The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Blitz: The League 2 (first impressions)

Yesterday, I received my copy of Blitz: The League 2 and here's my first impressions.

- Online is pretty damn fun.  Dan and I played 3 games earlier this evening and even the blowouts were entertaining due to the fact that you get to use late hits on your opponent every few plays.  The counter attacks on the late hits were especially entertaining as well.  The games that we played were lag-free and the last game was a terrific back and forth battle that ended in a one point win for Dan (I went for 2 with 20 seconds to go to win the game. Stupid me.)

- The character creation mode is a nice touch.  The game simulates a press conference that asks you questions that defines the positions that you will play for your team and then the follow up questions define what attributes are most important to you.  In my opinion, it's just better than the generic "create-a-player" mode that we typically see of late.

- Frank Caliendo's play-by-play has been funny to this point.  The one thing that confused me was the fact that he only calls the game in the single player mode, but not online.  Just interesting to note.

I haven't heard any real repetition in his calls to this point, so that's a nice plus.

- The T.D. celebration codes are another nice part of the game.  I've been fighting the urge to hit Gamefaqs and see all of the ones that people have figured out, just so that I can try to unlock a few of my own without any help.  If you haven't had a chance, take a look at this video over at the Midway site and tell me that some of them aren't cringe worthy.

- Speaking of cringing, some of the injuries that I've seen thus far are pretty brutal.  During the online game that Dan and I played, I ruptured his QB's spleen... 1 play after he returned from a broken bone in his arm.   There is also a mini-game that you play after each of the minor injuries that, when executed properly, allows you to get the player back into the game sooner based on how well you complete it. It's a nice way to balance out the injury caused by your opponent, by giving you the chance to get your player back sooner.

I did love the fact that a broken arm on a QB only took him out of the game for 7 plays though.  heh.

So, my first thoughts on the game are pretty positive.  It's a huge risk/reward game.  If you take a chance on the big hit, you may be rewarded with a fumble or the other player could get by you and score a TD.

It's not going to be the most realistic football game on the market, but at this point... with how much I've disliked the path of Madden, it's nice to have a football game that is fun to play and is entertaining as well.

I'll play a bit more over the next few days and post a bit more about it then.