Blitz: The League 2 review (X360)

American Football is seen as an odd sport here in England. It was popular in the 80s diminished in the 90s and is currently enjoying a bit of a revival. As the New Orleans Saints take on the San Diego Chargers at Wembley in the NFLs second regular season game over here, all signs point to this game becoming a big deal again. That should be great news for American Football game makers.

Since EA has the rights for official NFL teams and players all locked up other publishers are forced to be imaginative with their titles. Using made up team and player names only seems to get you so far, the NFL license really is pretty valuable. Blitz the League 2 is an attempt to simplify the sport and make it more extreme to try and appeal to a broader audience and try and draw a few people away from Madden.

First and thirty

Firing up Blitz the League 2 you'll notice a few rule changes immediately. The pitch is shorter, the chains are 30 yards long, it's eight a side and any rules about unnecessary roughness, late hits and unsportsmanlike conduct have been thrown away. Midway have listened to complaints about the original Blitz the League during the offseason and have produced a much more polished experience. Firstly the graphics no longer look like a PS2 conversion. The player models are robust and well animated. Secondly, the single player game is the main focus now and has an engaging story mode. Everything in this game is overblown. From the yards for a first down, the over the top contact to the animation and sound. Bigger is better was definitely the focus in the development studios.

Let's get fired up

As you get going with Blitz the League 2 you'll soon start to acquire clash power. This is a power-up bar shown at the top of the screen. Dirty hits, big yardage gains and turnovers will fill up your bar. Holding down the left trigger will deplete the bar and while holding the trigger you press A or B to perform a power move or an evasion respectively or Y to make a clutch catch. As you hold the trigger down, time slows down making it easier to time your manoeuvre. These moves have a big impact on the running game. In fact, it's pretty difficult to string together a reasonable running game without the Clash meter. The defence tends to swarm all over you so you really need to be able to knock them out of the way.

Performing special manoeuvres such as touchdown celebrations and causing injuries will reward you with an icon. Get enough icons and the clash bar fills up giving you an “unleashed” power-up. You use this in the same way as the normal clash meter but it gives you an extra special move. On offence, you'll want to use this with a power move to make sure you send anyone trying to make a tackle out of your way. On defence you want to use it to make a tackle. Tackling with an unleashed move will almost always either force a fumble or cause an injury. It's worth saving this until you get a clear hit on your opponents star player. Using this on offence to stiff-arm an opponent is also likely to cause an injury.

Man, that hurts

Injuries are a major factor in Blitz the League 2. Whenever a player gets injured play pauses briefly while you see a graphic cutscene showing the injury occurring. This takes the form of a view of the anatomy of the body part being hit and then the bone shattering, organ being damaged or testicle exploding. When a player on your team is injured there are thee possible outcomes. The injury can be so severe that the player will miss several games. In this case you'll be told how many games and there's little you can do about it. If the injury is less severe then you'll have a chance to get them back in the game quickly. If the injury is a broken limb then you have a mini game to try and set it accurately.

This involves using the two thumb sticks to line up the fracture. If the injury is to soft-tissue then you can inject pain-killers or steroids known as juice. Again taking the form of a mini game where you use the left thumbstick to control the needle trying to line it up with a target while the needle jumps around resisting your efforts. For both mini-games your accuracy affects the stamina gained or lost by the player and the number of plays that they will miss on the sideline.

Put me in the game coach

A big focus of Blitz the League 2 is the single player game. This puts you as a player being drafted into the top team in division 1. Your player doesn't want to join that team he wants to play for his home team. You can choose your home team during player set-up but this team is in division 3. Character creation takes the form of a press conference when you're first drafted. Depending on the answers you give to these questions determines the positions you'll play on offence and defence and your starting stats.

The story revolves around your captaining the team through the divisions to the ultimate prize of the division 1 championship. The league commissioner and some of your team mates are working against you but you do have your agent and other team mates on your side. Between games you'll get phone calls from agents and sponsors giving you challenges. If you complete the challenge then you'll gain a new sponsor and new equipment. You can also win over the women with your onf ield prowess.

Juice me up

Between games in the career mode you can do some training to get your players up to speed. There are a couple of approaches for this. You can assign normal training to your players or have the computer do this automatically, you can upgrade your players stats directly and you can juice your players up. The stats upgrades take the form of buying equipment for your player which will increases their stats in categories like strength, speed and break tackle. Juicing your players involves buying a supplement that improves the performance of the juiced player or the team in some way. This includes decreasing the rate at which the turbo bar decreases or increasing the stamina recovery for the player.

Alongside the single player career mode are a few other special modes. These take the extreme action and expand on it. These include prison football which has no kick-offs, shorter pitch and no pads, and modes where not scoring reduces the points for a touchdown. These modes add some more interest to the game allowing it to really exploit the arcade nature of this game. They're all available in multi-player as well so you can challenge a friend to a high-impact game with the pads off.

Touchdown

So Blitz the League 2 ticks a lot of boxes. It can't all be roses though and there are issues with the game. Mainly I'd say that this isn't the most satisfying game of American Football that you'll ever play. It's definitely no Madden. Everything is over the top but well done for that. If you want a technical game of American Football where you can choose from a wide selection of plays and pick apart a defence or smother an offence then you probably won't enjoy this. If you're prepared to play this for what it is then it's a pretty good.

The story is overblown but actually engrossing as long as you set your expectations correctly. Likewise the injuries and overblown action can be a bit annoying but if you accept that this is an arcade game based on American Football then there's plenty of enjoyment to be had from this. I'd say that there isn't anything really wrong with this title but it seems to fill quite a niche market – you have to be sufficiently interested in American Football to pick it up in the first place but not so keen on it that you'll be put off by the arcade nature.