Since first delving into the world of console based NFL games there has been no shortage of new games for me to keep trying out. EA bought out their yearly update of Madden, Microsoft released NFL Fever 2004 and Sega released their excellent ESPN NFL2K4 which has been responsible for some of the best Xbox Live gaming moments that I've yet to experience. I'm also a big fan of Ice Hockey games but have always preferred the arcade, action packed versions of them such as NHL Hitz. With this in mind, i've been curious to try a more 'arcade' styled NFL game as well.

Carrying on from the successful NBA Street series of basket ball games, EA have released NFL Street, a no holds barred, full on action packed, bone crunching street based version of NFL. It's all about gigantic, over the top tackles, forcing fumbles, trash talking and no kicking. That's right, no kicking. The basic premise of NFL still exists in that you get 4 plays to move the ball 10 yards. Select from a variety of running plays, passing plays and trick plays and the object is to fake out the opposition, make the hard yards and score touchdowns any way possible. When you score, you have the option then of running for a conversion for 1 point or passing for 2 points.

Sound easy? If you've played NFL games in the past you would probably think so and while I'm not a NFL newbie, I'm far from a skillful player and I found the initial 4 or 5 hours spent with NFL Street to be extremely frustrating. The opposition would always make their fourth downs, always make 2 point conversions, force me to fumble and create turnovers and generally make me look like a complete idiot. The trick I realised is to head to the challenge mode first. Here you are given various challenges to pass for which you earn rewards. You can earn attribute points to use in building up your team, extra moves for your playbook, clothing and also special equipment that gives your player a statistics boost. The challenges vary from simple tasks such as ‘Score a TD on your first drive to earn 100 attribute points' to full on almost impossible scenarios such as ‘Stop the opposition team scoring while they have a Gamebreaker move going to earn loads of attribute points'. There are plenty of easily beatable challenges and after a few hours of perseverance you should be able to boost your teams' stats up to a competitive level.

If you've played NBA Street you will be familiar with the ‘Gamebreaker' moves. During your passing and running plays you can hold the Left trigger down to do ‘Styling' moves. While running your player will do fancy tricks with the ball and the more you do, the more style points you are awarded at the end of a successful play. Be careful though as it's easier to fumble the ball when showing off. Eventually after completing loads of style passes, style runs, style pitches and other fancy moves your Gamebreaker meter will fill up and let you perform a Gamebreaker move.

When activated your Gamebreaker move gives you a massive advantage, a small cut scene shows your player getting all hyped up and if on offense you are able to smash your way through the defense and a touchdown is almost inevitable. If on defense, turnovers are easier to force. You can also store your Gamebreaker move and if the opposition team tries to pull one off, you can cancel theirs out by activating yours. They come in handy, there's no denying that, but the Gamebreaker moves in NFL Street just aren't as polished as they are in NBA Street 2. You can't use them to affect the other teams score to take points away and there's no fancy, funky red, white and blue star trails.

The opposition A.I certainly does their best to try and take you out but I found if you stick to a running game you get away with making consistent downs. The A.I seems pretty smart but it didn't take too long for me to pick out the holes in their game and start winning the majority of games. There were a few times when I first started playing NFL Street that the opposition pulled off some moves that totally infuriated me and to be honest for the first few hours of playing I was cursing and frustrated beyond belief. The A.I would force me into fumbles, blitz me, destroy me with a Gamebreaker move and score way too easily for my liking, as mentioned though if you go in with a game plan instead of blindly picking plays you will do heaps better. It's just a shame that EA couldn't have made it a bit easier to get into straight away. The game features some awful catch up A.I and while this can be turned off for quick games, it must be left on for the NFL Street challenge where, if you want to build up your own team and unlock stadiums, is where you spend the most of your time.

The stadiums are all unique and range from outside fields, a beach to a city rooftop and other cool locations. Scattered around them are objects that react nicely to the players. While running on the beach level you might be heading towards a beach ball but your player will just kick it out of the way. Other levels contain steel drums, witches hats, basket balls and even a pile of watermelons that you can blast through. The physics attached to the object and players looks pretty good and especially so during the tackles. Players get flipped up into the air, slammed into walls that they then bounce painfully off, driven into the ground and also the occasional forearm across the chest will see them do a complete somersault in the air and land painfully on the ground. The tackles and the sacks all look great and the trash talking during the game is cool too, except for the player that sounds like the Simpsons character, Drederick Tatum. His voice is pretty funny but sounds out of place compared to the rest.

Like in NBA Street there are loads of controls to remember but for the most part the game has them sensibly laid out and they are easy to remember. The graphics look pretty good, the players all feature a generous polygon count and the framerate never drops. The players are also lip synced pretty well and during the mini cut scenes after performing a big play they all move smoothly and look very nice. The animations during the game are extremely smooth and there is even minimal clipping during the tackles. The players all bounce of each other nicely and the excellent animations make the insane tackles look nice and painful. The stadiums all look good and are nicely varied though they are limited in number and I would have preferred to see more than the eight that are included.

As is normal for EA, there is no support at all for Xbox Live although multiplayer does support 4 players and is definitely fun if you have 3 other NFL loving mates. I can only imagine how much fun this game would have been online with real trash talking over our headsets but sadly it's not to be, even a worldwide ranking ladder or something would have been welcome.