Review

Blitz: The League II

When it comes to sport titles, they’ve always fallen into two categories: the simulation and the arcade. The simulation sport titles (like Madden) try their best to represent their particular sport realistically. This way, gamers can feel like they’re really playing in the NFL (or NBA, NHL, ect.). The arcade titles (like NBA: Street) are all about quick gratification. These sport titles are designed to be less complicated, focusing on providing the most action packed experience possible. In order to provide said experience, titles of this ilk usually feature athletes that can perform superhuman maneuvers on the field (court, ring, ect.). This exaggeration of a sport’s characteristics helps to create the exciting arcade titles gamers have come to love over the years. The Blitz series falls into the latter category of sports titles, complete with all the over-the-top shenanigans one would expect. Midways latest Blitz title, Blitz: The League II, seems to be a little confused about which category it’s supposed to reside in. This confusion causes the League to fumble the ball.

The Blitz series was originally all about arcade fun. It provided fast games (the quarters were about five minuets long) and crazed action you couldn’t find anywhere else. Things started to change when Blitz: The League came out in 2005. The League introduces a campaign that depicted the “secret life” of football players. Gamers would live out the life of a football player who often indulged in gambling, women, and drugs (like steroids). This change seemed to bring about a more realistic, if not stereotypical, experience to the Blitz series. Blitz: The League II follows in the footsteps of the original League title in that you get to experience the life of a football player. You play as “The Franchise”, an up and coming college football player that’s about to be drafted to the League. The campaign starts right after Franchise is drafted to your team. The rest of the story is a blur of illegal activity, sponsorship, and football. The story itself isn’t really engaging which, when it comes to a sports title, is to be expected. The real meat and potatoes of Blitz is in the gameplay.

All of the previous Blitz mechanics are still present including fast quarters, brutal hits, an absence of rules, and eight players per team on the field at once. Midway even brought back the classic “late hits”. New to the game are precision aim tackles, unleash mode, realistic injuries, the clash meter, and touchdown celebrations. The clash meter is a bar at the top of the screen that slowly fills every time you perform a big play, dirty hit, or make a touchdown. Once the bar is filled you will enter into unleash mode, which gives gamers the ability to perform extravagant moves on the field. It also allows them to perform precision aim tackles. By holding the Left Trigger right before hitting someone, the game will go into slow-mo. During this time, players can pick which body part they want to mangle on their opponent. After the hit takes place, the camera moves into the other player’s body to show the damage being done in real time. Normally, all of these elements are normal when it comes to an arcade title. However, this is where things start to get confusing. Because Midway wants to make a more mature and realistic football experience, the arcade elements seem out of place.

The precision hits result in some of the most brutal animations I’ve seen in a video game. Hits can cause bones to be broken, tearing flesh and causing internal bleeding. I once saw an NPC hit in such a way that their achilles tendon was completely torn off the bone. What makes it brutal is it’s done in such a realistic fashion. However, unrealistically, the player with the torn tendon was back on the field within a couple of downs. Most injuries sustained during precision hits should put down an athlete for the rest of their lives, let alone a couple of downs. There are times when a player has a dislocated shoulder and you are tasked with setting it back in place. This of course would allow them to continue playing. But when all the bones in a player’s neck are shattered, he should be dead, not on the injured list. This doesn’t bother me too much, seeing as how these injuries are so frequent in the League that halfway through the season I wouldn’t have a team anymore. However, it does take away from the realistic tone Midway was going for and eventually hurts the title.

This holds true when it comes to the late hits. Normally, you had your player running and tackling a guy after he just made a touchdown. This gave you satisfaction whenever the opposing team was celebrating their success. In the League, the late hits are done differently in that you are required to walk up to someone and hit the A button. This starts an animation of your controlled athlete attacking another player in brutal fashion. One animation depicts a player removing an opponent’s helmet and, using on screen button prompts, beating him in the face with it. I never wanted to kill the guy, just stop him from showing off. This new form of late hits, along with a lot of the new mechanics, left me feeling empty inside. The whole point of playing an “arcade” title was to get away from reality. The reason I’m able to enjoy Mortal Kombat’s fatalities is because they’re impossible to pull off in real life. That doesn’t hold true here.

Blitz: The League II is caught in between being a simulation and an arcade sports title. On one hand you have to manage your team by making sure they are healthy and well trained. You live out the life of a superstar with all the benefits, legal and otherwise, and all the injuries are alarmingly real. On the other hand your teammates can have internal bleeding from the neck down and still compete. Games are very short, first downs are every thirty yards, and there are only eight players on the field at once. This constant push and pull takes a toll on the player. The comical tone is replaced by a mature vibe that makes you feel uneasy about the actions on the field. You would like to body slam someone, but are disturbed by the outcome. Blitz needs to be a simulated experience, in which it’s rare for someone to get hurt. When someone does get hurt, the uneasy feeling is understandable and excepted. Or, Blitz should be an arcade experience, in that people get hurt all the time but not realistically so. That way you won’t be so disturbed when it happens. Living in the middle just makes things confusing, with the only real reason to play is to see how horribly disfigured a player can get from a tackle.