Review: Fifa Street 3

Repetative and no longevity. These two characteristics sum up the majority of ‘Street’ type games in what is slowly becoming a quagmire of a genre. So enter the latest football entrée into the bog of foreboding.

My first experience of the game pitted my team of 4* players against a similarly ugly looking bunch of 3* players. Pleasantries were not exchanged and the myriad of football balancing skills ensued. With enough skills performed under my belt, followed by a deflected shot, I had achieved my ‘gamebreaker’ – a special power, which on my next possession I activated, gave a goal on the first shot. I regained possession quickly after the goal kick and subsequently scored again – and again. Here we are, 3-0 up, and only 30 seconds played. What manner of madness is this?

OK, I’m a sore loser. Easy difficulty or lower is my best friend. The next hour of me vs. CPU games resulted in an entire clean sheet. Even a quick foray into the challenge mode yielded little resistive powers behind the three CPUs powering this Microsoft console. Team after team, challenge after challenge, all fall under my spell of apathy, despite all the players being of the same level.

I see many games like this recently – they insist on a five star rating system bt refuse to let anything have only one or two stars. Where are the crap players? Where is the team I can fob off to friends in local multiplayer?

Despite all of this, EA can yield some small home comforts – the menu system in this sports game incantation is clear and easy to navigate (unlike other EA regular outings), and the sounds in game are appropriate – not stellar, just appropriate.

Multiplayer on Xbox Live is very empty – little in the way of players online (just watch, EA will close this server too), and thus games with a friend are mostly what you’ll get. I was getting no lag with UK to US games. The five minute time limit on ranked games is also a downside, as it makes one Xbox 360 achievement a jolly waste of time.

As for the achievements themselves – a visit to an achievement website will quickly net you all but 2 ‘offline’ achievements and the online ones. But do not despair! The 2 offline ones to which I refer involve playing with certain teams you can unlock in challenge mode. Should one wish to not soil their boots by treading through challenge mode, find an online friend who has, have a game of Playground Picks, with them hosting the game and picking the relevant teams for the achievements. The online achievements require only a friend or gaming buddy, but each player will need 25 ranked wins * 5 minutes a game = 50 games total, or 250 minutes plus loading screens.

On the DLC front, 300MSPs gets a pack with teams to unlock and 3 new stadiums. Also, easy achievements.

Overall, a sub-par repetitive football game with no longevity. But easy achievements.

borandi

24th May: GS Update

This past couple of weeks has experienced plenty of gaming, with a lot of work fro my Degree in the middle (priority was probably in that order, it probably shouldn't have been!) but here we are for another GS update.

Go ahead... call me a wussy... but I almost started crying when borandi turned me on yesterday. 96,089 points of raw gamer score are making you jealous! That is a profit of 175 points over last time! That puts us above 96,000 points! He rallied Hexic 2, Civil War finishing 3 achievements, Guitar Hero II, Army of Two™ winning 4 achievements, KUF: Circle of Doom, Jewel Quest acquiring 4 achievements, GTA IV, and afterwards, there were some awkward stares and silence... you know how it is.

Oh and it is time for a gamerscore challenge update... listen up... Here is the link: check it. 4 other people are throwing down in this challenge. If I do the math correctly, it means that 4 players X 5 days means a whole lot of trash talk! That doesn't matter though because borandi is beating them all! Number one baby! It's good to be in the lead, but there's still 2 days left in the challenge and 4 challengers looking to eclipse our achievements with some of their own.
There have been two major targets this week: the application of my new turbo controller, and going after some more 360 badges.

Well my Hori Turbo pad arrived, and my general impression is that it's quite good. The turbo features are such that you can set each of the ABXY to either 13 or 26 button presses per second when you hold the respective button. Also, the D-Pad is infinitely better than the normal 360 pad. The analog sticks are looser, which make it a bit difficult in aiming in FPS games. The LT+RT buttons are smaller, so easier to press in games which just require pressing, but a bit worse for driving games, as you don't have the range of pressures you do with the normal 360 pad. Also, every so often the controller disconnects from the 360 (even though it's wired), and when chatting online, the 360 wired headset doesn't stay connected to the controller. So overall, it's good for games that either require the turbo buttons or offline gaming, and not on FPS or driving gaming. Saying that, I've applied it to DDR Universe and Track and Field (despite having 200/200, but I broke most of my records).

With respect to 360voice, I've started posting on the forums over there. Good bunch of people for the most part - the odd idiot who doesnt read or engage brain, but you get those everywhere (and they will be removed soon, mwhahahaha!). On the badge front, I got my 50 watchers badge thats to some posting in the 'watch me' forum. Thanks to the Turbo Pad, I got my 1* Music badge (along with completing GH3 on hard) and I also got the 1* FPS badge with some Army of Two. I'm still going after the 1* Sandbox badge with GTA4.

So what about the games?

Bionicle Heroes 900 -> 940 of 1000 47 of 49 Achievements Well I'm almost at the end of this game. I completed the story mode, so now I can go after 100%. On the way, I got enough money to unlock the 3rd special stage, and get a couple of 'Destroy X' achievements. All that's left is the '100%' achievement, and the 'Collect 5million' money achievement.

Jewel Quest 0 -> 60 of 200 6 of 12 Achievements Looking at my badge calculator over at 360voice, I noticed I was only 220 GS away from my 1* Puzzle badge. After looking at all the games for the badge, I compiled the list of best games to buy in order to get the badge depending on it's average GS earned/player according to MGC. Jewel Quest came top, so I bought it. It's essentially like Bejeweled and Puzzle Quest, though you have to clear items from every square of the board at least once. For the full achievement set, you have to go through the story 5 times - each playthrough being more difficult than the last. I'm almost at the end of my first time through, about 7 stages from the end.

