ith Terrell Owens and Joe Horn trying to one-up each other in the TD celebration department – and the criticism both have drawn – the NFL can now officially be called the "No-Fun League." Given the sheer amount of taunting, trash talk, and actual fun being had in NFL Street, it’s almost surprising that the league has sanctioned it. If only there were refs you could take out at the knees.
A good football team is all about each player executing their job. Yours is to showboat every chance you get. If you’re not High Steppin’ your way to the TD or teasing an opponent by waving the ball in his face, then I don’t want you on my team. NFL Street gives you every opportunity to spread humiliation on the other team like butter on toast. Throwing, jukeing, pitching the ball – all can be done to gain Style points by holding down L1 while you hit the appropriate button. You can also pull off Signature moves using L2 and the right analog stick.
Do enough showboating and you’ll earn a GameBreaker you can play at anytime (which can be used to trump your opponent’s own GameBreaker), similar to NBA Street. However, my problem with this title is these don’t happen often enough, and that the game doesn’t do much with them. While you are guaranteed a score or turnover if you use one, they don’t take away points like in NBA Street or do anything new. If they were more plentiful, they’d create more of a tug of war between teams and the title could flow almost like a Tony Hawk run. A quicker payoff would also go really well with the game’s already manic pace. I often had times where I would fumble the ball doing a style move, and then the other team would do exactly the same thing all in the span of one play. This fun is ultimately limited, however, and isn’t helped by the below average intelligence of your AI teammates. I also wish hot routes and a swat move for defensive backs were added.
The shortcomings in the gameplay don’t kill NFL Street, but ultimately limit the amount of time you’ll spend with it in one sitting. This is a shame for the career mode. You build up your created team’s stats through completing challenges, and then you pit your players against the NFL, playing each division at a time. Unfortunately, you can’t use your favorite team in this mode (which is annoying), although you can steal individual players off of NFL franchises. All in all, Street is more of a pure multiplayer experience. Its online features (PS2 only), including pitting your created team against others, are a blast. The virtual taunting is going to make people cry. Sweet.
I can honestly say that this is the first non-hardcore sim football game I’ve had fun with. Strip away some of the gloss (which isn’t even present on the graphics – blah!), however, and it’s apparent that despite EA Big’s experience with extreme versions of sports, this feels every bit like the first entry in the franchise that it is.
The Edge
With online the exclusive property of PlayStation 2, you'd think that it would be the best console to play it on. That's certainly true for multiplayer, but visually, I like the GameCube. The system's slightly subdued colors actually help clean up some of the jaggies that are rampant in the PlayStation 2 edition and which even affect the Xbox, believe it or not. At first the GameCube controller was the last thing I'd want to put in my hands for Street, but I found the oversized triggers help my Signature Style flow. And that, my friends, is the name of the game.