Xbox 360 vs. PS3 Face-Off: Round Nine

DMC4, The Club, Turok, FIFA Street, PES, Juiced.

Face-off by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry

Updated on May 1, 2009

FIFA Street 3

Xbox 360 Review

So whatever happened to the dream of 1080p HD gaming? It's alive and well if you're willing to invest serious sterling into top-end PC graphics hardware, but a few choice highlights aside, it's become something of an embarrassment on console. If it's supported on PlayStation 3, more often than not it's just upscaled from 720p (or lower) and comes with a disappointing performance penalty, and while Xbox 360 scales exceptionally well, native 1080p support is only included in a paltry two games.

Well, now it's three. Yes indeed, FIFA Street 3 is an essentially unspectacular release; attractive and playable enough to pass muster, but so devoid of any real gaming charisma that it's the number of pixels it renders that I find most interesting about it. It's the first game in an absolute age that supports 'full HD' and it does so on both consoles - rather like the game's predecessor, NBA Street Homecourt.

Unfortunately, just like that game, the support for 1080p comes at a price; a savage decimation of the frame-rate meaning that if you get a constant 30 frames-per-second, you're doing well. Compare and contrast with the superior 720p mode, which is locked at 60fps and does a much, much better job of feeling like a slick arcade-style game.

The fact that EA is attempting to support 1080p at all boils down to the fact that FIFA Street 3 is a technically undemanding game. That being the case, it's difficult to find any tangible difference between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions. That said, the 360 version once again has the edge due to the inclusion of anti-aliasing, which does a good enough job in reducing the shimmering in detail and - dare I say it - jagginess you see on PS3, but is hardly a big enough deal to recommend one version over the other.

One thing's for sure though. You can't help but feel that the 'Street' and EA BIG! brands in general are at an all-time low in terms of creativity, excitement, and basic balls-out fun. The franchise is in dire need of a spectacularly powerful kick up the arse, one that I personally would love to see delivered in the form of a Criterion-coded SSX...

720p Comparison Gallery
1080p Comparison Gallery

FIFA Street 3

Face-Off: Round Nine Index