FIFA Street 2 (GameCube) Preview

The essence of the game hasn't changed from Fifa Street 1, perform tricks and score goals in a 4 vs 4 setting with the best players on the planet. The game doesn't really reward passing moves and instead focuses on end-to-end trick laden attacking play. The tricks are mostly done through the c-stick and each trick you do fills up the "trick meter", and here we have the first problem. Filling the trick meter gives you a special move, however if you fill it up thrice over without using the trick then you are the victor without question.

And that's the problem that could potentially plague this game, last year it was easy to find a few good tricks and use them continuously to destroy the opposition and this seems to have been carried through to the sequel. Quite how any sane developer could give a gimmick that holds that much power over the course of the game is beyond us. Then again, maybe it's to be expected.

The whole game is filled with gimmicks, even simple one on one situations turn into mini games with the "trick stick" and consist of you second-guessing your opponents moves. Even the whole concept of an underground "soccer" scene feels gimmicky, and this gimmicky feel will be the downfall of the game.

The whole game is filled with gimmicks, even simple one on one situations turn into mini games with the "trick stick" and consist of you second-guessing your opponents moves. Even the whole concept of an underground "soccer" scene feels gimmicky, and this gimmicky feel will be the downfall of the game.

Graphically the game looks great. Players are well detailed and environments have that grungy feel down pretty well. The details in the characters are fantastic and it has lost a lot of the "shiny" graphics found in Fifa 06. It's all animated quite well and this is without a doubt going to be one of the reasons people buy the game, it is stunning. There is also an impressive roster of players for an arcadey game with over 300 detailed players and 20 national teams; it certainly continues the EA tradition of abusing that FIFA licence.

However that licence can hardly be abused elsewhere in the game. You can't really have an underground football league playing at Ibrox Stadium and the competitions can't really be licensed (The UEFA underground football tournament doesn't have a nice ring to it). This is where the new venues and gameplay modes come into play. Five venues are based on real venues (Westway sports centre in London, Barra beach in Brazil, Marseille, Amsterdam and New York) and 5 are generic locations that are a composite of ideas.

Each venue has distinctive architecture and this can be used it game. For example, if you hit the ball off of a fence in one level it won't bounce off as hard as a ball hit off a wall in another level. This means that when making tricks you can have a Prince of Persia esque look at the surroundings and dare to dream the impossible.If this works then it could be the saving grace of the game, truly innovative and unique. Exactly what the whole game should be like.

A game like this simply screams "play me with friends!" and EA have certainly recognised this and shoved a fair few multiplayer options in there. Aside from the traditional vs mode we see the career mode accompanied with a co-op feature. This could certainly add a lot to the game and is a pioneer for the EA sports genre. Could we see a co-op career mode introduced into future FIFA games? Here's hoping.

Football fans take the beautiful game seriously, and rightfully so. Football can take you from euphoria to despair in 2 minutes; can push the world's greatest athletes to the edge of fitness and can instil patriotic pride in you as you watch your team take on the best that Europe has to offer. This game takes the sport and disregards all the emotion, tension and work that goes into it. Instead EA have tried to make it "cool" and it looks like they have failed. But we will reserve judgement until it is launched on March 3rd.