14 DAY TRIAL // 
After so much UEFA Champions League, seen on TV, played on the PS2 and the PC, it's time to take a breather and play a bit of street football. Every now and then Ronaldinho, Beckham and many other great players chill in a relaxing match on the beach or in an urban setting. There's no referee so you can do anything you like, as long as your tricks stay cool and original. It's all about footballing stunts here, since it doesn't really matter who wins, as long as you're performing those nasty gamebreakers. Don't expect a simulator, instead you'll be playing a tough game filled with fouls and tricks that leave no room for defense.
Concept After a brilliant cutscene filled with footballing tricks you'll be taken directly to the main menu, where you can select the Play Now mode if you're in a hurry or choose one of the other Game Modes. Friendly matches are available as well as the main mode, let's say the "story" mode called Rule the Street. If you enter this type of game, you should know that there a few steps you must take before starting the actual matches. First you'll have to create your own player and alter all of his attributes, ranging from facial expressions to his football gear. Rule the Street starts with a neat practice session, where Cristiano Ronaldo, a couple of his mates and your newly created player engage in a friendly match with another team. The purpose here will be scoring 3 goals before the other team does so. With each match and each stunt that you pull, you'll receive points that can be used to buy some of the stuff in the unlockables section.
Each player has his own signature move, that can be created or bought and you'll be having a ball while upgrading your main player, with a system that's similar to those that you see in RPGs. The skill points that you get during the matches can be distributed to increase attributes like speed, shot, tricks or power. Rule the Street comes with a cool headquarters window, where you can check out your progress or play matches with the team members trying to learn a couple of new tricks. Those are called "kick abouts", but let's get to more serious stuff. International competitions and underground battles are the ultimate challenges, that can only be entered once you earn about 80 rating points. Asides from Rule the Street, there's also a Skills Challenge mode, that's just a tool to gain tons of points and a way to teach you the use of the trick stick. I'm talking about the right analog stick, that has to be turned clockwise or counter-clockwise following the on-screen diagrams. This is not something that you'll be doing for more than a couple of minutes, because it's pretty dull and the lack of an opponent can become frustrating. After all, it's just a test of your juggling skills and the only challenge here is making it to the top of the hall of fame.
FIFA Street was famous for its customization concept and so is this follow-up, so be prepared to toy with yet again a complex creation zone. Player can be created from scrap, and each of their characteristic can be tweaked and modified, from position to shirt number, skin color, shape of the head, tatoos and play style. Of course fancy stuff like hats or slick glasses can be unlocked after achieving some points, but unless you want to create an exact replica of an unknown player that you fancy, it's no point to waste time with such minutia. Teams can also be created, so you'll be the one to name them, pick an emblem and their members from the listed countries. Don't think that if you've got Ronaldinho, Rooney and Nedved in your team it's all a matter of seconds before goals start pouring. Players need to have a certain chemistry and they have to know where and when to receive passes.
Last but not least in the customization part of this title, there's the "Create a pitch" mode that allows you to make your own ideal turf in the country of your choice. Name the pitch and alter its surface, base, fences, goal and architecture to suit your tastes. Urban environments are available and most of the predefined pitches will have you playing behind those gray blocks, or in places that look like old-school junkyards. This could have been a little too much editing for a true footballer's taste, but since we're doing this we might as well edit the team kits. Start from the tops, change the sleeve colors, the base accent, the type of shoes and the number of stripes that your socks will have. Various other gadgets can be attached to the player's wrists and they can wear gloves if it's too cold or they just want to play cool. You're not just playing for fun, as there's a huge list of rewards in the menu, that can be unlocked once you start earning thousands of points. Venues like New York City, Favela, Rome or Berlin are available, but keep in mind that they're not exactly cheap. As predictable as it seems, points can also buy you T-shirts, new footballs, shoes and even some cool tricks.
Because I mentioned them, I recommend you to check out the Trick Book in the menu, because it shows all the types of tricks that you can do...and a couple more. Learn the combinations of freaky moves like Pot of Gold, Footrool or Well Heeled and you'll be a champ in no time. I'm no FIFA Street expert, just recovering from some addictive UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 plays so I used the tutorials present in the game. Summing them up it takes about 10 minutes to get to know the entire system of the game and you'll get the basics even if you've never watched a football match in your entire life (can this be?). Aside from game modes, settings and tutorials, gamers have the chance to check out a cool Street Video in the Extras section and listen to the cool "radio" that the game offers you as a music player. Now that we're almost into the gameplay department, I must say that FIFA Street 2 relies heavily on the right analog stick, called "the trick stick". There's no way that you can perform well without using the much needed stick so stick around (nice pun, isn't it?) and check out the gameplay features.
