NFL Street Reborn

Back in the early 2000s, EA had a series of games unde their EA BIG label. These were over-the-top arcade style sports game that were hip, edgy, and fun. Some of the titles included: NBA Street, FIFA Street, SSX Tricky, and Def Jam Vendetta. They were no doubt inspired by the Midway Sports titles like NHL Hitz and NBA Jam, and both companies did a fantastic job at putting out some easy to play, difficult to master sports titles.

While Midway had NFL Blitz, EA created NFL Street. (Bet you didn't see that coming with the likes of NBA and FIFA Street did ya?) NFL Street featured seven-on-seven action, that played like an arcade backyard game. You picked your players, and you faced off in a very quick game where the goal was to score a certain amount of points, similar to twenty-one in basketball. The series ran exactly two games, and while it was beloved and sold incredibly well, EA began phasing out the BIG series and arcade games on consoles began to fall out favor. I get it, no one wants to pay big money for shallow games when you get much more in-depth gameplay experiences for the same price, but there is something to be said about what we lost when these sport arcade titles disappeared. Sometimes, an easy pick up and play game is all you need.

In the early 2000s, the only sport I followed was hockey. So, I played the heck out of NHL Hitz and I didn't really dabble in any other sport title outside of NFL 2K5. I always wanted to play NFL Street, but the game held its value and I just never bought a copy. The first time I experience NFL Street was earlier this year, using an Dolphin emulator. It took a few minutes, but once I began feeling out the controls, I really liked what I saw, I just wish the rosters weren't twenty-years outdated.

Enter NFL Street Reborn, a fan-made NFL Street 2 mod that not only brings modern players to the game, but also enhances the graphics, adds new play areas, offers a career mode, and even online play. And to top it off, it offers custom soundtrack options!

I decided to give NFL Street Reborn a try, and was blown away by its all-in-one installer. I'm so used to having to jump through hopes to get projects like this to work, but a simple installer that took like three clicks to install everything was AMAZING. The game even has pre-sets for controllers to update them from the Gamecube and there are even some helpful graphics during the tutorial to help you figure out how to play the game with the controller you have.

This mod feels like a professional production and I'm happy to say it plays as well as it looks. I did notice some slow-down on some of the play areas, but I'm also running it on an old HP all-in-one PC that isn't exactly a gaming rig.

It took me a few minutes to really get the controls down, but thankfully this game shipped with an old school tutorial that drills the moves into you. By the time I completed it, I felt confident to dive into a game, and while I eventually had to turn the difficulty level down, the game is a ton of fun. Its non-stop action, and it's so over-the-top you really feel a sense of pride when you pull off a cool move.

I'm sure folks who played this when it first came out will enjoy this in a way that I never will, but for a twenty year old game, this still plays great and is a lot of fun. I highly recommend it for fans of arcade sport titles.