NFL Street – PS2 – Review

Sports games are a key
component to most consoles. If there are enough high quality sports games on
your console then you know you will succeed in some level. EA has one of the
biggest market shares of sports games on all consoles currently available. The
majority of their sports games fall under the “simulation/real life” sports
games. Since the release of this generation of consoles they have been releasing
more “arcade and over the top” sports games, under the brand “EA Big” which have
really fleshed out all of the genres. Their latest game under the EA Big title
is NFL Street, and it
is one of the best football games I have played in a long time. Read on to find
out more!

There are four game modes that NFL Street offers players to participate in:
Quick Game, Pick up Game, NFL Challenge, and Online. Quick game is where players
can choose any of the teams that are available and play a quick seven-on-seven
game. A Pick up Game is where you and an opponent choose from 40 randomly
selected NFL stars. The person who gets the first pick will be on defense first
and vice versa, so you must choose wisely.

The NFL Challenge is the real meat of this game. In this players take on their
own personalized team against the NFL teams to unlock rewards and other goodies.
There are two different modes in here: the NFL Division Ladder and the NFL
Challenge mode. In the divisional ladder players are put to the test by playing
all the teams in the particular division, when you beat all the teams in one
division you can unlock more teams in other divisions to play against and other
fields become unlocked.

NFL Challenge mode put your skills to the test, as you have to complete various
challenges against the NFL teams. The challenges can be very easy, such as
scoring a touchdown in 4 plays, or hard like: score 36 points, you must have
four touchdowns and two of them must be from passing and two must be rushing
touchdowns. In the end, all of these challenges are rewarding because you can
unlock new places to play, new people to recruit on your team, and developing
your player’s skills.

The Playstation 2 version of NFL Street is the only one to feature online play.
The online mode plays really smoothly, I have a broadband connection and play
against someone who has a dialup and not once did we have any lag while playing.
As with all the other online EA games there is an “EA Messenger”, which allows
players to get buddies, store them, and see when they are online. Also included
is “EA Sports Talk”, this means that if you have a headset you can talk smack
with other players from around the US while playing a game.

The graphics for this game are outstanding! What makes this game better looking
than almost all other football games is that this game allows you to see the
player’s faces the entire game, there isn’t a huge helmet blocking the views.
This makes the game feel more realistic as you not only can see the player’s
stature but also the face, and all the accessories that they might wear. This
means that all of the character models look really nice and are bursting with
details.

The environments that the players will get their “game on” are nice and varied
and makes the game more challenging at times. The fields have little details on
them that make it very fun to play in and to see. Another neat effect is that
the players will leave footprints in the ground (when there is soil) and that
makes it feel even more realistic. My favorite is the beach level; there are so
many things that are going on, the subtle interactions and graphical effects
that make it so fun. The sand makes it harder to run and spin, the water is
coming in over the sand, and the beach balls move when you hit them. All of this
interaction makes this game so fun to play.

The music and sound effects to this game are also really good. Players are not
burdened down with heavy commentary like Madden but you get “smack talk” from
the players on either team about the previous play that just happened. The music
features such artists as Korn, X-Ecutioners, Fuel, and many others that really
fit well with this game. It also makes full use of Dolby Digital Pro Logic II,
so if you have a setup that allows it, it is well worth it!

NFL Street is rated E
for Everyone. It requires up to 58KB on your memory card and can play up to 1-4
players (via multitap). To play online you must have the Network card and
broadband or dialup. It also is compatible with AOL Dial-Up.

Reviewer’s Scoring Details

Gameplay: 9.4
The gameplay is
extremely tight and well done in this game! All of the players react to the
slightest touch of the controller and that is the way it should be! You can play
NFL Street
for months on end and you will never get bored with it.

Graphics: 9.2
The game looks really good. The character models are really nice, and it is
really good to see the player’s faces for a change on a football game.

Sound: 9.1
The trading commentary to “trash talking” on the field make this game sound
really good. You will hear some things in this game that you might expected to
hear when you or your friends are playing street football. The music and all the
other sound effects heard are really well done.

Difficulty: Medium
The game slowly ramps up the difficulty in single player to easy to really hard.
How hard the game is will depend on how fast you will be able to learn the ins
and outs of how the game works.

Concept: 9.3
Arcade sports games have been around for a while, (NFL Blitz anyone?), but this
was the first one that I have really enjoyed to this magnitude.

Multiplayer: 9.6
Playing with a friend makes this game even better. The only stupid thing about
this is that the plays stay on the screen after you make a selection so the
opposing player can see what play you choose, that is always bad. The
multiplayer is fun online too, there is so much to do and you will have a blast!


Overall: 9.3
EA Sports surprises me again and again with each new game that they release. NFL
Street is one of the best games that they have released this year. The game play
is intense, fun, and you will have a blast playing it every second!