Gameplay This isn't the average FIFA game, but that may already be old news to you. There are a lot of tricks to perform and it would be a shame to use the old standard FIFA moves to score and then defend the result. Without a referee, some violent moves are more than welcome, specially when the other team threatens your net. I'm talking about shoulder barges or sliding tackles that would put Ronaldinho on the bench for a couple of months. Don't worry, there's no injury concept implemented so you can trigger a fouling war on the field and there will be no physical consequences. Gamebreakers are the highlights of matches and I bet that you'll try to start them during the difficult confrontations. Juggling the ball gives you trick points and that's the way that the gamebreaker meter gets filled (that red meter at the top of the screen).
Once it's full, you'll have to take one of your players to the center of the pitch, where there's a star-shaped area that triggers the cool gamebreaker. Now, there are two options: you can score a superb goal and there's practically no chance that you'll miss the net in gamebreaker mode, or you could go all the way dribbling and humiliating your opponents. I wasn't exaggerating when I said "humiliation", because if you manage to dribble three players and score, this will equal a victory, as the opponent will leave the field, considering themselves too humiliated to continue. This series of killer moves isn't unstopable, but it has its flaw, because you'll have to complete it in a certain period of time. You should combine your moves wisely, while running on the pretty small pitch by using the left analog stick. Like in the other FIFA games, the R1 button will make you sprint, and with a single press of the circle button you'll be scoring or attempting to. Using the trick stick can be pretty....tricky, but it comes naturally, once you've had a little bit of practice. Move the stick up and you'll pass the ball over the opponent and catch it again, while he's stunned by your move. If you move the stick down, you'll pass the ball between the other player's legs, showing him who's the boss.
The more moves you make without allowing the other team's members to touch the ball, the more points you get. Chaining a couple of tricky stunts can give you all the points you need to unlock the whole hidden content in FIFA Street 2. Juggling moves can be performed while playing a normal match, by pressing the L1 and R1 buttons and toying with the trick stick, trying to create a-la-Ronaldinho magical moves. The trick stick can be good in defense, too so you'll use it to barge into the other players, push or pull them, till they fall. Still frustrated by the lousy keepers in UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 I was happy to see, that there's not much I can control about the keeper's moves in this title. The triangle will give you the chance to control the keeper, but the CPU will be doing the rest.
In the other FIFA or UEFA Champions League games, you could use the directional buttons to set your team's strategy. In FIFA Street 2, they have a rather amusing purpose: taunts. What would a street game be without taunting the opponent, pushing him a bit and proving him who the real man is. Also, if you're playing against a human opponent you might want to show off and press the select button to see your beautiful plays again, this time in slow motion. I have to say that the AI is great even on the easiest level of difficulty and I found myself frustrated a couple of times trying to get past matches in the early stages of the game. The CPU-controlled player don't quite know how to miss and the keepers are not all Serie A material, so they'll be taking many goals. It doesn't matter, as long as you keep scoring and triggering gamebreakers. FIFA Street 2 is more focused on having fun, than winning and defeating other teams with a huge goal difference.
Video Well...at least the intro looks nice in this game. Sorry for being so radical, but I had great expectations from this title after playing some quality football games coming from both Konami and EA Sports. You may see earth-shattering tricks, ground-breaking moves and other such magical football moments, but the pitch and players still look bad. At least, this time there's no crowd to complain about. The environments feature urban settings, so if you're a fan of the grass (on the football field, I meant), you'll feel that something's missing. Famous players are well-drawn and resemble their real counterparts, but from the standard TV broadcast view, they're all the same, a bunch of guys tossing a football around.
Sound EA Sports have yet to fail me in the audio department, picking some of the best songs for the OSTs. In FIFA Street 2 the music is delivered through a fictional radio station, that offers comments between songs, so you'll feel like listening to a real DJ saying boring stuff about the weather, while he's setting up the playlist. Jamaican music, punk, pop, it's all here, mostly urban music that can make one's day. There are three stations to choose from: Radio Bongo, Rider Radio and Live Fm, with the option of using a customized station as well. Other than that you'll just sit back, do tricks and enjoy the player's taunts, their screams on the field and the sound of a metallic net being hit by a powerful shot.
Multiplayer You shouldn't call yourself a true champion if you haven't played FIFA Street 2 against a human opponent. The AI may be tough, but he improvises much less than your football-crazed pals. The title allows up to 4 players to join in during the match, thanks to a multi tap adaptor and you might be going head to head or play a team oriented match. However, the main attraction remains the two-player mode and it will be a goal-feast seasoned with delicious moves and impossible tricks. Too bad that the game doesn't support online play, but maybe the next FIFA Street title will.
Conclusion FIFA Street 2 can be extremely good or extremely bad, it depends on your expectations and what you want to get out of this footballing experience. If you're the standard FIFA addict, obsessed with strategy, season planning and good defense, you should avoid playing this game. If you're the kind of gamer that looking for pure entertainment and a great show on the pitch, try playing FIFA Street 2 and you won't be disappointed. The game has downsides, no doubt, but they don't spoil the fun that you'll be having, at least for a week or two, till you finish trying the combos on the huge list.
