What do you do when you want to make a football game but can’t use anything slightly resembling the NFL in fear of being smacked with a fat lawsuit? You kick it old school and use your imagination to fill in the gaps…basically you just make a lot of stuff up. All-Pro Football 2K8 offers a selection of over 200 football legends such as Roger Staubach, John Elway, Jerry Rice, and various other guys who are now old and fat and make a living selling stuff on TV infomercials at 3:00am. Think of it as football in the Bizarro world, with fictional teams playing in made up stadiums, where you can finally answer famous hypothetical sports questions like, what if Walter Payton and Joe Montana played on the same team?
As soon as you start the game you’ll notice that there is no main menu, nor any way to advance to one. You’re immediately prompted to pick players in the categories of gold, silver, and bronze to build your front line team, while the CPU fills in the rest. Some of these guys will be familiar to you like Willie Gault, and others only your Dad will remember, such as Floyd Little (plus, on the Xbox 360 version you’re rewarded with 5 achievement points just for assembling a team). The names of the teams are fairly generic, ranging from the Sharks, Cyclones, and the Assassins. There’s no way to change these names, which helps avoids licensing issues, because the Pittsburgh Iron Men could easily be changed to the Steelers.
Instead of ranking a player based on stats, players are ranked by their attributes, which range from throwing abilities, power blocking, kicking, and quarterback skills. So when you assemble a team, you have to balance responsibly and not just pick a player because you like them, but for what they can do to enhance the team, otherwise you’ll have four great quarterbacks and no runners. This feature is both a plus and a minus, because on one hand you can pick players according to their talent to assemble the perfect team, but on the down side it makes things unrealistic because the player’s attributes may be too perfect in that NBA Jam kind of way, where the only thing missing is the flames shooting out of the ball when you throw it.
The football legends obviously look how they did in their glory days, years and decades ago, so if you never saw somebody like Dick Butkus play, you’re not going to recognize him. So you may want to check out Wikipedia to see how most of the old timers looked, as well as their accomplishments in the sport. Also, with the exception of attributes, most of the all stars don’t have any stand out moves that separates them from the other players on the field.
The controls for both systems are basically similar and handle well, with the only difference being the SIXAXIS enabled features on the PS3. On offense, tilting the SIXAXIS up will make your player dive for the ball, and tilting down makes your player charge forward; while in defense tilting up will give you the advantage of breaking through the opposing line. These options feel more gimmicky than helpful, and are in no way missed when playing the Xbox 360 version.
Those who are more familiar with the Madden games may feel that All-Pro 2K8 is very limited in places, because standard football features like trading players is not available, and for obvious reasons there is no franchise mode. This is just a bare bones football game that focuses on gameplay and takes away the frills. In some ways it may remind you of the Blitz games, which also found a curve around EA’s NFL licensing grip, and tried to find other ways to deliver a satisfying football experience.
Even though gameplay is identical on both versions, there is a framerate issue on the PS3, causing it to chug at times, whereas things flow smoother on the Xbox 360. The PS3’s visuals also look flat in comparison with the 360. The colors of the player’s uniforms, crowds, and the interiors of the stadiums stand out much more on the Xbox 360. Even though they look good on the PS3, the advantage goes in favor of the 360.
The AI, while not as tight as Madden, does offer challenging gameplay and avoids the complex structure, cutting to the meat of the game. With the exception of a few tweaks, the gameplay feels very close to the 2K5 version, which is not a bad thing because that’s still a great game, but after several years you kind of expect more. Learning to push each player’s attributes to the max can further advance how you play the game, so you’ll have to use trial and error to see which players do what best in offense and defense.
Jumping online changes everything, because it’s definitely a better game when you’re playing against other user created teams, even though the thought of OJ Simpson constantly chasing may freak you out. Neither of the systems was lag free during multi-player, but surprisingly there were more hiccups on the Xbox 360 version than the PS3 version, but the fact that a lot less people are playing this on the PS3 could be a factor. No doubt about it, this is a good football game, but because of the lack of real NFL features, some may be turned off. At the same time, many football fans are tired of the Madden monopoly and may find All-Pro Football 2K8 refreshing.
The look of the game is solid, but there’s nothing that stands out. The graphics have only been slightly improved since 2K5, but there could have been more effort in the details. The PS3 version is grainier than the Xbox 360 version, and the frame rate difference is noticeable if you play them both one after the other. Zooming in and out during plays is nice, and the replays do bring you into the game when a touchdown is scored. The graphics do take a slight hit when you go online, especially the PS3 version which shows off a lot of jaggies.
The Season mode is pretty basic, and there’s no Franchise mode. Most of the features that we’re used to seeing in a Madden game are absent, but with 240 legends to choose from and over 70 player attributes there’s still a solid game to play. Xbox Live lets you set up online leagues and play in tournaments, so you’ll always have a reason to keep coming back.
