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"This is where football really started, on the streets!"

That may be true, but this, FIFA Street, is far from what the glorious game aspires to be. EA has produced an extremely average game with this addition to the Street franchise.

In this version you are assigned the task of creating a player and then taking him and seven other players around the globe earning Skill Bills (a.k.a. money to buy stuff) and Respect Points (a.k.a. just another thing to earn). From the different locales you visit you can challenge other teams to friendly games to five points, compete in tournaments where each game is two halves, or challenge professional footballers to matches and if you win they will join your team. There is also a faulty multiplayer that could have been left out for all the play time it will see.

This game comes with the same pedigree as the wonderful FIFA 2005 and NBA Street V3, so it should have been a great arcade game, but it isn't. It has absolutely no inspiration. Every single game you will play in the single player is exactly the same -- power up your Gamebreaker so that you can score the mandatory five goals easily (tournaments don't have a score limit, just a time limit). There aren't any challenges that require special accomplishments to progress like in NBA Street V3. The best part is you have to do seven five-point games and a tournament in each of the ten locations to completely beat the game. But you probably won't bother after the second or third location because you will have already maxed out your player by then and unlocked all the clothing. Even some locations are reused from previous Street titles.

In fact, the only well-done part of this game not already done in FIFA 2005 is the character customization. You have the ability to change body type, pick from a slew of different facial aspects, choose tattoos for your character, and select from the hundreds of different clothing options to choose from. You can change the shirts, shorts, socks, and shoes on any player from your team. What I never understood is why you can only add a hat, glasses, and gloves to your own player. Why can you not change the goalie's gloves?

Goalies must have been a last-second addition, because they are horrible. They have about five animations, you can't control them, they don't go after deflected balls, they do steal balls from your own team, and they will often step well outside the goal box to grab a ball. The rest of the game's AI doesn't fare much better, though. Your computer-controlled players will always get juked, run away from loose balls, stop to receive passes and generally do nothing.

The defensive problems wouldn't be so bad except for a large control mistake that prevents you selecting the player closest to the ball first. Instead, you have to cycle through all the players.

Then there is the sound. It is just more EA Trax, another annoying announcer, random ambient sounds, and sound effects. Heck, sometimes the sound just cuts out, too.

The developers did get a couple things right -- they used the quality character models and ball physics from FIFA 2005. The character models look better due to more polygons and the typical EA shininess liberally applied. Also, the animations are extremely fluid. The controls also are easy to pick up, but nothing mind-blowing.

Overall this game isn't anything above mediocre. It might have succeeded as an additional mode to FIFA 2005, but as a standalone without online play, a faulty multiplayer, and no depth, I cannot honestly recommend it. Hopefully next year EA will put some money into this and make it worthy of the Street brand.

Graphics: B

Sound: C-

First Play: B-

Last Play: D

Gameplay: B

Overall: 75% C