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In my opinion, NFL Street is one of the best American football games that’s not simulation-focused. It’s an arcade-style seven-on-seven football game modeled after street football. No penalties, no injuries, players hit hard, and it emphasizes aggressive play making for fast-paced and exciting games. Instead of a franchise or coaching mode, it features the NFL Challenge mode which is like a football RPG of sorts, allowing you to improve your players as you progress and even build a team of NFL stars. Ultimately, the game is a ton of fun and I’ve been looking forward to jumping into the sequel. Developed by EA Tiburon and published by EA Sports BIG, NFL Street 2 was released for GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox in December, 2004, and a port for the PlayStation Portable titled NFL Street 2 Unleashed was released in March, 2005. For this review, I played the Xbox version.
Set in Bay City, the core gameplay is basically unchanged when compared to the previous game. It’s seven-on-seven street football featuring NFL teams and players, played in various locations around the city. There are no penalties or injuries and you are encouraged to play aggressively. Hits and tackles often look brutal and awesome and players will constantly taunt each other. Although, one minor gripe I have is that much of the dialogue is recycled from the first game. NFL Street 2 does feature new moves, a new GameBreaker mechanic, new game modes, feats, credits, and an in-game store where you can spend credits on character customization options. Feats are like in-game achievements and you are awarded credits for completing them. If you have saves from other EA games like NFL Street and Madden NFL 2005 among others on your system, you’ll be awarded credits from the get-go. I should also mention that NFL Street 2 features rapper Xzibit as – I’ll call him your guide. He talks you through the tutorials and shows up in different modes to explain things. He even has his own team.
You can perform the same moves as before including pitching, juking, stiff arm, hurdling, and diving, but now you can utilize walls. Players can run along walls, jump off walls, and perform moves on hot spots located on walls to accumulate bonus style points and some even unlock NFL legend players in the draft pool. Just like in the previous game, you earn style points by completing plays and performing style moves. Style points fill the GameBreaker meters of which there are two. Activating a GameBreaker after the first meter fills grants you certain benefits just like it did in the last game. If you earn enough points to fill up the second meter, you can activate a GameBreaker 2. Doing so, results in a cut scene and on offense, one of your players will stylishly get over the line of scrimmage. On defense, you’ll automatically get the ball back. This hasn’t really changed my opinion on the GameBreaker mechanic as a whole. I can see the appeal especially if playing casually or with friends. But sometimes it can be annoying when playing against the CPU.
The Quick Game, NFL Challenge, and Pickup Game modes return with NFL Challenge seeing the biggest differences from the previous game. You build a team and are given a set amount of days to improve it. You must complete challenges for rewards, both of which scale based on the difficulty. Rewards include NFL stars, gear, and development points that can be spent to improve players. The challenges consume a certain amount of days so you’ll want to pick wisely, and this is all in an effort to compete in the tournament and win. Honestly, I think I prefer how the mode worked in the previous game or maybe just the challenges it offered because I found many of the challenges here to be tedious. They are designed to test your skills but some are just frustrating cases of trial and error.
Own the City, NFL Gauntlet, and Street Events are new game modes. In Own the City, you must create a player and team and leave your mark all across the city, improving your player and team in the process. In NFL Gauntlet, the goal is to take on all the NFL teams and unlock rewards. Street Events are simply variations of the game, some of which are more like minigames and they are featured in the Own the City mode. Own the City is the big new mode here. You’ll play pickup games, street events, and local games. Completing these does award you development points which can be spent to improve your character and winning a pickup game allows you to recruit a new player for your team. As mentioned earlier, some street events are more like minigames, the standout being Crush the Carrier. In this event, multiple players basically battle for possession of the ball and you earn points for possession, style moves, and tackling ball carriers. Once you complete Own the City, you can export your player to your NFL Challenge team and even Madden 06.
As mentioned before, the core gameplay is basically unchanged from the previous game. That means it’s still a ton of fun here and the wall moves add an interesting new layer to the gameplay. If you can master the mechanics, you can easily move the ball with running plays because you can run on and jump off walls to evade defenders. The CPU seems to always try and utilize walls on running plays in my experience and once again, if you’re far ahead of the CPU team, the game will make a sometimes obvious effort to catch them up. Couple this with the GameBreaker mechanics and you may sometimes feel cheated out of wins. At least I think so. Despite the arcade-style gameplay, it’s still a game of strategy but the GameBreaker mechanics almost guarantee turnovers and scores no matter how good or bad you or the opposing team is doing. And that’s why I don’t like them. But again, I can see the appeal and how it can be fun when playing casually or with friends.
NFL Street 2 retains the visual style of its predecessor and features new environments or fields and each one looks and feels distinct. You’ll get to play games in an aqueduct, on top of a building, and in an alley, among other locations. You can see people in the backgrounds, cars will be driving around, and you’ll hear typical sounds of the city along with people cheering during games. I do find NFL Street 2 to be a little more atmospheric than its predecessor and it’s mainly due to the locations and audio. The animations are solid and many of the hits and tackles look hard and brutal and sound brutal thanks to great audio work. The gameplay is backed by a soundtrack consisting of hip hop and rock and the Xbox version does support custom soundtracks. On the technical side, I encountered no major issues.
I had a great time with NFL Street 2 and feel it is an overall improvement over its predecessor. I do prefer the NFL Challenge mode in the previous game but the mode here should keep players occupied for a while and in general, there’s a lot more to see and do in NFL Street 2. It’s good arcade-style American football. Own the City is a cool new mode where you create a player and basically make him a legend. NFL Street 2 does include fun modes and what I would consider minigames. I can’t say I would keep coming back just for them but some are quite enjoyable. Most importantly, the gameplay is fun. Much of what was great about the gameplay in the first game has been carried over and the developer expanded upon it. Plays are often exciting, players will hit hard, and the wall moves can be fun and look cool and add an interesting layer to the gameplay. And of course, the GameBreaker mechanic returns and the new GameBreaker 2 gives players an additional way to break things. Overall, NFL Street 2 is a solid package and great alternative to the more simulation-focused football titles.
I absolutely recommend NFL Street 2. If you enjoyed the previous game, you should enjoy this. It’s more of the same with more content. Games are fun and exciting, there’s plenty to do, and plenty to unlock. It may not offer the same kind of depth you would see in a franchise mode from any of the football games of the golden era but there is a lot here to keep players occupied for a long time and it can be enjoyed with friends. Definitely check it out.