NFL Blitz 2000
System:
Nintendo 64
Publisher & Developer: Midway
Released: 1999
Genre: Arcade Football
Capabilities: Controller & Rumble Pak Compatible
Review Updated: May 30, 2001
The Game
NFL Blitz is not your average football simulation. Instead it is an Arcade based football game, with hard hits, no rules, and easy game play. This is only the second football game series to take an arcade approach on football. The other was Super High Impact from the early 1990's. While that was another great football game, not another developer has tackled the idea until recently. So will this game give us a break from the mass amount of simulations on the market like Madden, Gameday, Quarterback Club, and 2K? Let’s get onto the review and find out.
Graphics
The visuals are pretty impressive for an arcade game, and while they are no where up to par with the ones found in Madden and other simulations, they still get the job done. The players do look pretty bland though. You only got two sizes which are fat, heavy, linemen, and ripped, muscled, receivers. The field looks decent, and again, it’s nowhere up to par with the other football games, but it is just a field and it really doesn’t get that much attention any ways, plus there are codes to unlock many other gimmick type stadiums. The menus are easily laid out, and you’ll have no problems selecting plays, browsing through the game menus, and creating your own plays. And since there are less players on the field, everything moves at a steady, smooth, frame rate. The animations for this game are also another thing that are well done. The monster like hits are just hilarious to watch over and over.
Sound
You got some nice little tune going in the background which is easy on the ears, but doesn’t get annoying. The announcer doesn’t do the standout job like in the Madden and 2K games, but he’s still fun to listen to and he’ll throw in comments you’ll be remembering forever like, “You can put it on the Board!” and “That’s an illegal hit!” All the sound effects are here that you expect from an arcade game, which are hard pounds for tackles, and you even can hear the players yell threats at each other.
Game play
Now everybody knows the rules of usual football right? 4 downs in a drive, where you get a first down after you gain 10 yards. All the penalties, and so forth. Well, Blitz should have it’s own league because it’s rules are all different. Instead of each team having 11 players on the field, Blitz has it set where you got 7 players for each team. And instead of 10 yards for a first down, it’s 30 yards in this game, because most plays in here connect for a lot of yardage. You also won’t find any penalties in here at all, so you can do as much pass interference as you want, and keep on pounding players after the play. You also won’t be able to do much stuff in here you do in simulations like make substitutions and call time outs (actually when you pause the game, the pause menu says it’s a time out). You’ll also find out the number of plays in here available are much less than in other games. With only 27 offensive (with an additional 9 you can create), and only 9 defensive plays to choose from.
There are a couple of new features added to game play like a new “on fire” mode where if you make 3 straight sacks, or 3 straight first downs. While on fire, your players will break more tackles, have maxed out stats, and easily break through the lines. Also instead of only being up to 2 players in last year’s version, this year’s game can now have up to 4 people playing simultaneously. Too bad it can only be 2 vs. 2, and not 3 vs. 1 and so on. But human players on a team alternate on drives by selecting plays and mainly controlling offense and defense. Also after each game there is a little “Blitz Trivia Challenge” where you get a trivia question and get awarded points for getting a right answer.
The game has a nice amount of modes to choose from. You got exhibition mode which is just your basic one-on-one match up. You also got season where you progress through the actual NFL season and work your way up to be Super Bowl champions. The Play book Editor also makes a return where you can make your own plays, and save up to 9 of them, and use them in a game. A new mode making it’s way into this year’s version of the game is Tournament mode, where up to 8 teams can compete in a Playoff-Type tournament to see who comes out the best of them all.
Replay Value
The game's a blast in multi player mode, especially now with 4 players playing. I wished there could've been more defensive plays though, and I really would've appreciated a create-a-player mode. Also worthy of mentioning is the Arcade compatibility with the controller pak from last year’s version where you created your own plays in the N64 version of NFL Blitz, and uploaded them into the Arcade version to use. It was used in last year’s game, but for some reason it wasn’t used for this year’s.
In Brief
+: Now 4 players can play, New Tournament and Trivia modes, New “On Fire” feature is a great addition
-: Graphics are in need of a big upgrade, not a lot of plays to choose from, no arcade compatibility
The Final Ratings Rundown
Graphics: 7.0
Sound: 8.4
Game play: 8.9
Replay Value: 8.1
Overall: 8.1
Rounded to fit GameFAQs Score: 8
Comments
This is another great version of Blitz. The new features and modes are worth the purchase, but of course, Blitz 2001 is already out as of this writing, and that has even more new stuff so you should get that instead. But this game is really more of a party game, and I prefer it more in playing multi player than other football simulations. So it depends on your outlook, if you’re just a person who plays by himself most of the time, then get the simulations where you can spend hours of your time in Franchise and Season modes. But if you’re more of a party gamer, then get this game because you can have hours on end of fun with your friends in this game.