All-Pro Football 2k8 Review
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by JasonComack
A couple days ago I finally got my X-Box 360 back from Microsoft. All in all I was pretty impressed with the service. They just sent me a new X-Box and gave me a free month of X-Box live gold for my troubles. Not a bad deal.
To pass the time till Madden comes out Anthony and myself picked up All-Pro Football 2k8 to check it out.
The reviews for the game had been mainly mediocre, in the 7-8 range, so my expectations weren't extremely high. However after sitting down with the game for a bunch of time I found myself pleasantly surprised.
The premise of the game is simple. Take the old NFL 2k5 style that worked so well and instead of using fake players (because madden owns the world) have many NFL Legends in the game.
The system works that you get to build a team consisting of 2 Gold Star Legends (think Young, Rice, Marino) 3 Silver Star Legends (Warren Moon, Herman Moore, Jack Lambert, Roger Craig) and 6 Silver Star Legends (think Dave Meggett, Tony Boselli and my personal favorite Al Del Greco!!!)
The system works but it's not without flaws. For starters if you wouldn't to you couldn't build a super team. You couldn't have Rice, Young, and Gale Sayers at the same time for example. Also say for whatever reason alot of your favorite players were silver tier, well you couldn't have more than 3 players of that type on your team.
Secondly since all of the value of this game comes from playing your friends (more on that later) I wish they had included some type of fantasy draft or a similar system to that in NFL Street. In street if you do a pick up game you get to pick superstars from a player pool of say 40 random players. I think a system like that would work perfectly.
Now that I am done nitpicking lets talk about the good.
The presentation of this game is phenomenal. When I first played NBA 2k7 I was blown away by the presentation. The accurate in game replays, the haltime show ect. Well All-Pro ups the ante even farther. The commentary is solid, after like 10 games things had not been repeated very often. Much like other games the commentary adds to the game. Secondly the in game replays are spot on. They usually show every highlight reel type play that after it happens you turn to your buddy and go "I hope theres a replay." The camera work on these replays is awsome and it really it just cool to watch a perfect throw/catch. The halftime show/post game show are also standout. They highlight all of the key plays and provide accurate commentary. It's very fun to watch and makes you wish something so simple yet gratifying would be included in Madden.
The graphics in general are great. The stadiums are well designed, most of them being extremely over the top. For example theres a stadium in Miami where the team name is the Sharks (Any Given Sunday anyone?) and when you score a TD water comes out of the Shark as well as your player making a Shark motion celebration in the end zone.
Another part where the game stands out is in the player models and animations. All of the tackle animations are smooth and theres never any of those awkward type tackles where players just collide into each other. Theres sideline catches, one handed grabs, dives, tips...the works. I feel like in this aspect this game is going to blow away Madden.
What really kills this game is replay value.
The season mode is sorely lacking. Theres no franchise mode. Really no depth at all. Disappointing but remember this is the first year of this game.
All in all I think this game is worth trying. If your a fan of the old NFL 2k games your going to love it. It's also fun to pick up and play as some of your all time favorite players.
Graphics/Presentation: 9
Just phenomenal animations, graphics and whistles and bells.
Game play: 8.5
Very solid, wish some things would be tweaked like the QB drop back. In general the game is just very fun to play, unlike the previous editions of Madden.
Lasting Appeal: 3
Sad but true. The aforementioned lack of depth with creating teams as well as the lack of franchise mode makes this game get old quick. It's unfortunate too because it's a fun game to play.
Final Score 8.3
