“Skill Beat!” – FIFA Street (2012)

**FIFA Street** (EA Sports, Xbox 360, 2012)

There are three broad things that individual technique-focused sports games can succeed on. One is the mechanics of the activity they represent, and how fun it is to carry out. Something like Virtua Tennis impressed most in how much it absolutely nailed those basics. Then there is turning that activity into some kind of competitive structure, how the significance of whatever you are doing builds up over events and sessions. That’s what made Cool Boarders 2 stand out for me. Finally, tying it all together, there’s the more intangible matter of how it’s all presented. Style. That doesn’t necessarily have to mean “stylish” in an obvious way, so much as unified and appealing. That was the thing that made Wii Sports stand out from all its competitors once they came along.

Sometimes games are strong in all three. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and its sequel certainly were, and it made for magic. Straying a bit further in genre, the same went for Need for Speed: Underground, which acted as inspiration for the original FIFA Street. (I believe this is the first time on Super Chart Island that I’m covering a #1 game with the exact same name as a previous one I also covered. It will not be the last time.) FIFA Street did decently well on underlying mechanics, was mediocre on structure, and had about as good a go at style as was possible within corporate constraints. In an impressive own goal, its sequel did nothing to improve the first two, and nuked the third. After staggering on from there to another, less successful, sequel, no wonder it was time for a short break and a rethink.

FIFA Street (the 2012 version) has a good go at rethinking how the basics of the game work. It is still a game of tricksy playground football built on the framework of the main FIFA games, but it has a much more developed approach to tricks. You use the right stick to move the ball around in different directions, or can take the option of a shoulder button to juggle the ball up in the air. Finally there is the chance to hit the sprint button and hopefully stick the ball through your opponent’s legs (a ‘panna’, although the game references the more UK-familiar ‘nutmeg’ at points too). It draws attention to each confrontation and gives it its own story, complete with different rewards for different methods of getting through.

That provides the foundations for some good ideas for the event structures too. One mode is the Panna mode, where you earn points for each of those ways of beating an opponent and then have to score the next goal to bank them. Micro and macro strategy fit together perfectly, and add an extra level to the more basic joy of flicking a ball up in the air and volleying it. Thoughtful invention goes through other modes too, including the 4 v 4 Last Man Standing one where you lose a player each time you score a goal and try to get down to no players first. Success flows into increased difficulty and vice versa. The game strings these all together into a decent career mode, too, with a variety of locations and challenges.

This is a much more sophisticated and developed take on street football than the original FIFA Street. However, that leaves the crucial third element of style, and this game does not have it. The original’s pirate radio vibes gave it a fresh and dynamic atmosphere which went a long way. The 2012 version has some security camera-looking replay angles and… that’s about it. It has Wretch 32 ft. Example on the soundtrack highlighting their unorthodoxy, but they could just as easily do that on a mainline FIFA. The rather uniform appearance of your team members’ clothes is better than FIFA Street 2 in that it’s actually functional, but it rather takes the fun away from the cosmetic upgrades.

The effect on the experience of playing the 2012 game is a real drag. When you play six-a-side tournaments against teams from Blackburn and Wolves, it’s all too carefully organised to feel like a fantasy. It just feels unrealistic. The lack of swag is so all-encompassing it may even be behind FIFA 97’s indoor mode. And to me, that’s bigger than any of the improvements. For a game that’s about trying to win things with individuality and invention, it matters when no individuality or invention comes through in anything else about it. As compromised as it was, at least the original FIFA Street didn’t fail on that.