EA Sports BIG games have generally received positive acknowledgement as being at the forefront of arcade sports action. SSX and NBA Street have both been awarded critical acclaim which has no doubt led to EA diversifying the concept to NFL and even more recently onto Soccer. Whereas basketball has a large and thriving street culture in the US, one could debate whether this could be said of American Football. A lack of a distinct background to a concept such as this means that designers wont have any reference point in real life and consequently no means to garnish exciting new modes from inside any existing NFL street scene.

This entire game could be summarised by saying that instead of being unfettered by enforced design constraints (the advantage of having no real life reference point), EA BIG are struggling for ideas to advance this series and unfortunately the new features are limited to say the least.

Graphically you would be hard pressed to find too much differentiation between NFL Street 1 and 2. The same cartoon like player models and smooth animations have carried over and little improvement in textures are noticeable. The street backgrounds are still mostly static landscapes that don't particularly set a scene for the action. However Street 2 is still not an ugly game by any means, the game flows with a solid frame rate and animations are performed in a smooth fashion. You couldn't really say the game is lacking any flash either with the usual pyrotechnic displays whenever a gamebreaker is successfully used.

EA BIG have gone to great lengths to portray the NFL stars in a comical fashion. A large amount of jerseys, chains, hats and sunglasses are available to dress out your favourite star. Unfortunately however we can't give Jamal Lewis a black and white prisoner's uniform and Randy Moss is stuck in Minnesota purple. As a whole, player models exceed those displayed in EA's other NFL game Madden 2005, with the lack of helmets giving way to greater range of facial emotions and expressions.

The real noticeable areas that have been focused on for improvement are largely special offensive moves. Now it's possible to use walls for leverage to complete massive over the top pass completions. Coupled with the new 'hot spot' system where a large number of points can be gained in selected areas, means that NFL Street 2 is now a massive offensive score fest. It doesn't really matter if you use a strong defensive team like Baltimore, you'll still give up loads of points. Even in arcade sports games there still needs to be balance between offensive and defense, sadly NFL Street 1 didn't have any and NFL Street 2 hasn't improved in this area either. One major source of frustration from NFL Street 1 that has been fixed is the terrible 'catch-up' A.I, it's nowhere as unfair in NFL Street 2 and it's great to have seen this rectified.

Like NBA Street 2, it's now possible to 'bank' your gamebreaker meter and store it for a second level move. This basically means you will score no matter what; however you could score in almost all circumstances with just one gamebreaker, so it's a little irrelevant worrying about a second. What a second gamebreaker does bring though is a nice little cut scene whereby you can gloat in your soon to come touchdown.

In terms of improvements to the bread and butter game modes, EA BIG have gone to the lengths of signing up the talents of musician Xzibit. I'm not really sure what relationship he has with the NFL but none the less here he is guiding you through a new mode called 'Own the City'. Basically it involves going from venue to venue and as EA puts it 'conquering the fields'. Theoretically Xzibit performs the same sort of function that Michael Jordan did on the original NBA Street, whereby every now and again he gives a little advice on how you're going and how much better you have to beat him when the time comes. The end goal of course is too take on Xzibit himself and his team of supposedly NFL Street freaks. So if you've ever had the desire to play a rapper in a game of street football here is your chance, otherwise one could justifiably wonder the relevance of including such a personality in a game such as this.

Alternatively gamers can explore other modes such as NFL Challenge and NFL Gautlet. The challenge mode is the most notable is providing games the opportunity to build a created character from scratch into the next Joe Montana or Dan Marino. Also included is a new mode dealing with a variety of street events. Most are little more than distractions, but occasionally the mode 'crush the carrier' can relieve tension by participating in a short game of hammering whoever has the ball. This is even nicer if someone like Priest Holmes is a competitor.

In the audio department NFL Street 2 will either suit your music tastes or you'll be reaching for the volume control in a hurry. EA BIG have used this opportunity to let Xzibit use Street 2 as a nice little promotional tool, as he features heavily on the games soundtrack. Other featured artists are largely in the same mould and genre. The games sound effects do the job, just as in the last game and don't really seem to have been enhanced any further and big tackles are possibly the only time when the sound effects will increase your excitement of the action.

Unfortunately, yet again online compatibility has been removed from a PAL release. EA are more or less telling European games that they are not willing to support gamers that have supported them in purchasing their software. EA are setting an unfortunate precedent here by constantly removing Xbox Live from the Australian releases of their sports games (except Fifa 2005) and it's disappointing to see us constantly receiving incomplete versions of their games. Hey, if the sport gets enough interest to warrant a PAL release, why not keep the online component in as well? We keep harping on it but enough is enough. NFL Street 2 is an enjoyably game that would have a much longer life span in your Xbox if you could take it online. As it is, it just feels too familiar to the last one, which if we wanted to play, we would already be doing so.