For complicated reasons that would go beyond the scope of this review, the hip hop culture and NFL football aren't an easy mix. Sure, they can overlap one another to an extent, but EA BIG's NFL STREET is a failed attempt to mash the two concepts together, like a child trying to merge two clays of different colors. Considering EA BIG's successful union of style and sport in the NBA Street and SSX franchises, they might as well try their hand doing it with the NFL, right? However, a factor that somehow goes lost in NFL Street is the “fun” one.
It all comes down to the controls. Football games are not the easiest things to play on consoles. After all, sports were never intended to be played on a television screen. However, EA has managed to master the art in a legendary way, starting with the John Madden franchise and leading to quite a few mimics. In NFL Street, things get a bit more complicated, because not only is the gamer expected to win, but he or she is expected to win with style.
Therefore, on top of having to learn how to juke, spin, jump, throw, intercept, tip, catch, block, pitch, dive, and run, NFL Street expects us also to be able to do these things in a way that looks good in the eyes of the developers. Beauty as a thing of relativity aside, looking good while playing is not just an option. In NFL Street, this is a MUST, because doing so during a match of 7 v.s. 7 raises the “Gamebreaker” meter.
The side that looks the best and looks the best most often can achieve a full Gamebreaker meter, and is close to invincible for one drive. Naturally, this has a giant effect on the strategy of a well-fought game, and makes learning how to do things with style all the more important.
Here's the problem: the learning curve for these style moves is VERY steep. This is unlike SSX Tricky, where there is an area where one can practice complicated moves to his or her heart's content, or long spaces of time during the normal game where one can just fool around. This is unlike a John Madden game, where there is a practice mode to get the feel of the buttons. In NFL Street, we are expected to learn all we need to know from a few seconds of footage and a commentator yelling at us about how to spin the rock. The nature of NFL football is such that the game is played amongst a series of pauses. This means that one only has a couple of seconds to learn a complicated style move at a time. Not to mention the fact that every play has to be different, or the difficult AI will simply have too much of a stifling defense to practice anything.
So basically, the most important factor of the game is a very hard and frustrating experience, with no help from a practice mode, while of course the enemy AI is a master at the craft and is sure to show off the best styles with every down.
It's at this point that most lovers of football videogames will just toss the latest version of John Madden in the PS2 and let it spin. Seriously, why deal with that, when the main thrust of a football game is the thrill of using different formations and strategies on the field? But for those who carry on (like those who are reviewing this game, or who don't have another football game to play) there are even MORE frustrations.
Basically, it has to do with what can be interpreted as superb cheating from the AI. In most sport games, the AI's hidden cheating desire comes out in the hard modes. In NFL Street, it's there right at normal mode. To win, the computer wide receivers will catch balls through the backs of defenders. The “pitch” move, where a ball carrier will pitch the ball back to another teammate, is abused like a red-headed stepchild in the hands of the AI. It's simply unstoppable; never mind that the initial ball carrier has his body mauled by a huge lineman. If the AI wants to pitch, even AFTER the carrier is mauled and flying through the air, the pitch will go and ALWAYS be caught perfectly.
The lousiest trick, however, is only seen by the advanced fools who actually manage to overcome the pitch and threaten to get a turnover on downs. If the computer's ball carrier is stopped short of the first down, he goes down like normal. HOWEVER, he will quite often fumble the ball(even though the runner is clearly down) and that ball will quite often be recovered by another of the computers players who is beyond the first down marker or quite willing to break the first few tackles to get to it. It's a dirty trick, as the computer's fumbles are recovered by the computer 99% of the time.
“WHAT? He was DOWN!” will be the cry of most gamers. And then they'll try to access the game's lousy replay mode. This mode is so bootleg. There's only the option to get two camera angles and speeds; that's it. Therefore, it's very hard to truly prove the cheapness of the computer's tactics.
At the same time, there is at least one trick that every AI in the history of EA football falls for; something that we'll call the “zig-zag”. When running with the ball in front of an approaching defender, they can still quite often be shaken by simply changing running direction at the last second. If they come again, change directions again, so that it looks like the man with the ball is zigzagging down the field. For some reason, no EA football defender can handle that. So, on top of showing where the computer cheats, there is also a place where the AI is simply not advanced.
Both the AI and the human side of any given NFL Street conflict don't have to worry about things such as holding, pass interference, false starts, or any other penalty. This IS street ball, of course, and referees aren't needed. The pass interference rule is perhaps the most missed, however, since the defender can simply slam into a wide receiver as he waits for a lob pass. Just imagine the abuse.
There are also no field goals, kickoffs, or time outs. There are no injuries either (they wear no helmets, so why do they wear shoulder pads?), even though people get smacked through the air like never before. There are very few initial plays in the playbook, unlike in the Madden series, and further plays have to be earned in the game's “challenge” and “ladder mode”. Once again, the strategical appeal to football is missed here...the number one reason for playing football is not to look good. It's the strategy of it all.
Only 7 people can play at once, and this means that they have to play offense and defense. That means every quarterback on the NFL teams are terribly useless whenever they're playing defense. Just imagine Brett Favre as a linebacker. Or how about Warren Sapp as a wide receiver? Right.
Despite the team development mode(a mainstay for all current sport games), the very well made caricatures of NFL players, the first funny and then annoying trash talking that takes place during the game(and which can be turned off, thank God), the variety of well-made ghetto football fields, the soundtrack that features Nas, Cyprus Hill, and Good Charlotte among others, this game misses the point and misses it badly. At first glance, the barely above average graphics, the hip-hop version of NFL uniforms, and the bone cracking sound during gameplay certainly seem like the game will have potential. But for the reasons stated in this review, no serious football gamer will play this longer than a week.
