Reviewed: June 2, 2005
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Electronic Arts
Developer
EA Canada - Team Fusion
Released: March 24, 2005
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-4
ESRB: Everyone
8
8
6
8
7.9
Supported Features
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
EA seems to be having better luck with their extreme sports titles than their serious ones, at least with the first batch of PSP games. NFL Street 2 Unleashed is about as close to the console version as you can get, and what few tweaks that had to be made to get this game onto a handheld actually improve the gameplay.
The PSP version is loaded with exclusive features including three new game modes, five head-to-head wireless modes, and seven Party Play modes. All of this is in addition to the standard Pick Up Game; Own the City, NFL Challenge, NFL Gauntlet, a lengthy tutorial mode, and nine challenging Street Events. There is so much to do in this game that you’ll likely wear out your PSP trying to do it all.
I highly recommend you take part of the informative tutorial that offers to teach you everything or just what’s new. Even if you have played the console version you’ll need some practice just to get the hang of the PSP controls. Once you have mastered those, the game pretty much plays just like the console.
Unleashed retains all the basics; the exaggerated moves, simple playbooks, and Matrix-like super-moves that allow you to run along and bounce off walls. The Gamebreakers are also back and just as great as ever.
I was really impressed with the level of control I had over my QB and the other players in the game using the A-pad. Each of the face buttons serves multiple functions depending on whether you press or hold it and these can be further modified with the left trigger. The passing, in particular, was some of the best passing I’ve seen with easy one-button access to any of three possible receivers, and you can just as easily determine a lob or bullet pass by pressing or holding the button.
The NFL Challenge mode is the core mode and you are required to train a custom team and put them in challenges against real NFL players in a series of events. Sounds like a good idea for reality TV. You have 150 days (game days) to complete your training, which is actually more than enough time to do so.
Own the City allows you to create your own player then train under Xzibit (Pimp My Ride) in a short tutorial before you head out into a series of pickup games and mini-games against some no-name players. Beat these challenges and “own” that portion of the map. Continue until you own the city.
The rest of the game modes are fairly traditional, but I did find the NFL Gauntlet fairly daunting, since it puts you up against every team in the league. NFL Street is loaded with mini-games and these are some of the best parts of the game, so it’s no surprise these have been singled out and you can play them directly.
There are new games exclusive to the PSP like the obstacle course challenge where you take a player down a cluttered alley juking and jumping around and over crates and other debris. And if you really start to feel the groove there is a dancing game you can play. Well, it’s more of a “Simon Says repeat this pattern game” but it’s still an interesting diversion. Plus all of the mini-games from the console are intact, so you have a whole lot of bonus gameplay content and nearly all of it works for multiplayer.
The Party Mode allows you to play these mini-games by passing around the PSP, but if you have another PSP and a copy of the game you can hook-up via wireless and play a Pick Up game or a Quick game, and even a few of the mini-games are available over wireless.
If all of this is sounding too good to be true you are right. The fly in the ointment is definitely the insanely long load times. I’ve been slowly getting used to the load times on these EA games ever since I drained my battery playing three rounds of Tiger Woods, but these have to be the longest loads in the entire PSP library. Some load times actually exceed the length of the mini-game you are loading.
The PSP presents a graphically faithful translation of the PS2 version with only a few sacrifices in textures and facial details. The players are nicely modeled and they move naturally, even when they are doing unnatural acts. The turbo and special moves are great fun to watch.
The game is full of rich colors and the overall presentation has a definite urban flavor about it. The various venues for the games are nicely detailed and the widescreen presentation allows you to see the entire width of the field. The interface is intuitive with hip menus and colorful playbooks that use the PSP button symbols.
The audio portion of Unleashed is hit and miss. The sound effects are perfect and the music library from the console version has been brought over intact, but the music is rather dated. What was cool six months ago is pretty annoying now and there wasn’t much in the musical selection that I found particularly enjoyable. It was “angry” music and just not very pleasant to listen to for extended periods.
Unleashed features the EA Pocket Trax but it’s buried in the options, and it only allows you to edit the playlist and not play it independently like the other EA games. Not that I would have wanted to.
The only thing stripped from the console version was the voices and generic trash talk for the players, but I haven’t talked to anyone yet who thinks this is a bad thing.
It would be hard to put a time estimate on Unleashed. There is so much to do that it could easily take several months to complete everything this game has to offer, and even then you have dozens of challenging and highly addictive mini-games.
The multiplayer will certainly add some extra gameplay potential if you know somebody with a PSP and a copy of the game, otherwise you can all gather around and pass the PSP in the Party Play mode.
The PSP has a lot of games out for it now with about half being original and the other half being ports of existing console titles. Next to Sony’s ATV game, NFL Street 2 Unleashed is probably the best port, or at least the port with the least changes, to make the jump to the handheld.
Visually, it would be hard to argue which looks better. Even with some sacrifices in textures, the PSP screen just makes everything look hi-def, and the PSP version of Unleashed packs in nearly all the content of the PS2 version then tacks on a wealth of exclusive content.
If you have already played NFL Street 2 on the console and are getting bored with it then there is no reason to bother with Unleashed, but if you have never played NFL Street 2, or you are such a diehard fan that you can’t leave the house without some pigskin in your pocket then Unleashed is certainly worth checking out.