Guitar Hero III 400 -> 430 of 1000 39 of 59 Achievements Well, as mentioned above, I managed to complete Hard on GH3 - a monumental achievement in my eyes. After having so much trouble with One and Raining Blood, I managed to do both in the same day, leaving only Lou's final battle left. And that final battle takes the biscuit. Lou gets all the power ups before you do, and the song is difficult enough that anything like Whammy or Double Notes totally screws you over. I tried well over 50 times, then managed to get it by getting two boosts that I don't normally get. General consensus is that the best way to beat Lou is to use a Whammy on his green note streak.

GTA IV 375 -> 540 of 1000 33 of 50 Achievements I'm now 70% into the game from the 100% completion statistic. Achievements wise, I got the 500k money achieve, deliver 30 cars by text, explode 10 vehicles in 10 seconds (use a long vehicle, block a bridge, wait for lots of cars, shoot in the air to get people out of their cars, arrange them if necessary, then launch a grenade in the middle, then wait with the rocket launcher to pick off a couple more), killed 20 criminals via the police computer, and a couple of story achievements.

Army of Two™ 225 -> 340 of 1100 14 of 41 Achievements Thanks to DDR Universe, I had my US 360 out, so I decided to go for my 1* FPS badge on 360voice. Also, I've been neglecting the Army of Two story, so I marched through to Stage 5 (out of 6) and it was rather fun. Nothing much else to say.

Civil War 525 -> 545 of 1000 30 of 50 Achievements I initially started on Civil War to get my FPS badge, hoping that the achievement for '750 kills' would unlock. So I finished the story (I was only 2 stages from the end), then redid the stage where I got most of the kills. Amazingly, I only got 10 more - it seems that I need 750 kills, only counting the highest kills on each stage. Thats a balls achievement. It's a balls game as well - being shot through shrubbery from 2000 ft with a pistol by the AI on easy is pointless.

Lost Via Domus 0 -> 125 of 1000 6 of 30 Achievements I got LOST from LoveFilm this week. Word is that it's an easy 1000. I only did the first couple of stages, and with an online guide, it is fairly easy. A bit of a stupid game though. Imagine CSI, but less fun and more frustrating.

DDR/DS Universe 400 -> 900 of 1000 27 of 32 Achievements Aha - the gold mine for the Turbo pad! Beforehand I got to the final area boss, and he was kicking my arse. So I pull out the turbo pad, and after some initial working out how to use it, I finished the story mode. Using the pad, and some online help, I was also able to unlock all the extra tracks, and do the 3rd, 4th and 5th set of challenges for achievements. With hindsight, I could have made 840GS without it given enough time - all it requires is a lot of the quest mode items. But now, according to MGC, I'm in the top 50 in the world...? Chances are I won't ever get the full 1000GS as it's bloody hard from here on out.

Lost Odyssey 235 -> 360 of 1100 6 of 42 Achievements Using my guide, I'm now onto the 3rd disc (it approached unexpectedly, I must say), having played just over 20hrs. It's still an awesome game, I recommend it to everyone!

Test Drive Unlimited 630 -> 670 of 1000 35 of 46 Achievements After watching lots of Top Gear (A very popular car show) again, and watching my favourite ever car on some tests - the Koenigsegg CCXR - it was time to break out a game which has the car. Well TDU has a couple of Koenigsegg cars, and I bought one in it a while ago. So I decided to lots of A-rank races with it. On the way, I got the '60 gold cups' achievement.

FIFA Street 3 0 -> 1250 of 1250 32 of 32 Achievements I got Fifa Street 3 from LoveFilm this past week. Online, it was rated as 5-12 hours completion, and the DLC is only 300MSPs. Well I got most of the offline ones fairly easily, then finished the game with Undefy, Haly x3h and Sofa King 10k. The game is ok, better than NBA Ballers, but worse than NBA Street Homecourt. The achievements are very easy - the one that takes the time is the 25 online ranked wins, each win takes 5 minutes = 2hrs per person. Other than that, Game Complete!

The Club 465 -> 535 of 1000 31 of 50 Achievements I got out The Club due to mingo21 getting it. I haven't actually played it since the weekend it came out. It's a shame really - I would have played it more if it had some better online modes - they dont really cater for players that aren't that good =D Well we boosted a few online achievements - Win a DM without dying, Capture 25 flags, Kill 25 foxes. There's a few others we can boost as well.

Stranglehold 235 -> 400 of 1250 23 of 55 Achievements I've been seeing Stranglehold near the bottom of my 'games with 1250GS' list for a while now, so I took it out of it's shrink wrap (my last play on it was a rental) and completed the main story. ZachSP8 10k is going to help me boost the online stuff when we get time. I will also need to complete it on the hardest difficulty to get the GS. The DLC is majorly overpriced, at 1200MSPs for a few maps. 300MSPs like Fifa Street 3 would get them a sale from me. 1200MSPs is stupid. You hear me? STUPID!

Ridge Racer 6 5 -> 17 of 1000 3 of 36 Achievements A game I've been neglecting, I did a few races offline and then boosted some online with ZachSp8 10k. It's basically a drifting game (so far), and I'm winning most of my offline races.

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(Note the following is 3 weeks difference, as MGC was playing up last GS Update:

GamerScore:	91442 -> 96139
Zone:	Pro

Completed XBLA:	23 / 56
Completed Retail:	44 -> 46 / 199
GS Completion %:	43.78% -> 45.28%

Country Rank:	88 -> 73
World Rank:	601 -> 534
Completion Rank:	1,319 -> 1,072