Do you like football? Enjoy tossing the old pigskin around? Can’t wait for the next installment of Madden and need something to pass the time? Check out EA Big’s NFL Tour, an arcade style, simple variation of your virtual NFL favourite. When I got this title to review, I was a little excited to see what an arcade football game was like, thinking along the lines of Open Ice or NBA Jam, I went into this title with hopes of big slams, fire, and gravity defying touchdowns. Unfortunately, while Tour is simplified for the casual gamer, it’s still lacking in enough departments to warrant a pass when looking for your next sports title.
To appeal to casual gamers, NFL Tour tried to simplify the controls of conventional complex NFL games into an arcade feel. Gone are such things as kickoffs, and field goals, and in its place are single button passing, reversals, and wall hurdles. Some aspects of Tour play like their Madden counterpart and you can change the option to use classic passing instead of their new one button variation, but the real difference in this title is that of balance. When on the offensive you have a number of tricks up your sleeve, by timing your moves just right you can counter a tackle, give yourself a little turbo boost, or run along the arena wall for a short period of time to avoid an angry defenseman. Unfortunately, while the offense have all these maneuvers at their disposal, all the defense has is a little turbo boost and a counter that rarely works, making most games just a lot of touchdowns and not enough interceptions or QB sacks.
NFL tour is a football game made by EA, as such we would expect this title to look graphically like that of Madden. For the most part the models look alright, they seem to have all the right pieces in the right places, but when comparing them to what the players look like in real life, it makes this title feel more like a comparison between real life athletes and their bobble-head counterparts. The fireworks and crowds are decent as well, while there’s nothing really to get excited about with this it’s still better then cardboard cutouts and skimpy special effects. Where you play the game is one of the biggest complaints I have with this title, out of the few choices of arenas you have to play in, while all are very colourful, they look more or less the same – Oval stadium with yellow canopies in different spots, different designs on the field, and blue walls. While some cities make it feel more urban by being right beside a steady paced highway of identical cars, those fireworks could distract the digital drivers and cause a car accident! When playing in Tour mode, you are introduced by a digital video of Trey Wingo, sports commentator for ESPN. While it was a surprise to see Trey trapped in a DVD, I couldn’t concentrate long enough to pay attention to him while my mind wandered and I began to wonder why EA Big would promote their HD experience, than have such a blurry digital video of Mr. Wingo explaining how to play the Tour.
I’m not done with Trey Wingo, not by a long shot. I can understand having a little humor in a game, especially a spin-off sports title. I can also appreciate how developers feel the pain players experience when a sports commentator repeats himself over and over again in a game. What I cannot accept is how Tour tries to dance around this by having Trey (as the commentator) make comments about repeating comments. I don’t mean this happens every once in a while, it feels like this game has about fifty comments to cycle through, and about 30 of them feel like jokes about commentator repeats. While playing in Tour mode I counted the number of comments he made about the game, comments he made about repeating comments, and the number of repeats of both, my findings? It turns out Mr. Wingo does in fact repeat his comments about repeating himself more then he repeats real football comments! The first couple of times you experience what I can only call the Wingo Factor, you may smile, you might even chuckle, but about half way through the Tour you could find yourself considering the mute button for the rest of your game instead of the dull repetitive jokes that lose all meaning after a couple of Hail Mary plays.
The different modes in a football game are usually what set it aside from the competition, and as a budget title, NFL Tour surprises a few people by having more then one mode of play, although not that much more. To begin, there’s the standard exhibition game. The Tour mode acts as the main mode of play for single players and is sort of like a tournament where you battle across the country. In tour mode you create your own custom character with your choice of preset face, body type, number, name, state and nick name (my guy is known on the turf as Granola) and you’re off. Tour mode has your personal player and chosen team playing in different similar looking cities against different similar looking teams. With each venue having a different objective you must follow in order to score, win, and move onto the next repetitive looking venue. As well, in this title is the Bash n Dash mode where two to four football players are put in a fenced off ring and whoever holds onto the ball for the longest wins (complete with bonus point hotspots and extra points for reversals and wall hurdles). There is also a mode called Red Zone which is like a good old fashion NHL shootout, one player has the ball, the other is the only thing standing between him and the end zone, each player has five chances, whoever scores the most touchdowns at the end wins. What? You thought there were more modes to play? You’re out of luck with that as NFL Tour only comes armed with 4 different ways to play, luckily as with most other next gen games, you can always play against other people online via Xbox Live. Don’t get me wrong, Bash n Dash and Red Zone are fun to play from time to time, especially with multiple people in Bash n Dash, but otherwise this title is definitely lacking in the lasting appeal department.
Walking into this expecting something more like a take on the Blitz series, I was hoping for balanced gameplay, over the top maneuvers and huge hits. While NFL Tour did offer these to an extent, they were no where near as extravagant as they could have been – almost like a title to fill the gap directly between the wackiness of Blitz and the realism of Madden. As an economic title (going for $30 in most stores), it’s definitely worth a look for those on a budget, but otherwise if you have a different football game on your wish list, you are better off picking that title up for the long haul. Too bad the commentary hurt so much. Too bad the commentary hurt so much.
Graphics: 3.0 / 5.0
Gameplay 2.5 / 5.0
Sound 1.0 / 5.0
Replay value 2.0 / 5.0
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