Pigskin Pickup

The NFL Street Pickup mode will take you back to the kind of impromptu game you used to play with the other kids on your block between school and dinner. Only this time, the other kids are all fully grown professional athletes, who tease and taunt more than any fourth grader you’ve ever met.

In terms of gameplay, an NFL Street Pickup game is the same as any other game in the title. You have seven men on a team, who play both offense and defense. There are no field goals, punts, or extra points, and you earn bonus points for showing off, showboating, and just plain stylin’. What makes Pickup games different is how you choose your team. And, when you see how you choose Pickup teams, those of you who still have nightmares about being chosen last for dodge ball will either suffer a mild post-traumatic shock or revel in the chance to finally be the one who does the picking.

Gamers first decide if they want to take the first pick or the first possession. Then, the game randomly chooses 40 pro players from the available roster and assembles them in a smaller picking pool, broken out by position (all the quarterbacks are together, for example, as are the offensive linemen, wide receivers, defensive backs, etc.). Gamers alternate picks one at a time until each has assembled a full seven-man squad.

Sand, sun, sacks.

The pre-game strategizing can be as much fun as the in-game tactics. Sure, you probably want a real quarterback on the field, but remember that he’s going to be playing offense as well as defense. You might want to skip all the available quarterbacks if none of them have the speed or the blocking ability you know you want. You could decide to select a team full of running backs and linemen, but then you won’t be able to go aerial as often as your opponent. However, you’d have more than enough stamina and ball carrying abilities on your side, so your rush could make up the difference—especially in the late quarters, when your opponent’s team is tired.

Another element of the Pickup game (that will appeal to football fans and historians alike) is the ability to slap together a team made up of players from all across the NFL. Ignore the 2003 Super Bowl, and combine Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon with a wide receiver from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, like Reggie Barlow. Or, field as many Bucs as you can against as many Raiders as you can—it’s as close to a rematch as you’re going to see until next season.

There’s no “I” in “team.”

Like the other game modes in NFL Street, Pickup games allow up to four players to join at once. (Although, only two can be the team “captains,” who make the player picks.) Your friends can opt to play on your side or the other guy’s, and any human player can take control of any NFL player on his or her side. This is another source of strategy, as you can switch to a key position and make the play go your way after the quarterback gets lined up. If you suspect a long pass, you can stage a one-man blitz, or if you think a trick play is in the works, you can play as the man with the best chance of disrupting it.

NFL Street is surprisingly deep for an arcade-style sports contest that encourages poor sportsmanship. Between the excellent Pickup, Quick Game, and NFL Challenge modes, action-hungry football fans will continue to eat it up long after the regular season.

By Luke Judge