The World Tour is essentially a selection of the different match types available in the exhibition mode, with a championship tournament serving as a finale for each region. This means that they can proceed at their own pace, although those who decide to ratchet up the difficulty earn more than novices in the form of unlockable gear, such caps, hoodies, shorts and so on. While all of this sounds rather complicated, it's actually an absolute breeze to get to grips with, thanks to the World Tour mode, where players can set the difficulty on a match-by-match basis. Fifa 12's tactical defending system is plugged into the proceedings, so players can jockey and contain attackers. There's no slide-tackling in the game, but players can execute standing tackles as well as bump and barge each other.
In defence, the key is busting up any momentum the opposing team tries to get going, and this means sticking to your opposing number like glue. They can then flick it over or past an opponent, or pull it back over their own shoulder if they're being crowded. Click the right bumper and your player starts to juggle the ball with their feet. Once their opposing number starts to harry them, players can quickly flick or feint away with the ball and create space for pass or a shot on goal. Pull the left trigger, and your player plants one of his feet in the ground and wheels the ball around, baiting opponents and protecting the ball with his body. Flicking it this way and that produces heel-chops, feints and step-overs, but rotating it in set patterns produces pirouette moves, rainbow flicks and a host of other nifty tricks to baffle opponents. The left-stick, for example, is essentially the player's toolbox for faking out opponents. The controls will be familiar to anyone who has played a Fifa title in the last few years the face buttons, triggers and bumpers all mirror Fifa's interface, with a couple of exceptions. It feels, and to some degree, plays a little bit like an arcade fighter players need to learn all the finesse dribbles and trick moves, and then chain them together to get the better of their opponents. The focus here is all about individual ball skills, trick dribbling, faking out opponents and building up fluid momentum while moving the ball up pitch.
Even their tracksuits look licensed.īut, if you're prepared to look past the cooler-than-thou presentation, Fifa Street is an admittedly excellent game, even if it does comes across like Fifa's show-off younger brother. The arenas they frequent are graffiti covered carparks and indoor arenas. This isn't the case anymore now the players look just like they do in real life. Its players weren't sportsmen, they were superheroes who could pull of flamboyant tricks, run up walls and bang in goals with bicycle kicks from miles outside the box. In the past, Fifa Street was a cartoon-like and refreshing alternative to EA's Fifa franchise. This, as anyone who remembers the hey-day of Fifa Street, is a pity. This told me that Fifa Street was going the same way as SSX, EA's other reboot of a gem from EA Sports Big's back catalogue, where all the zany, incredibly fun silliness in past iterations has been replaced with an aesthetic that is both unblinkingly serious and achingly cool. Not that I have a problem with Messi as either a player or a person, it's just that he didn't look like an outlandish caricature of himself and lightning wasn't flying out of his feet. I have to confess to feeling a little irked when I saw Lionel Messi doing keepy-ups on the cover of the new Fifa Street.