EA's FIFA Street series hasn't really got off to the best of starts. The original game was widely panned by critics for its drab surroundings, awkward controls and clunky AI, but the most heinous crime though was allowing ex-So Solid Crew member, MC Harvey, to commentate. FIFA Street 2 was only marginally better, but the gameplay still suffered. So, the big question is, for a premise that has so much potential, can the third instalment deliver?

For people unfamiliar with the theme of EA's Street series, let me explain. Take a sport, in EA's case, Basketball, American Football or Soccer (football to the rest of us) and strip the game of its rules and regulations, add some trickery, grimy graffiti-laden locations and a few superstars from the respective sport. Dress them in 'street clothing' (whatever that is) and hey presto, you have yourself a game. The series concentrates on an arcade representation of the sport and promotes the use of amazing tricks and combos to beat your opponent - a sort of beat'em up, but with a ball instead of fists.

However, the Street series was becoming a little stale and in need of a revamp. The latest version in the NBA Street series - Homecourt - was a marked improvement on previous efforts, and the same result was to be expected for FIFA Street's first venture into next-gen territory. Using the same engine as Homecourt, the prospects of FIFA Street fulfilling that potential looked promising and indeed the game certainly has had a revamp. Gone are the depressing street locales, replaced with bright, colourful and ultimately interesting settings, giving an SSX vibe to your surroundings. To coincide with these new stylings, the 250 players you can choose from have also had some cosmetic work done since the previous title - and the developers have plumped for a Team Fortress-style makeover. Wayne Rooney is now a brutish oaf - not a massive departure in style for Rooney - but it certainly conveys his persona in a caricatured way, while Peter Crouch's already elongated frame has been stretched even further to look completely disproportionate. After playing the game for a while, I was sure the developers had modelled his limbs on string sausages hanging in the local butchers window; it's like watching a blur of sausage meat when Crouch is in full flow! However, the caricatured nature of the players adds a bit of fun to the action and fits in well with the unrealistic, arcade style of the gameplay. Player movement is equally impressive, especially when performing skills and smoothly moving between a wide variety of tricks. It must be said that gliding gracefully past players whilst pulling off tricks can be one of the most enjoyable aspects of FIFA Street 3.

To accompany the 'street' locations, EA's soundtrack is predictably 'street' in nature, but the blend between subject matter and music is perfect. At least MC Harvey hasn't been resurrected from commentary hell; the chatter and banter between the players on the field of play is now audible, which is a nice touch. Shouts of "Get in!" and "Great skill!" can be heard from your fellow teammates when performing certain moves, scoring goals or when combinations of tricks are performed.

Performing tricks is the name of the game in FIFA Street 3, and you are provided with a few different game modes to show these tricks off. The Play Now mode allows you to do exactly that; dive right in. First you pick your favourite team from eighteen national squads or a number of speciality teams that excel at certain aspects of the game and after selecting one of the seven venues you must then decide the rules of your match. There are a few options when it comes to choosing the type of match. Timed-match allows you to set the duration of the game, with the winning team being the one that scored the most goals in the allotted time period. However, if you don't want to set a time limit on your matches then you can always choose the score option, which allows you to set the amount of goals needed to win. Similarly, you can also choose to play the game where the winner is determined by being a certain number of goals ahead to win. All these options can be adjusted to suit your preferences and you can also play a playground favourite, headers and volleys, with goals having to be scored by either one of these methods. Whereas all the modes mentioned so far all have an element of trickery involved in them, it is still possible to score goals without being fully at ease with the tricks. However, there is one other mode that you can take part in that solely relies on tricks being performed, and that involves scoring gamebreaker goals.

As tricks are performed during the game you are awarded gamebreaker points, which you accumulate as a team during the match; this is displayed in a bar at the top of the screen. The more tricks and combos you complete, the quicker the bar fills up, allowing you to activate gamebreaker mode, which is essentially a power boost. Each trick is assigned a gamebreaker value; some are worth more than others when taking certain factors into account, such as how close you are to your opponent's goal when performing the trick. As soon as your bar is full you can activate the gamebreaker mode and, as the screen drains of its colour and the music ramps up, you have an opportunity to try even more outlandish shots at goal and audacious tricks as the gamebreaker bar ticks away. The gamebreaker becomes an imperative tool in particularly close games, and not taking full advantage of it could see you staring at defeat. It gives you an opportunity to rack up some goals and establish a lead.

