WorthPlaying Review – ‘Blitz: The League II’

WorthPlaying: "In 2005, the NFL and the NFLPA signed an exclusive agreement with EA granting them the sole right to make NFL licensed games until 2012. This was an unprecedented move at the time because until it happened, anyone was free to make a football game that featured any aspect related to the NFL. The agreement guaranteed EA with the lion’s share of NFL gamers, since everyone was barred from putting out an NFL game that would compete with Madden or NFL Street. Some publishers like Sega and Sony (makers of the ESPN NFL 2K and NFL GameDay series, respectively) simply gave up on the prospect of making an unlicensed football game and moved on to other sports.

Midway Games, developers and publishers of the NFL Blitz series, saw things differently. Already at odds with the NFL about the content in their Blitz series, they decided that the unlicensed route was more beneficial for them since they could now present a more brutal version of their game. Everything that the organization banned, such as excessive celebrations and late hits, was going to be put back in, along with a few other things that no football game ever thought of doing. The result was Blitz: The League, and the gamble paid off, with critics liking the game and fans feeling the same way. Three years after the release of the first game, Midway has brought it back with Blitz: The League II. Does the game still provide the raunchy, over-the-top fun of the original, or is the style now past its prime?

For those of you unfamiliar with how a typical game of Blitz works, imagine a regular game of football. Reduce the number of players on the field to seven on each team, and increase the yards needed per set of downs from 10 to 30. On top of that, take away just about every rule and penalty the game has ever seen, and you have yourself a typical game of Blitz football, where roughing the passer is accepted, brutal late hits are part of the game, and fumbles happen more often than not. The result of this is a faster-paced game with lots of risks taken and a high point average per game."