The PSP has launched with a football game in its library, but it’s not a
Madden game. Instead we have NFL Street 2 Unleashed, EA’s brash and over the top
version of tackle pick-up football.
There are a variety of modes of play in the game, but the football basics
remain the same. Playing with seven man teams, each team has four downs to
advance the ball to the first down line or score a touchdown. Yardage markers
don’t figure into the equation as there are only a couple of first down lines on
the field and the distance measured to those lines is either “short” or “long”.
There’s no punting, field goals, or kicking of any kind – the emphasis is
entirely on scoring touchdowns. There’s not even a game clock with most games
going to the first team to reach a set score.
Further setting the game apart from your typical football game is that it
pays to win with style. Pressing the left trigger in combination with the face
buttons will cause the player with the ball to execute some in-your-face taunts,
show-off moves, and other such nails in the coffin of American sportsmanship The
more style moves you pull off, the more style points you get, eventually filling
a meter and enabling your team’s Gamebreaker status. Pushing the Gamebreaker
button before a play pumps up your team’s stats to the point where the opposing
team will have very little chance to do anything right for the next few plays.
On defense you’ll find it easy to register huge sacks and cause fumbles while on
offense your ball carriers will be nigh impossible to bring down and your
receivers will always seem to be open. Resist the temptation to use the
Gamebreaker button and you can double fill the meter enabling the Gamebreaker 2
mode. Unleash a Gamebreaker 2 and the game will switch to an animated cutscene
of your team pulling off an unbelievably outlandish play that will almost always
result in a touchdown for your team.
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