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If It’s In The Game, It’s REALLY In The Game
Other football games have impressive customization features and franchise mode-ish things, but Blitz: The League attempts to trump every single one of them in one shot - and almost pulls it off. The lack of a pro football license means that EVERYTHING can be created from scratch, and you get a ton of options that allow you to do just that. Once you decide on your team's city and name, it's off to the proverbial races; you can customize your team colors, logo, and uniform styles - even the kind of socks they wear. You can then set up your players and personnel as you see fit...draft a superstar player for your offense or defense, sign a seasoned vet to bolster your lineup, pick a coach ranging from a Tom Coughlin-esque taskmaster to a fiery young Jon Gruden type, and back that coach up with assistant coaches that actually grant statistical boosts to your players based on their particular expertise.
Now that you have your manpower lined up properly, do you want to place a bet on your team? Maybe you want to spend a little cash on enhancements for your team's physical equipment like better gloves and helmets? You've got the option to do that before every game. Or maybe you're a little more ambitious, and want to really power-up your team? Then you're looking for some performance enhancing "medicines". I mean, hey - a little Andersol or TGP goes a long way, right? And if you're worried about people finding out about that, you can buy a device called the "Pissinator" to clean up your players and their drug test results.
Finally, in perhaps the ultimate method of stacking the odds in your favor, at some junctions in the Campaign Mode where there's a particularly tough game upcoming, you can send "escorts" to your opponents to wear them out the evening before. Seriously. Clearly, the developers at Midway were enjoying the ideas they were throwing around in making this game, and I can definitely appreciate that.
After you have your team the way you like it, you can play through Exhibition games, advance the story in the Campaign Mode, or take your squad online and play against other armchair GMs. If there's any problem with the array of things you can do before the game, it's the way these options are presented. It's still great for interactivity as far as the game's Campaign Mode is concerned, but it's all done with menus and the occasional cutscene; it'd be much cooler if you had an open world to interact in...sort of like a videogame version of "Any Given Sunday", I suppose. How great would it be if you could take your players around and really get into the life of a player? Imagine actually getting to live a little of the life of a star QB after a well-played game, and having him take his offensive line out to dinner like they do in the pros? Or maybe watching your cocky wideout get into a barfight and have a press conference the next day? Maybe a future installment of Blitz: The League'll do that. Here's to hoping...
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