Once you have familiarised yourself with the fundamental game modes in Play now, it might be time to move on and take a look at the other options that FIFA Street 3 offers. If you're interested in unlocking more teams and players then you might be interested in Challenge mode, although it's a tad monotonous. By completing certain challenges you are rewarded - if that really is the best word to describe it - with a few more teams to play with next time around in any of the modes. However, the challenges are a little on the dull side; simply put, they are just variations on all the modes mentioned above, but they increase in difficulty each time you progress through one of the nine challenge levels. With no variation it can become rather tedious and you'll soon be crying out for some friends to come along and take you away from such tedium.

The developers have been very stingy with the single player modes, leaving not a lot of interest for the lone gamer. Head-to-Head is another mode purely for the popular, where you challenge a friend over a best-of series to determine the winner. Playground Picks is another multiplayer mode that hearkens back to those wonderful school days, hoping you wouldn't be the last player left as two captains picked the teams. The only difference here is that it won't be you who suffers the ignominy of being left behind; it will be a multi-million pound primadonna. Well, at least they were kind enough to give the single player a Practice mode, where the shoe is on the other foot. There are five of you against one goalkeeper as you perfect the tricks and combinations in the relative safety of a non-competitive environment. But where are the tournaments? Where are the leagues? Where is the challenge? None of that is here, I'm afraid.

FIFA Street 3 does however offer a little more depth than previous titles by including distinctive styles of play for individual players, meaning that your tactical decisions will have an influence on the game. When choosing your five-a-side team, you need to decide what type of players would be best suited to compete with your opponent. For instance, if the team you're playing is full of top class finishers then you need to use a couple of Enforcers in your team (enforcers are the best defenders in the game). On the other hand, if the other team is full of enforcers then you may opt for tricksters in your team, hoping that skill will beat brute force. Each player has an icon above their head during gameplay (and beside them in the menu screens) to indicate which one of the four categories - Playmaker, Enforcer, Trickster and Finisher - they belong too. Each group has its advantages, so picking the five players that make up your team is very important.

For the first few hours of gameplay things look relatively promising for FIFA Street 3. There are a large number of tricks available to use and mastering them can be one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. The controls are very responsive, allowing you to easily perform keepie-uppies, little flicks, catching the ball on various different body parts and running up walls to get you out of tight situations. The only ugly side to the control system is the lack of variety when it comes to defending; the only way to stop attackers effectively is by subjecting them to a clumsy looking sweep kick. With a little more thought, the defensive side of the game could have been as intuitive and interesting as the attacking controls and not a simple case of button mashing.

It is an absolute joy when you're juggling the ball over an opponent's head, poking the ball through someone's legs leaving them absolutely bamboozled and finishing off the move with a thunderbolt strike into the back of the net. However, the range of tricks lack any balance. For instance, it's all very well dribbling past players with fancy footwork until you inevitably get stopped in your tracks, but that's the hard route. The easy route consists of pressing the juggle button repeatedly and, more often than not, it is possible to make it from one end of the pitch to the other and score in one go, forgoing any real skill. It's just far too powerful. The game soon descends into a farce if you play against human opponents who are hell bent on using the safest and most effective method of scoring goals.

Unfortunately, the Xbox Live modes are also blighted with this unbalanced trick system, with many players choosing the easy route to goal each time and defenders very rarely have the skills to stop the juggle. With a little more balance to the effectiveness of the tricks this might have been avoided, but the online modes - Quick match, World challenge and Custom match - all struggle to be enjoyable because of this problem. Other than the imbalance issue, the online matches run extremely well and certainly offer a sterner challenge than the game's single player AI. With online leaderboards and co-op as well, Xbox Live is the place to be to fully justify the game's price tag.

FIFA Street 3 will appeal to casual and hardcore football fans, but both may be a little disappointed with what they find. No one can deny that the game has got style - it oozes it from the menu screen and onto the football pitch in typical EA fashion - however, it lacks the depth and substance to make it appeal for more than a couple of hours, after which you may start to question the wisdom of your investment. The lack of any tangible single player options contributes to the game's short lifespan, which can only be revived by going online or playing the multiplayer modes. The skills are very well crafted and easy to learn; if EA had balanced them better then the lifespan of this game could have been increased a lot further. This is a real shame, because the game promises so much for a few hours, but fades away rather badly, leaving us to wait with the hope that FIFA Street's fourth incarnation will finally achieve its full potential.

Reviewed by Mark Carlton for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).