soccers, Fresstyle where you must beat your opponent with tricks and old-school 5-on-5.

Criticisms
There are definitely a few things that I would have done differently if I had the skill to be on the EA development team.

Firstly they could have kept us in the “home games” stages a little longer so that we had more time to hone our skills. I started in the US and while you can stay there as long as you like, as soon as Europe is unlocked, off you go.

While it’s an easy game to learn to play, it’s a tough one to master, and a little more practice at home would have made the rest of the World Tour a lot more fun.

Another irritating, but admittedly small, feature are some of the extras they add in like setting up games on you on-screen cellphone when in the home regions.  A bit childish and un-original, and then all of a sudden that sort of thing disappears and you’re straight into simple clicking through to tournies. Either it’s in, or it’s out guys.

Is it all that good?
In an interview with Gamespot, FIFA Street line producer Sid Misra said “what you know of FIFA Street 1, 2 and 3, you can forget about”. A

Job done Sir!

SOME OF THE GAMEPLAY!