The “street” series from EA Big aims to take sports from the realm of realism to over-the-top gameplay; the results over the years have been inconsistent at best. FIFA Street 3 follows that premise, and offers gameplay reminiscent of Nike’s “joga bonito” and futsal commercials, and Addidas’ “impossible is nothing” ads.

The game certainly looks the part. The backgrounds are colorful, vibrant, and detailed. There are several “street” type courts, all with a different theme and corresponding environment, and every one looks fantastic. It’s a true visceral pleasure to see the neon-like glow of the court while playing on the oilrig at night, or to see the attention to detail like the graffiti at the beach and the shipyard, plus numerous other examples. Keeping with the “street” theme, the player models are exaggerated cartoon caricatures of themselves, yet humorously accurate. Their in-game portraits look a lot like something you’d see drawn at a booth in an amusement park. On the court, however the player models lack that same clarity. The gamebreaker “watercolor” effects on a black and white background also look sharp. Overall, the game’s graphics shine, much like NBA Street Homecourt, but with a cell-shaded overall look.

FIFA Street 3 offers five-on-five action on a truncated court, including goalies and an indoor soccer-sized goal. The action somewhat plods along for a street-themed title, but that’s by design. There are a ton of foot skill and juggling animations, and if the action moved too fast, it would be hard to appreciate them. For a game that borders on the unrealistic, player speed is the one area that lacks, but the rest of the action makes up for it. Players can sprint off the walls (for short distances), perform crazy moves with the ball at their feet, and there are bicycle kicks aplenty. That said, the game rewards timely tricks, good positioning, and ball movement. You have to be solid on defense, too. A poorly timed tackle can lead to a one-on-one with the goalie—which is always bad news.

The players are easy to control. On offense, there are buttons for shooting, sprinting, passing on the ground, passing in the air, and juggling (or flicking the ball, if you’re on the move). You can also play a one-two ball by holding the pass button down. The right stick handles the fancy footwork, with the left trigger acting as a control modifier. The animations automatically handle most of the slick moves, but by combining the direction of the stick with the control modifier, you can string some effective moves together. You can also juggle in place or flick the ball on the move, or juggle to set up a volley shot. Performing fancy moves builds your gamebreaker meter, and when it fills up, you can activate it for about thirty seconds of super abilities, meaning your players tackle, pass, and shoot much more effectively. On the easier difficulty levels, the gamebreaker is a bit too effective but, fortunately, that’s balanced when you turn up the challenge.

Defensively, there are three different ways to tackle your opponent, each being effective in certain situations, and each having its own risk. One detraction is that two of the types of tackles can leave your player woefully out of position, and it takes too long for that player to recover, leaving your defense exposed. There are also buttons for sprinting and switching defenders, which can help you recover from a bad tackle attempt.

The main game play mode is the FIFA Street Challenge. There are nine challenges available, with three to six matches per challenge. There are different types of games played in the challenges, keeping it fresh. For example, your goal could be to simply outscore your opponent in a five or ten minute match, or to be the first to five goals on headers and volleys only, or to be the first to five goals without using the gamebreaker, and so on. Successfully completing challenges unlocks different types of teams for you to use in future challenges, or in one of the head-to-head game play modes. These teams mostly consists of players grouped by their skill set or style, like an all speed team, an all playmaker team, an all enforcer (strong defender) team, and so on.

There are multiple head-to-head modes, including a “play now” mode, a pickup game mode (where both players choose their team from the all stars from one nation only), and play over Xbox Live. The different types of games mentioned previously are available for play in these modes, as are the teams you’ve unlocked. However, that’s basically it. There’s no tournament mode or tour mode, leaving single players a lot less to work with.