NFL Street 2 - GameCube (GC) Reviews


	Platform GameCube Genre Sports Publisher Electronic Arts Developer EA Canada ESRB E (Everyone) Released December 2004

- Great fun with friends - Gamebreaker 2 moves - Several different modes of play - Lots of stuff to unlock

- Awful soundtrack - Needs an “auto-resolve” feature - No substantive changes from last year

Review: Madden 2005 (GC) Review: NCAA Football 2004 (GC) Review: ESPN NFL Football (XB)
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NFL Street 2

Score: 7.8 / 10

As a casual sports game fan – aside from hockey – NFL Street 2 is the kind of sports game that I recognize as being clearly aimed at people who don’t normally play sports games, let alone football. The “street” theme is used to good effect and the cartoonish look says, “Less serious gameplay!” than EA’s own Madden or NCAA football games, even though it manages to cram plenty of football strategy into the proceedings.

At least that’s what I’ve been told by hardcore football fans because the only strategy I ever used was throwing long on offense and random plays on defense.

I must say that offense is king. Even against the toughest AI opponents I scored on every other possession. And thanks to the new Gamebreaker 2 feature, scoring is even easier. My defense, although random, always seemed to shut down the opposing offense with little effort on my part. So much so I started to resent playing D. (Here’s an idea EA, how about an auto-resolve button for defensive possessions?) There was the occasional interception or tackle worth watching in the replay, but mostly it was a rush to get back on O and heaving the ball again.

On the presentation side, the soundtrack is a horrible mish-mash. Maintaining its string of impressively bad licensed soundtracks, EA hits more awfulness with NFL Street 2. If you like its particular brand of hip-hop/rock you’ll enjoy the soundtrack, otherwise you’ll turn the tunes all the way down to revel in the great sound effects.

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The graphics are smooth and easy to watch and there’s very little in the way of clipping problems. A side-by-side comparison between NFL Street 2 and the

original reveals that there hasn’t been much in the way graphical improvements. The character models are cartoonish versions of real world players – I know, I looked some of them up – and with the customization options you can make them even more true-to-life (or even more outlandish), though you still can’t purchase hand guns or crack cocaine.

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EA has pretty much nailed the control – years of experience has seen to that – which makes showing off with some impressive moves easy, including the ability to wall run like Shinobi or Prince of Persia. Anyone acclimatized to the GameCube controller will have no problems grasping all the options available.

NFL Street 2 also features a phenomenal number of unlockables, many modes of play (including the ludicrously silly Own the City mode), etc. When played with a few buddies I whole heartedly recommend taking NFL Street 2 for a spin no matter your genre preference, but taken as a single-player experience – football fan or not – it’s the old chant, “Try before you buy” thanks to the ease at which you can score, the awful soundtrack and the fact it’s not a huge leap over the original title.

- Omni

(February 11, 2005)