NFL Street 2 is a video game all about the gritty urban roots of football. It takes us down darkened back alleys in the shadows of skyscrapers, where the angry young talents who will become tomorrow's NFL superstars learn the ropes and the rituals of the game. It is pickup football set to a hip hop soundtrack. It is do-rags and made-up rules and tattoos all over everybody's neck. It has not had a shave for a few days. It is not quick to offer a hand up after it knocks you flat.

All this is to say NFL Street 2 aims for a naughtier, seamier kind of football than what we see in the actual NFL. When you are running with the ball, and a defender knocks the ball out of your grasp and the wind out of the rest of you, your entire game room will shudder with the noise. There are no tackles on the street, see, only Hits. The point is not to stop the advance of the ball, it is to send the ball carrier home limping and crying for his mother.

This is not a new idea. Most football video games strive to offer either "simulation" or "arcade" play. The simulation games look like TV broadcasts and come equipped with enormous playbooks, advanced and customizable control systems, insightful audio commentary, and all the logos and all the players and all the stadiums of the real-world NFL. The arcade games look simpler and are simpler, with all the focus on quick giddy fun and loud crunching noises. NFL Street 2 aspires to arcadey greatness, but falls short.

Why? Football is a game. It is a game people play for fun and a game people watch for fun. Game game game. Street football is a game people extra-especially play for fun. Street football and backyard football and playground football and barn football are what regular folk do when they are tired of watching and decide to pick up the pigskin themselves. Street football is all about taking a break from the logos and the marketing. Street football likes wardrobe malfunctions as a matter of principle. Street football is happy to see Nicolette Sheridan in a towel.

The NFL, as you may have heard over the past 12 months, does not like any of those things. The NFL is marketing-obsessed and highly strung and devoted to Victorian morality. Take the pickle out of the NFL's rear and what do you find? Correct: another pickle. The NFL and street football could not possibly have less in common. So the combination in NFL Street 2 is uneasy and forced.

An example: Many of the playfields have walls. Because this is supposed to be an arcade-style game and physics is irrelevant, we have the ability to run up those walls. This is a pretty good way of getting the ball past defending players. It is fun to execute. It is one of the best features of the whole package. So naturally the forces of marketing couldn't just leave it at that.

When you run up a wall and over a poster on said wall, or if you crush one of your opponents into one of said posters, the poster vanishes and is replaced with your NFL team's logo. At the same time, your "Style Point" meter fills up with credits, which yield explosive, nearly-unstoppable power moves called "gamebreakers." When you use a gamebreaker, you nearly always win the play. Got it? Branding = power = victory. The message is subtle like a road accident, and it spoils the mood.

The street vibe itself also feels forced. The violence and the crashing noises are fine (and standard stuff for arcade football), but the wardrobes and the snarling and the graffiti have the whiff of corporate calculation. They try so hard to say "street" that they wind up saying "suburban office park" instead.

To wit: The game's host is Xzibit, the rapper who also serves as the Paige Davis of Pimp My Ride. He is perky and wholesome, but he is good at scowling too.