The NFL-killing one of the greatest sports games ever?

The BBQ Pit
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One of my favorite series of video games is Midway’s extreme sports series. The series probably got its start in 1993, with the release of the popular NBA Jam. Although Midway did market some silly sports games in the past, this was an instant hit, with its two-on-two action, amazing antics (“He’s on fire!”), and real NBA teams and players. It was soon ported to consoles and became an even bigger hit. Midway has followed this up in later years with more fun games (the NBA itself now owns the rights to the phrase “NBA Jam,” however).

Sadly, it seems one of their most fun sports games might go down the tubes. In 1997, Midway released to arcades another licensed extreme sports game, NFL Blitz. This has been a hit in arcades and at home-and why wouldn’t it be? High-adrenaline football action with, as Midway themselves put it, “No refs, no rules, no mercy.”

Now comes the National Football League (who, I remind you, gave Midway the right to use their name on the game), who’s investigating licensed NFL video games for behavior that is unacceptible on the field after some helmet-to-helmet hits and other unacceptible behavior this and last season.

Also this hilarious article from Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated.

Why is the NFL doing this? Is it because of these hits? Grand Theft Auto and the like are super-controversial, but you don’t see Rockstar pulling it off the shelves. (Of course, GTA has no license, but still…) Their is a disclaimer on another one of Midway’s games, NHL Hitz (and I imagine other similar disclaimers on their other games), that states that it is “adrenaline-style hockey” and that it sometimes does not represent actual NHL gameplay. Very true, and true with the NFL as well. Do real football players literally catch on fire after a number of good plays? Can they throw a football 70 or more yards with the reciever successfully catching it? Would the referees allow the entire St. Louis Rams team to knock down and jump onto Adam Viniteri after he kicked the winning field goal of Super Bowl XXXVI? Probably not.

Sports fans certainly know the difference between a video game and real football. NFL, please don’t take away one of our joys.

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Eh. Madden is better.

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Exactly, Neurotik. ESPN had a segment on this on their “Outside The Lines” show on sports video games once. Nowhere in the show did they mention that NFL Blitz lags far behind Madden and the 2K series in terms of crictical acclaim, sales, and popularity.

The Blitz style games are usually quick fun, especially if you are playing against a friend and not just the CPU. But in the long run, they’re dumb.

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Personally, I’m surprised the Blitz franchise hasn’t died yet. The first game or two were fun, but it’s been quite “eh” for a while now.

For a while there, I thought you meant that the NFL was actually killing the game of football. And that I would have agreed with.

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The NFL sells a product and like anyone who sells something they’re concerned about their public image. I guess NFL Blitz isn’t the way they want their sport potrayed. Since NFL Blitz isn’t exactly a simulator do they really need the NFL license anyway?

I don’t think games that license real life automobiles are allowed to show the cars being damaged.

Marc

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Anyone who’s ever played the Need For Speed series can tell you different. That is all.

Fun games, too.

LC

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Geez, another video game being put under the knife. Can’t these people just find a hobby?

Seriously…I don’t understand what the big beef is, because it’s plainly clear to me that this isn’t regular football. For crying out loud, the field’s half the size of a regular field (so it’s FIFTEEN yards for a first down, chumps). And the ball carrier is always slower than the guys chasing him, which, even as a gameplay element, I find ridiculous. “But if he’s allowed to break away, it’ll lead to lots of easy touchdowns.” And this is a bad thing because? I didn’t recall any huge objection to fast-break offenses in NBA Jam; just because the field is a little bigger, now it’s suddenly a bad thing?

Anyway, the main reason I’ve lost interest in the later installments is that the game’s become too…well, Midwayized. Too many damn things controlling what I can and can’t do. Yes, of course there are rules, you dope, and a ton of them, and they all assure that I’ll never be able to rack up lots of touchdowns, stuff the run, cover receivers (yes, defense does not begin and end with the goddam sack), design the kind of plays that I like (of all the plays I drew up, about one out of five ran the way I wanted it to any of the time), etc., etc. It’s like Street Fighter 2, actually…they do all these little tweaks to make the game “fair” and “less cheap”, and in the process drained all the fun out of it.

As for high adrenaline extremism…puh-leeze. This game’s about as extreme as a slap fight. Here, let me make a list of actual penalties that do not invovle over-gigahyped late hits (which don’t hurt the player at all, and are hence worthless). See if you can spot which ones can actually be done at all in NFL Blitz.

  • OFFENSIVE pass interference (yes, there is such a thing)
  • Illegal man downfield
  • Offensive holding
  • Defensive holding
  • Tripping
  • Illegal chuck
  • Offsides/Encroachment/Neutral zone infraction
  • Pass to ineligible receiver
  • Pass from beyond line of scrimmage
  • More than one pass
  • Intentional grounding
  • Locking arms
  • Chop blocking
  • Clipping
  • Block from behind
  • Advancing loose ball
  • Giving assistance to runner
  • Any kind of illegal motion or shift

Answer: Exactly TWO of these are possible, more than one pass and defensive holding. The former is possible if the first pass is caught behind the line of scrimmage, because the game allows unlimited passing of any kind behind the line. Note that this often isn’t very helpful and usually results in an incompletion or worse. As for defensive holding, this is done like normal pass interference. Sometimes a dive tackle will result in the defender doing the “spin-down” tackle motion; you can do this to an offensive player who doesn’t have the ball…hence, holding. This is the ONLY type of holding permitted, BTW.

I seriously doubt that NFL Blitz will die out, but it wouldn’t bother me in the least if it did. It’s really played out.