NFL Blitz Review

"A great return of arcade football"

Campaign (Blitz Gauntlet)

This is about as campaign as it gets for NFL Blitz where you battle your way through tiers and tiers of teams working towards unlocking the next “special” fantasy boss. Once beaten these bosses are capable of being used in all other modes and vary from a collection of creatures. Think of the mode as something from a fighting game beating every foe as you make your way up the chain. Although this mode does take quite a long time to finish it does unlock some neat items. That brings me to the actual game settings which are changed from usual football. The game right from the get go has the arcade feel you would expect with some scaling off and simpler, more wild movement. When you hit the players usually go flying and I found that the marker on the field would vary, not being too exact. On defense it’s a blast to take out receivers before they even get the ball or get a fire boost and eliminate the opponents. I found that for some reason the defense were always able to catch up to the offense despite even huge gaps and turbo on which I didn’t like. Anyways, now to go over the offense side of things. The goal is now to get thirty yards, which is actually quite a large amount, but when you do make a first down it’s much more satisfying. Instead of the usual way of passing in football games you instead have this awkward B button analog stick aiming system which at times was just awful, but occasionally worked a little more fluently than button passing. I also will note that there were not as many plays available as I would have liked and I also dislike the auto extra point, along with no kick offs, but it does keep the play moving faster.

Multiplayer

Most of the game revolves around the online portion from Blitz battles, where you take on another team with a buddy or someone online in epic 2v2 battles. Aside from this, there is also the online coop which is what I would call somewhat of a lesser competitive mode for you to play. Aside from those modes revolving coop, there is the Elite League, which is pretty much the same as Ultimate Team in other sports games where you collect your team in cards and trade them around to create your dream team. The game actually does something neat and allows you to, with detail create any kind of team you want from logo to name. You can then take your team and show it off against others while making bets, along with money on the way.

Blitz Store

ScaryGirl plays well, the gameplay is continuous, but the grappling system is at times not “catchy” enough for my likes and also there was a certain part of the game with bone collecting that somewhat took the game off path a bit. Other than that the levels were smooth, creepy and had a right length of enjoyment. Also will note that you have a bit of a rage meter that builds up to turn ScaryGirl into a super weird monster, this seemed like a nice bonus, yet not really necessary to the game.

Gameplay

The game does feature some great announcers, which were far from serious, but provided some great commentary to keep my attention to the quick paced game. Every moment feels rushed in the game, you have a limited time to pick plays, really limited time and immediately after every score the play continues. This isn’t too bad of a thing, especially if you dislike how slow regular games are. The quarters are shortened to 2 minutes a piece, which makes the game feel fast, but it still takes a good 10-15 minutes to play.

The Conclusion

I would consider myself not too hardcore on spending hours on the regular football games. Blitz takes the game and creates a nice quicker, more fun experience that I would be able to enjoy for awhile with or against friends compared to getting bored in full length football games. The play style is also a little less serious, but veterans and new comers can jump in and easily enjoy the action. It is quite a fun game, despite some things I don’t like, but if you love football games or are tolerant, it’s a great game to give you a break from the traditional and enjoy some great arcade action.

NFL Blitz for Xbox 360

Rating Overall: 8.2