A FULL and wholesome 10 years ago, Sega wheeled out a well-received and downright crazy football game called Sega Soccer Slam, in which ridiculously proportioned players dressed equally ridiculously and performed ridiculous skills in ridiculous stadia.

And it was more enjoyable than throwing yourself into a bouncy castle made of Haribo.

It took EA three years to realise its signature football series could do something with this soccer-on-steroids formula, and the Fifa Street is its answer.

This is the series’ fourth incarnation and follows Fifa Street 3, which was the closest EA have come to Sega’s hilariously exaggerated formula. That hilarity has been reined in again here, and as the title is stripped right back, so is the gameplay.

No more beanpole Crouch, and no more scowling fatty Rooney. Instead, reality is firmly in place with its button-down shirt and calf-high walking socks.

Gamers who regularly kick buttock in EA’s regular 11-aside Fifa juggernaut will find such skills about as useful as a croissant in a swordfight. Fifa Street is all about the nutmeg, the flip-flap, the elastic chop flip-flap and a load of moves that have word ‘rainbow’ in them.

It’s a tall learning curve, and the controller is unforgiving on thumbs that aren’t comfortable with such loose digit trickery.

But hell, if you’re not going to persevere with the thing, you might as well go back to your ZX Spectrum and have another whack at Manic Miner.