brady_branch
12-19-2006, 06:44 PM
I rented this game a while back, and wanted to hear other people's thoughts on it, but forgot about it until now.
My impressions:
The good: It's got an AFL license, meaning it has all the teams and players. It also has some quirky AFL rules, which take some getting used to, but once you learn to think outside the box, make the game actually a little more fun. Kicking is a challenge, and they really captured the spirit of AFL kicking with this aspect of the game. Also, pre-snap player motion is very realistic.
The bad: EA's normally outstanding player animations are nowhere to be found, players don't look realistic. The soundtrack contains an odd mish-mash of songs, from Story of the Year to some weird heavy metal song. The voice in the tutorial is extraordinarily obnoxious. The telemetry system, while a good idea, doesn't work. The Season mode is boring, due to there not being a draft, only signing NFL players who didn't make it, and there being nothing you can do with your rosters.
The ugly: Clunky gameplay, reminds me a lot of NFL Blitz, the kind you play in old arcades. No commentary to speak of, and if you don't have a good QB, you're dead. No real run game, flawed playcalling system. Setting is dark, dull, and boring, and when players flip over the wall, they never move, and they in fact look like they're dead. The music that plays during the games is boring and stupid, and the fan animations that come on the scoreboard are lame, repetitive, and horrible. The biggest one of all is the unrealisticness of the "big hits". I can't count how many times one guy would come up, hit some guy's legs, have him fly up in the air, and get thrown to the ground by another defender. It's unrealistic, it's near-impossible, and it doesn't fit with the family-friendly image the AFL generally tends to portray.
Overall, this idea was excellent, and could have turned out great, if EA had invested as much time and money on this project as they did on NCAA, Madden, NFL Head Coach, and NFL Street 3. Unfortunately, they didn't, and it turned out pretty bad. I give it a C-.
My impressions:
The good: It's got an AFL license, meaning it has all the teams and players. It also has some quirky AFL rules, which take some getting used to, but once you learn to think outside the box, make the game actually a little more fun. Kicking is a challenge, and they really captured the spirit of AFL kicking with this aspect of the game. Also, pre-snap player motion is very realistic.
The bad: EA's normally outstanding player animations are nowhere to be found, players don't look realistic. The soundtrack contains an odd mish-mash of songs, from Story of the Year to some weird heavy metal song. The voice in the tutorial is extraordinarily obnoxious. The telemetry system, while a good idea, doesn't work. The Season mode is boring, due to there not being a draft, only signing NFL players who didn't make it, and there being nothing you can do with your rosters.
The ugly: Clunky gameplay, reminds me a lot of NFL Blitz, the kind you play in old arcades. No commentary to speak of, and if you don't have a good QB, you're dead. No real run game, flawed playcalling system. Setting is dark, dull, and boring, and when players flip over the wall, they never move, and they in fact look like they're dead. The music that plays during the games is boring and stupid, and the fan animations that come on the scoreboard are lame, repetitive, and horrible. The biggest one of all is the unrealisticness of the "big hits". I can't count how many times one guy would come up, hit some guy's legs, have him fly up in the air, and get thrown to the ground by another defender. It's unrealistic, it's near-impossible, and it doesn't fit with the family-friendly image the AFL generally tends to portray.
Overall, this idea was excellent, and could have turned out great, if EA had invested as much time and money on this project as they did on NCAA, Madden, NFL Head Coach, and NFL Street 3. Unfortunately, they didn't, and it turned out pretty bad. I give it a C-.