EA’s Gamescom 2011 announcement of a FIFA Street return came as a pleasant surprise. Considering the problems EA has had relaunching NBA Jam, it was worth wondering if the arcade soccer redo would get a full retail release. EA has confirmed that it will, and has revealed a whole host of features. The new “Street Ball” control system has more in common with EA’s Need for Speed racing games than any previous sports effort. Your controller’s left and right triggers handle braking and speeding up. Players can combine these moves to fake out opponents, slamming to a stop and then taking off.

EA’s FIFA series has been garnering strong reviews and sales for a while now. FIFA 12′s first-week sales numbers have given the publisher reason to run around shouting “GOO- A-LLL” at obnoxious volumes. The soccer sim is now the fastest selling sports game in history, selling 3.2 million copies in its first week on shelves. That makes it the best selling game of 2011 so far, eclipsing even Gears of War 3. FIFA 12 for the iPhone and iPad has sold 879,000 units already.

Gamescom is Europe’s biggest gaming event. It’s the perfect place for EA Sports to announce that FIFA Street is coming out of retirement. The arcade take on street soccer hasn’t seen a new installment since 2008, but EA’s press conference let us know that’s about to change. EA is embracing the sport’s international flavor with 35 motion captured environments famous for the street soccer played on them. The new FIFA Street will feature 5-on-5 and 6-on-6 play and is coming in 2012.

EA Sports President Peter Moore was on hand at E3 2011, of course. He reminded us that soccer – or football to the rest of he word – is “the world’s game.” EA wants FIFA 12 to be the world’s soccer game. EA Sports is touting three game improvements as “revolutionary innovations.”

First is tactical defending. Your positioning, tactics and timing are all important components to making the right defensive play. Mess up on any one of those three, and you could end up on the front page of the sports section for the wrong reason.

As a lot of you FIFA fans know, next Tuesday, September 28, 2010, is the release date for FIFA 2011. Evil Controllers is celebrating by having a FIFA ’11 Custom Jersey Contest.

Soccer fans who opt for the Wii version of FIFA 11 are also getting a street soccer minigame.

In this game you will use the world’s best players in extreme-style games that allow wall jumping and other tricks. If this sounds familiar, you are probably remembering the FIFA Street series. It was part of EA’s series of arcade sports titles that included NFL and NBA incarnations as well.

Vegas handicappers are going to start losing business if people can get results just as good from EA Sports video games. EA’s 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa simulation declared Spain the champions, and that’s exactly what happened.

According to an EA Sports simulation using the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa game engine, Spain is going to hoist its first World Cup trophy July 11, 2010 with a 3-1 win over Brazil. In the sim Brazil actually took a 1-0 lead before Spain stormed back led by Villa, who EA Sports says will win the coveted Golden Boot award with seven goals in the tournament. Brazil’s Kaka ended up winning the Golden Ball.

Electronic Arts made huge waves in the social gaming world with its 2009 acquisition of casual game developer Playfish for $400 million. The first EA/Playfish collaboration, FIFA Superstars, is now on Facebook and has picked up 30,000 users in a week’s time. With the World Cup soccer tourney right around the corner (June 11 through July 11, 2010) EA is banking on Facebook users catching some of that soccer fever with this game.

While other Facebook sports games have sent generic athletes out there, FIFA Superstars benefits from EA’s licensing power and features real players.

Uh-oh – it looks like EA has just crossed the line that we’ve all (frankly) been waiting for – a venerable shot across the bow for rental and used-game retailers. Starting with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, players who want to take their EA Sports titles online will have to enter the unique “Online Pass” code from the game box. If you’re renting or buying a used copy, you have to pony up an additional $10 for the pass. Here’s the bad news – each pass is game-specific – you can’t use the code you purchased on one game on another (so if you bought the code for, say, Madden, you are SOL if you try to use it on FIFA).