NFL Street 2

What good would ��street�� football be if you couldn��t talk trash to complete strangers? Expect NFL Street 2 to offer online mainstays like the messenger, buddy list, and voice chat for broadband gameplay. You also have multiple modes to play, like jump ball battle or open field showdown.

Zany football has made its way back to the consoles, and this time, it��s coming with a few more bells and whistles as Electronic Arts strives to deliver a thorough taste of ��streetness.�� Does it work? Unsurprisingly, yes. NFL Street 2 offers a nice break from the simulation grind and neatly fills the power vacuum created when Midway��s over-the-top Blitz took a holiday.

Street 2 captures the feeling of pickup football, and like its predecessor, this is still a solid game. The new play features aren��t a major overhaul; among them is the ability to use the environments to some advantage. The coolest additions are the new game modes such as street events, including the 4-on-4 schoolyard-favorite crush the carrier. EA has captured the hedonistic chaos the game has in real life, as players chase whomever has the ball while he runs for his life. And thankfully, it��s also sweetened up the collection of football legends, providing players with unlockable Randall Cunninghams and Mean Joe Greenes.

The new hurdling and jumping-off-the-wall features are fun, but not as sexy as they sound on paper. It��s just a quick little jump or push off the wall that doesn��t seem nearly as cool as it did in the trailers with all the slow motion and funky camera angles. And the small lighting improvements simply make the characters look shiny, as if they were plastic action figures.

So Street 2 succeeds, but not necessarily because of its vast improvements. Still, the extra games EA added are attention-worthy treats speaking to the schoolyard athlete in everyone, no matter how uncoordinated or out of shape.

07 OUT OF TEN

PUBLISHER: Electronic Arts // DEVELOPER: EA Tiburon // PLAYERS: 1-4 // LIVE: Yes // MSRP: $49.99 // ESRB: E

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Xbox Nation.