The campaign mode is short but sweet and adds for a small amount of replayability, but Blitz has never been about playing alone and this year with Blitz: The League its no different. Both the versus and the online multiplayer modes shine with nostalgic greatness. After kicking the crap out of my twenty five year old brother I took Blitz online for a few grudge matches. There is no game out there right now that gives you the feeling you get when flying head first at an opponent during a bench clearing fight, while screaming at some twelve year old through the headset. The real meat of the game is in the multiplayer modes and that’s where it really counts anyhow. After beating the campaign mode a few times I doubt there is any reason to go back but I know that this game will come off the shelf time and time again just to play against a buddy over Xbox Live. While there are some great things about Blitz: The League there are also some major problems with the gameplay mechanics. First off all the teams in the game are equal in terms of skills and overall quality of players. All the playbooks are the same as well and it really just feels (if you are playing single player) that you are replaying the same team over and over again only with different team colors. The collision effects are also a bit off as players tend to “merge” together on some tackles or wrap ups but there are plenty of hard hits and throws to make up for it. All in all the gameplay category is average for a next-gen football game.
Graphically Blitz: The League is a mixed book of non-NFL football fun. In general the game looks good, easily far better than any Blitz game before. The stadiums are well designed but do not include the amount of detail found in the EA football titles. The grass looks good and the weather effects are very nice. Player models look tough and the customization makes for a great variety in the looks and styles of the football characters. Overall they look tough and rough and much more intense than those wussy models found in Madden 2007. Midway did a good job of bringing in the overall feel of old Blitz games into the next-generation consoles. There is nothing here that will give you the wow factor but there is enough solid graphics that you won’t be disappointed at the end of the day. On the other side of the coin there is not much good or bad to say about the audio portion of Blitz: The League. The music is classic videogame alternative and the sound effects are fine and do the job. Players voice their hatred towards other players with urban accents that add to the feeling of the game. Home team’s are treated to a unison chant of “So-and-so sucks, so-and-so sucks” (add in whatever team is the away team in place of “so-and-so”) which is fun to hear the first few times, but gets old and repetitive very fast. Speaking of repetitive this is the one word that describes the commentary. I understand they had a small budget, but this commentary gets irritating after only 2 or 3 games. That being all there is to talk about in the audio department the verdict in general is that it’s like the other categories before it, average.
After putting in a good ten hours of single and multiplayer Blitz, overall I am happy. My thoughts may be a bit skewed as I was a huge fan of the old school Blitz games and have dozens of fine memories playing them with my buddies. I have a feeling though that the people buying this game are like me, fans of the series. Midway rounded out a decent looking, sounding, and playing game with good Blitz mechanics that will make any fan smile in delight. Taking into account the fact that the mammoth that is EA Sports now solely holds the NFL license they did a good job of making a football game work with fantasy teams and players. Overall Blitz: The League is an average football game with a large amount of fun added as a bonus, my advice is if you are a fan of the past Blitz games go pick this up, otherwise just give it a rent.
