Fifa Street 3 is shallow, but fun

Fifa Street 3 is the newest edition in EA BIG's street version of the vastly popular sport that we all know and love as football. Or soccer if you will. Fifa Street 3 is actually quite a significant departure from the previous two entries in the series, both in graphical style and gameplay-wise. Whether that is actually is a good thing is entirely personal opinion, but I will say that Fifa Street 3 does play a bit more fluidly than its predecessors.

The gameplay in Fifa Street 3 isn't quite like Fifa Street 2. The difference lies in the trick system. In Fifa Street 2, beat moves and tricks in general were always canned animations. You pushed a button, the animation would start and the only thing that could stop it was a lucky guard by the opponent. Fifa Street 2 featured a ton of tricks, and as such it was a really flashy game, but due to the canned nature of the animations, the game didn't always have a good pace.

Fifa Street 3 is a bit different. Instead of having a ton of different tricks that can be activated with button-combos, the new Fifa Street has "types" of tricks. Tricks are done by three buttons. You've got your classic right analog stick gameplay, that allows you to do drags, and indeed, canned tricks not unlike those of the previous game, although these are way faster, and less extravagant. Other than that, the right stick only allows you to do skillbased drags that don't allow you to beat players, but look flashy. There's also  the Y button, which causes your player to launch the ball into the air. If you're running, he'll either simply knock the ball up to set up a volley, or beat a player. However, this is actually a pretty cheap tactic, because if an opponent decides to simply run across the small arena tapping Y, it can be really hard to stop him. Still, this does seperate the good players from the average players, who have more of a tendency to use that tactic. While standing still, the Y button allows you to juggle, although not as expansively as the previous game. Not that that is so bad, because juggling was useless in the previous game anyway. Lastly, the left trigger allows you to to some special tricks that are for the most part, just for show.

All these tricks make for a system that is pretty flexible, at least when compared to the previous Fifa Street games. There are less canned animations, and although some aspects such as tackling are far from fluid, it definitely

feels as though EA is getting somewhere with the gameplay. Gamebreakers are still in, in an improved format, and you now have 4 field players instead of 3, which is great. In the end, it almost seems like EA wanted to divert the attention away from heavy trick animation and more onto pure football scoring goodness. Although, the game still looks damn stylish at times.

One of the reasons it looks so stylish now is the brand new art style. The previous games had a pretty realistic look to them, which was a sharp contrast to their over-the-top gameplay. Not so in Fifa Street 3. The style is very cell-shaded and cartoony, and every feature of a player is accentuated and almost overblown. Robinho is extremely skinny in this one, while a big dude like Gattuso is absolutely huge, as evidenced by the boxart. You may or may not like it, but I feel it fits perfectly in the game's overall convoluted vibe. The overdone features also have a practical purpose. It's really easy to tell which of four types a player is, if the icon floating above his head isn't enough for you.

However, the true problem with Fifa Street 3 is a lack of content. The previous games didn't have all that much in

the way of modes, but this new Fifa Street steps it up another level. There is a quick match, a duel mode between two local players with a "best out of X wins" and there are challenges, which simply have you competing in a series of matches to unlock new "street teams", which are teams consisting of logical combinations of players. Other than that, there's Xbox Live matches. That's it. The online is pretty much dead anyway, you'll still find ranked matches certain times of the day, but other than that, you can't even find a good match. Challenges get pretty tough, but unless you desperately want new teams to play with, achievements are really the only driving force behind completion of the challenges. This is Fifa Street 3's main flaw; there just isn't enough variety to keep you going for long. I've had the game for 2 days now, and while I'll pick it up a couple of times in the future to play a quick match, it just doesn't have any lasting value, unless you really are addicted to it's gameplay.

Then again, it's hard to think up good modes for such a game. The freestyle challenges in Fifa Street 2 failed rather miserably at trying to create some extra content, so it's easy to see why the developers didn't even try.

The bottom line is; Fifa Street 3 definitely is fun if you're into soccer and freestyle tricks alot, but it's hard to find things in it that'll give it some lasting value. Even the achievements are unlocked very quickly indeed.