Remember when NFL Blitz used to be fun, back before the Super Bowl suits decided that spontaneously combusting players and over-the-top violence were bad for the League image? Well since Midway dropped the proverbial football, EA picked it up and ran with their latest installment in their "Big" brand of sports games, NFL Street. While there’s still enough realism to the game that you won’t see Eddie George catch fire on a touchdown run, don’t worry. Pass interference, intentional grounding, and "unnecessary roughness" no longer apply.

But, just like with the rules, the yellow flags, and the referees, let’s get the formalities out of the way and get down to business.

NFL Street is not a simulation. In fact, the only things that Street has in common with EA Sports’ flagship football title, Madden, is that the players throw a football, and may or may not resemble their real life NFL counter-parts.

And it’s a good thing.

All the boring stuff in the real NFL, like kicking the football, is gone and replaced with non stop action as each team is represented by seven players on the field, playing both offense and defense. Both teams start at the twenty yard line on their possession (unless they capitalize on a fumble, grab an interception, or receive the ball on downs) and have to run, pass, and trick play their way to a touchdown.

And speaking of tricks, NFL Street, like NBA Street Vol. 2 features the inclusion of "Style Points". By performing slick maneuvers like jukes, spins, and taunts, players can build up their Style Points to earn a GameBreaker, a feature that drastically increases the performance of your team, either on offense or defense. Using your GameBreaker on offense will practically guarantee a touchdown, while using it on defense will practically guarantee a fumble for your opposition. This can obviously have a tremendous effect on the outcome of the game, and can leave a very satisfied smile on your face after rewarding yourself for all those hard-earned Style Points.

While NFL Street doesn’t have a plethora of game modes (only three to be exact), you can play two of them, Quick Game and Pickup Game, to win by a set number of points via touchdowns, or a set number of Style Points. The third game mode, NFL Challenge, pits you and a team of street ballers against the elite big boys of the NFL as you travel from location to location, field to field, in a gridiron divisional march against everyone from the Cardinals to the Texans. Of course, playing a team like the Patriots isn’t easy, and to stay competitive you’ll need to improve your team’s skills by earning "Development Points" in a series of progressively harder challenges.

That’s where NFL Street becomes downright addictive. While it’s necessary to keep improving your team to continue progressing in the increasingly difficult NFL Challenge, the level up system featured is so fun that even if it wasn’t necessary, you’d do it anyway. Add in the ability to unlock new plays, new teams, and new players, and you have a "season mode" that’ll keep you playing for quite some time.

To sweeten the pot a little more, along with development points and the aforementioned goodies you can also earn "Impact Gear", which allows you to further customize your team as it adds stat bonuses to whoever is wearing the gear. It’s almost like Dungeon’s & Dragons meets the NFL Or, in nerd speak, "I’m a level 15 Quarterback multiclassed as a Defensive End with my +1 gloves."

The graphics are nice, but not quite on the same level as some of the more high-end Xbox titles. What you will notice, however, is the extraordinarily good lip sync for all of the players, and that the sack and touchdown animations are just damn good. Watching a three hundred pound man dance over a QB has never been more fun.

As far as the sound goes, the voice acting is certainly one of NFL Street’s highlights. The player chatter is extremely well done, both during touchdown cut scenes and before and after plays. The background music is well done, but if you don’t like it you can add your own tracks to the collection or just create your own with the custom soundtrack support. There is one problem, however, that seems downright peculiar.

NFL Street has no play-by-play or color commentary. Although there are some hip-hop tunes that play during the game, it doesn’t really fill the void that a good "street" commentator would, a la NBA Street Vol. 2.

The AI is, for the most part, great for both teams, but if you get too far ahead you can expect to take a harsh beating as the "catch-up code" takes over and everything begins to go in favor of the computer opponent. This would be forgivable, as it’s only in regard to the singleplayer game, if you had more options for multiplayer.

Although four people can play at once, this is an EA title, and EA still doesn’t support Xbox Live, not even in the form of roster updates. The replay value is already good, but it could have been amazing with Xbox Live support, especially with the excellent mixture of depth and playability that NFL Street already has.

It isn’t flawless, but NFL Street is easily the best arcade football game on the market now that NFL Blitz is just a fond memory of what used to be fun. Xbox Live or not, this is definitely a worth while purchase.

Pros:

• Custom soundtrack support.
  
• Just enough depth in creating your own team that it stays fun, but quickly gets you back into the action.
  

  Cons:
  

  • No Xbox Live support? Get with the program, EA.
    
  • The computer WILL school you if you’re doing too good. The catch-up code needs to go.