FIFA Street 3 Review

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There is a sprint button, but it's rarely enough to close players down from behind, even on such a tight pitch, so patience and timing are more important than strategic thought. The most satisfying thing to do on defence is intercept the ball and hold onto it for the duration of the opposition's Gamebreaker, and inevitably there's an Achievement for overcoming that disadvantage skilfully enough to score a goal on the counter-attack. Decking a show-boater as he balances the ball behind his head is a decent thrill as well.

In terms of gameplay modes, offline the main attraction is FIFA Street Challenge, where matches are grouped together and you get a set number of attempts to complete each cluster, after which you unlock some more. Winning conditions are varied too - sometimes it's a simple case of scoring the most goals before the clock runs down, but sometimes it's first-to-five, the first to build up a particular lead, or the first to score five headers or volleys. There are also games where only Gamebreaker attempts will score goals, or when Gamebreaker is turned off completely. In FIFA Street Challenge, you also gradually build toward targets, like 20 Gamebreaker goals, which unlock new teams. Rather than splitting things into clubs and countries, there are line-ups like "Stocky" (hello, Mark Viduka), "Tall" (Crouchigol! Voller! Ibrahimovic!) and "Veterans" (Sukur, Lehmann, etc), and while you can only pick five players, bundled into superficial brackets like Enforcers and Finishers, you do get to choose from a larger squad for each team.

This plainly isn't a street. Environments also include rooftops and quaysides. If the ball goes out, it's given back to one of the keepers.

Other offline modes are Head-to-Head, where you and up to three friends pick a game mode and a number of rounds to play, and the nostalgic Playground Picks, where you and a friend choose a particular country (say, Brazil) and then pick teams from the ten players available one by one, as if you were dividing up your friends on the playground. There's also a Practice mode for mucking about with no one to beat but the keeper. Online, options are much the same as off, but with more supported players, with Playground Picks available, ranked and unranked matches, and leaderboards.

Overall then it's shallow, unpretentious fun, which isn't good enough to build up a big score but is enough to satisfy the undemanding football fan who loves those Nike ads. Attacking quickly becomes repetitive and limited, and Gamebreaker encourages you to simply sit back and juggle boringly until you've got enough juice to fire off a shot and bank the accumulated skills-meter earnings. Defensively there is a logic to uphold, but more often than not things descend into frustration and mashing, which isn't much fun. There are also times when it goes a bit wrong, resulting in some comical own goals where the ball bounces down off the back-boards and your defender gormlessly chests it past his No.1 (and of course we get it all wrong a few times on EGTV).