Before I start a word of explanation - I do not play sports games as a rule. In my entire life there were only a few exceptions to this rule – Virtua Tennis, Pro Evolution Soccer 4 and now FIFA 08 and a long, long time ago a football (soccer for you Americans) game on C64 which title I can’t recall. What’s more, I’ve never played the single player modes in those games with the exception of VT because I found it to have as much point as brushing your teeth before committing suicide.
So, if anything that I will write below will seems odd to you, for your explanation revert to the first paragraph.
Today I’ve downloaded FIFA Street 3 demo and I have to say that I got hooked right off the bat. For anyone who is not familiar with the series I will explain that unlike the grown up counterpart this game is about “backyard” football. You have four players and your goalkeeper and the rules are limited to an absolute minimum – no offsides, no fauls, no corners, no nothing… well, almost – you can still get an “out”, but that doesn’t happen very often as the playing field is surrounded by walls. There are two aspects of the game that really stand out.
First of all the graphics – characters are modeled in a cartoon-ish way and to be honest they look excellent (I like them more than the realistic models from 08 that look like bums from the liquor store). Imagine a Pixar movie about football and you’ll get the picture. The game runs at a smooth 60fps, but considering that there isn’t a whole lot to render on the screen it isn’t a big feat (you could probably throw in a rubber duck or twelve and it would still be smooth, but that’s just my opinion – the engine looks solid). The character animation is top-notch although not everything is realistic (more about it later), but considering the style of the game it seems perfectly natural. It seems that EA incorporated its animation technology from the big FIFA into this game which is a good thing.
The second thing that is remarkable about this game is the actual gameplay. The players will do all kinds of crazy tricks with the ball – dribbling like mad, bounce the ball off walls, then run on those walls just to make a shot on goal preceded by a somersault. And you know what? You don’t need much skill to actually pull those stunts off – and this comes from a guy that couldn’t make a decent free kick in PES4 after playing it for 3 year almost every Sunday. The controls are similar to those from the big FIFA and are well mapped on the gamepad.
There seem to be some problems with collision detection, but it’s nothing too distracting.
One thing I have to write – with this game I think the single player will be even more pointless than with any other, but I bet it’s gonna be an excellent multiplayer experience.
After I give my brother-in-law (my football nemesis – damn you, you’ll pay for last Sunday!) a test run with this one perhaps we will exchange 08 for Street.
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