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Published
by EA Sports
Developed by EA Sports BIG
Release Date: Out Now
Price: £39.99
Crazy
or 'extreme' sports titles have been popular for quite a
few years now and the range of sports being covered is quite
surprising. Early last year EA Sports BIG bought us NFL
Street which took the basics of the game and threw in some
crazy game modes. The game proved to be popular. A year
later and we have the sequel to the game in the shape of
NFL Street 2.
NFL
Street 2 offers you a choice of Quick Game, Own the City,
Street Events, NFL Challenge, NFL Gauntlet and Pickup Game.
Own the City is where most will spend their time with the
game and it challenges you to play all of the events in
Bay City and improve your player's skills along the way.
You'll get the chance to recruit ballers to your crew and
play other local teams. To begin with you'll pick a team
logo, give the team a name and set your team colours. Finally
you'll get to create your player by picking a position and
distributing 250 development points between 10 skills before
picking their appearance. Completing tasks will open up
other challenges as well as earn you development points
to improve your player. Street Events contains a collection
of game variations for you to play in a one-off game. NFL
Challenge essentially gives you 150 days to build a team
to challenge the NFL stars whilst NFL Gauntlet allows you
to take on the NFL teams and unlock various rewards. Pickup
Game basically allows you to pick a team from a random pool
of players for an exhibition game.
In
many ways NFL Street 2 comes across as a simplified and
rather wacky NFL game. You have the simplified playbooks,
the reduced number of players and a focus on style moves.
In fact games can either be decided by touchdowns or style
points (that you get for stylish moves and such like). The
thing to remember though is that the game doesn't take itself
seriously like games such as NBA Street and SEGA Soccer
Slam. When games are played in car parks and players can
run up the wall you know you're in for a different kind
of NFL experience. Whilst all of this is wacky it certainly
hangs together pretty well as a game. The real problem though
is who is the games target audience? To me it seems like
it would appeal more to those who don't play Madden NFL
2005 or ESPN NFL 2K5 because of its simplistic cut-down
nature. Those who have experienced the excellent Madden
and NFL 2K5 might see the game as too simplistic and offering
little challenge. Yes its fun for a while but all the wackiness
can become very repetitive. NFL Street 2 actually looks
like it could have been a lot of fun online. The US version
of NFL Street 2 does have online play but again we have
a game that arrives in Europe with online support taken
away.
NFL
Street 2 certainly offers the chance to play in some rather
unusual places and for the most part the game looks fairly
good. The graphics aren't up to the standard of those in
the Madden NFL 2005 though but they certainly look OK. What
you'll see in NFL Street 2 is a rather varied collection
of player models and they certainly come in all kinds of
exaggerated shapes and sizes. The locations where you play
in the game (such as the building site, the aqueduct etc.,)
could have looked better though because the detail has been
kept fairly simple. Even details such as the textures for
the grass look bland which is a little disappointing.
Sports
games are almost always the same for deaf gamers in that
they don't have the commentary and other presentational
frills, etc. subtitled. NFL Street 2 is also the same in
this respect but unfortunately the tutorials are not subtitled
either which makes learning the game difficult. We haven't
got to look at the game manual so it's impossible to say
just how damaging not having subtitles for the tutorials
is. However it's the first sports game in a while where
the tutorials have been delivered via speech only and it's
something we hope we don't see too often. The cutscenes
in the game are not subtitled either which again is unfortunate
as they give you your objectives. Thankfully you can access
the objectives from the pause menu. Comments from players
during a game are not subtitled either which is to be expected.
On the whole it's not a great game for deaf gamers and is
rather worse in its provision for deaf gamers than other
sports games.
All
things considered NFL Street 2 is quite enjoyable but there
are real question marks over the games longevity and it
suitability for deaf gamers. The first couple of days you
play the game you'll more than likely find it a fun experience,
albeit a rather shallow one for fans of the NFL simulations
such as Madden NFL 2005. Played for any great length of
time though it becomes repetitive and despite the modes
on offer it's not long before you've seen it all. Yes there
are items to unlock but these aren't really enough to keep
you playing. If you're in the US you'll have the advantage
of being able to take the game online and I can see how
this would add extra value to the game and make it more
worthwhile. However in the UK and the rest of Europe playing
online is not an option and makes the game a less appealing
prospect.
Overall
Game Rating: 6.0/10
Too simplistic for fans of Madden and NFL 2K5 and a lack
of replay value for everyone else. It's a shame that the
online mode was cut from this version as it would have added
value to the game.
Deaf
Gamers Classification:
(Click
the letter or here
for details)
Most
sports games usually earn a C grade but there's so much
missing for deaf gamers in NFL street 2 that a C grade wasn't
justified.
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