“Stop buying your albums from the supermarket” – FIFA Street 2

**FIFA Street 2** (EA Sports Big, PlayStation 2, 2006)

In my post on FIFA Street, I talked about MC Harvey’s performance in the game, doing ”quadruple service as commentator, hypeman, provider of advice, and stand-in for the mates you’re messing around with”, and concluded that “his infectious enthusiasm is one of the game’s highlights”. Others at the time did not take the same view. The view of Kristan Reed of Eurogamer was that “the completely-off-his-head DJ-cum-commentator might drive the average sane person to resort to pouring absinthe on their cornflakes to block out his insane ramblings”, and yes, this was presented next to a cringeworthy treatise on just how street the writer wasn’t. I can only conclude that EA must have listened to the Kristan Reeds out there, because I can’t see any other explanation for FIFA Street 2.

The street football matches in it are broadly similar to FIFA Street, with small teams and a range of tricks to pull off alongside trying to stick the ball in the net. There is a new camera angle looking up the pitch lengthwise, which takes a bit of getting used to. The first game’s rather clever arrangement of each team in loosely uniform colours is replaced by everyone wearing whatever they want, which never stops rendering the first half of each match an exercise in trying to remember who you should be passing to. Games are mostly played to the first team to score two goals and are generally shorter. But the basics work much the same. It’s just the feeling that’s gone.

FIFA Street was a very limited and corporate take on the culture of street football. And yet, playing FIFA Street 2, I miss even that. Trying to introduce more moves specific to individual players makes it feel (even) more of a brand extension and less like an impromptu game which happens to have some familiar faces. The commentary and take on pirate radio are gone, replaced by music in a more traditional radio format where the DJ comments on the music and not the action. The DJ in question being Radio 1’s Zane Lowe, who may have promoted hip-hop sometimes but did so from the safe distance of being a white rock guy who once did Jay-Z’s bit for Snow Patrol’s cover of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love”.

It turns out that after pulling off some flicks before volleying the ball into the goal, seeing it again is just so much less exciting without an enthused cry of “let’s take another look!”. Even some of the format changes have a similar effect. Building up combos now gives you not a guaranteed power shot, but a chance to do a one-goal KO by extending it further still. Except that the two-goal matches mean that there is a strong chance the next goal would be a winning one anyway, taking it from gamebreaker to complete anti-climax.
Released barely a year after FIFA Street, in a year which would have three FIFA games, FIFA Street 2 adds nothing of consequence to the game while ditching much of what made it distinctive. It’s not the worst game I’ve played for Super Chart Island, but it may be the most pointless.