FIFA Street. The game

Putting ths here rather than in the review section, as I'm not doing a full review. Just a short message to say I bought the new FIFA street game last week. If you ever wanted a simple sports game that is a tremendous amount of fun to play, this is the one. I tend to buy the normal FIFA games every couple of years as I like football games. However, I'm not a great football fan. I don't know all the teams, players, and tactics and I don't follow the weekly progress of the leagues. So the normal games with all the detail and management modes are a bit wasted on me.

FIFA street is different. It's street football, so it's stripped back. Smaller teams, shorter competitions, simpler tactics and formations. So you can dive straight in with your custom team and start playing. Tournaments make up the bulk of the world tour mode, with specific challenges added as well to earn various bonuses.

The gameplay is superb. Its familiar to those who have played FIFA before, but this time its tweaked to make it easier and more fun to pull of various flicks and tricks and special skill moves. This is the meat of FIFA street. Matches tend to take place on walled pitches which are much smaller than standard pitches. There is more need to play around your opponents, outfox them, and out trick them. Flick a ball over his head, dummy around him, nutmeg him. It's what makes it so fun because you start playing basic football but as you progress and level up your players, you earn new tricks and better skills. And the prettier you play with more tricks, the faster you level up.

It really is far far more fun that the normal FIFA games. You end up laying for far longer than you intended.

For me it's a 9.5 out of ten highly recommended!

I haven't played a football game in years! Even though I only have the most passing of interests in football (read that as very fair weather and only watches matches during internationals...) the games used to be quite fun. I remember one, either the Emlyn Hughes or Sensible Soccer where if you charged down the wing and then cut in at angle before shooting at the same angle you sent it through the keepers legs every time!

I think that was EH. I seem to have a vague recollection of the other one having refs that were a bit card happy and me ending up with about 7 or 8 men!

That was Emelyn Hughes as I recall. See, you don't have to worry about cards on Street, or offside traps, or any of that other cobblers. Grab the ball, blast it down the pitch, it bounces off the wall by the side of the goal, and your forward, who has run through, volleys it into the net.

I may take a look at some point, although games like that appeal more to me when played in groups rather than individuals. They are good for game nights!

My next purchase will be Kingdoms of Amalur, as we've seen it being played and it's also had a good review from Helen's brotherm, who is hard to impress being a serious gamer. After that it'll be The Witcher 2.

I've never enjoyed football games but I guess I might give it a try if I see it cheap, so probably not for a long time yet. Do they release a new version of Fifa Street every year?

The 2 games I'm playing ATM are C&C: Red Alert (PS1) and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. No intention of buying any more games for a while though.

Not ever year. I think this is about the third one. Download the demo and gve it a go. It's good fun. Matt and I had some great games over the weekend.

What's that about football?

All I hear being talked about is some silly little small time game with jerseys and nets.

Oh, i'm gonna get it for that, aren't I?

To be fair though, I'm jus' trollin'

I don't really care for either sport, to be honest. Sorry about that.

I just find the cultural difference funny.

No, not at all. Its only the most popular and played game in the world (and this comes from someone who isn't a football fan), whereas your version is a bastardised version of a game which you then watered down because you were all too much of a bunch of lightweight fairies to play sport without putting armour on.

Not to mention that the game American football is based on, rugby, is itself a watered down version of a game originally played by ultra-posh chinless wonders at Eaton. A game in which no-one has actually scored a goal for something like the last 30 years.

And don't even get me started on you having a world series of a game that only you and drunk Japanese people play.

I knew that would happen.

But seriously, the cultural differences are what makes it interesting. The US and the UK have so much in common, and yet there are little things on which we are worlds apart. Its what makes visiting the US or Canada fun - that sense of the familiar, but slightly reorganised and different. Like walking into your house to find someone has moved all the furniture around.

My dad watches American Football constantly. 24/7 if he can help it. Won't even get his ass up to drive to the pharmacy to pick up my mother's medication if it's on. He stands up and rants and raves and seems genuinely angry at everything that happens.

I have nothing against the game itself I guess, but in all honesty, I kind of get annoyed by the game, because of my father's obsession with it. That seems to be the majority i'm familiar with it.

But I do think that NFL games like Madden are quite fun. I have played and do own one. I like the game, somewhat. But am not a big fan.

And for the record, I think that UK Football, that is to say, Soccer to us, actually looks like it takes real dexterity and skill.

Not just a bunch of guys built like trains slamming into each other and delaying the game every 2 seconds for penalties and over-inflated contrived rulings, that goes on forever. That seems to be my impression of American Football. It's more boring than baseball and goes on for ages.

Neeeeever use the s word...it's football. We had it first! A closer comparison would probably be rugby. I actually enjoy watching that and I agree, it does seem to have more skill to it.

For me, though, watching a Gridiron game () or baseball would be as much about the experience as anything. To have tried it.

Last football game I got was Fifa 10. I mostly played it online against my friends in Cambridge. I can imagine the new Fifa Street game being a lot of fun.

Its really a cracking game. I can't recommend it highly enough.

However, if you want a fantastic game for very little money, then download Trials:Evolution from XBox live. Incredibly simply premise of a motorcycle trials game in which you use throttle, brakes, and the balance of the rider's weight on the bike to cross obstacles. Amazingly simple and yet one of the best executed and best presented games on the XBox at ANY price.

Looks great, plays fantastically, is wonderfully addictive, has a brilliant learning curve, has great customisation in that you can make not only your own tracks, but your own mini-games based around the premise, and it cost something like £9.

Has to be the bargain of the year. Its what every full price game should aspire to be, at a quarter of the price.