Tuesday, March 16, 2010

BLITZ The League: II

BLITZ The League: II

Let's get a list of reasons to play BLITZ II out of the way:
  • Can't get enough medicine-based minigames from Trauma Center, and want to jam a giant goddamned syringe into your own hand to heal yourself when your fingers all get shredded by somebody's cleat
  • Like to do the Randy Moss "We Whipt Dey Ass" endzone celebration when you don't input the right celebration move (ie the real celebration is more hilarious)
  • Enjoy managing heat levels based on which supplements of varying levels of legalities to juice your apparently helpless teammates with
  • Want to hear Hall of Fame Linebacker Lawrence Taylor say "What the fuck do you want?"
  • Get to gamble on and fix your own games (theoretically you can choose not to, but I didn't want to cross the mob in this game. This football game.)
  • Hear a crowd chant "BULL - SHIT!", ECW style if the game becomes a blowout
  • After a dirty hit to knock a guy down, curbstomp him into the mud and call him a stupid motherfucker. No really, the line is "C'mon, get up you stupid- *stomp* - mutha - *stomp* - fucka! - *stomp*"

If any of those activities sound like fun, Blitz II is for you. It is pure arcadey football, playground rules and late hits everywhere, along with horrifying, horrifying injuries, the bloodiest and most disturbing you will ever see. All the while, the game charms you with its adorably horrible characters fighting and yelling at each other. Blitz II isn't just the anti-Madden, it's the cure for Madden.

There is literally nothing not to like about this game, unless you are a football purist. Its play is quick and the bullet-time-like "CLASH PLAYS" make you feel suitably like a badass. The character creation mode is a breath of fresh air in a world of stale slider bars and pregen faces, completely eschewing your character's appearance in exchange for defining his personality. The other teams' intro movies are frequently laugh-out-loud funny, and the game takes itself not at all seriously (the star DE for Philadelphia is, of course, a fan who liked to fight so much in the stands the team offered him a contract). This is a great game to kick back and have fun with, and realize that video games are supposed to be fun, after all.

Graphics: Everything is suitably dingy and disgusting where it should be, but a nagging shinyness to surfaces looks to be the vestiges of a failed design concept 4.
Sound:
Voicework is funny, but in the end nothing here really stands out. 2.
Controls:
Occasionally the responses to your inputs are counterintuitive, and your avatar will do something you didn't intend. 3.
Tilt:
It's what a arcadey football game should be, a violent, degrading, hilariously un-PC experience. 5.
Overall (not an average): 4.

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