<\/p>\n

Platform:<\/strong> PS3, Xbox 360
\nPublisher:<\/strong> EA
\nDeveloper:<\/strong> EA Tiburon
\nRelease Date:<\/strong> 1\/8\/08
\nGenre:<\/strong> Arcade Sports
\nPlayers:<\/strong> 1-4<\/p>\n

Wow, just when EA was getting back on track with its sports titles this generation, it goes and puts out a steaming pile of athletic gaming poo like NFL Tour<\/em>. Everything that was once so great about the NFL Street<\/em> series has been completely stripped away and dumbed down to reach a more casual audience, which frankly makes no sense given that NFL Street<\/em> was already an arcade-style football series meant for the non-simulation crowd to begin with. It didn\u2019t need any simplifying!<\/p>\n

On the surface, NFL Tour<\/em> appears to strongly resemble NFL Street<\/em>, both in the colorful, exaggerated graphical style and gameplay. The core seven-on-seven arcade football premise is intact. You\u2019ve got something like 40 offensive and 20 defensive plays divided up into easy-to-identify categories like Long Pass, Short Pass, Run, Blitz, Zone and so on, and simple, intuitive controls that anyone can pick up and play without a problem. Offense is the focus here, with defense very much an afterthought and no kicking game whatsoever. So this is really just a game of scoring as fast as you can and seeing who can get that one lucky turnover that turns the tide. For a couple games it\u2019s a decently fun ride.<\/p>\n

From this basic shell left over from NFL Street<\/em>, though, EA has ripped out everything else that added at least a slight hint of strategy or depth to the field of play. Trick moves, taunts, Gamebreakers, player progression and customization. It\u2019s all gone, confusingly enough. Other than a useless wall-running mechanic and the basic football evasion techniques like spinning and juking, NFL Tour<\/em>\u2019s gameplay has no style, no spark, no spirit. A far-too-prevalent Reversal system has been implemented in an attempt to infuse a little something new, but ultimately it just turns every play into an exercise in button mashing (or Sixaxis shaking, in the PS3\u2019s case) that is incredibly easy to exploit for breaking tackles on offense and landing big hits on defense, especially when playing against the AI.<\/p>\n

The mode count is similarly bare bones. A 38-game tour across the country serves as the game\u2019s career mode, taking you to major cities like San Diego, NYC, Pittsburgh, DC, Dallas, and New Orleans to take on all 32 NFL teams and a few All-Star teams, with each tour stop presenting different winning stipulations to deal with, such as traditional football scoring, first team to a certain point total wins, the opposing team is spotted a seven-point lead, longer first downs to contend with, etc. Beyond that, there\u2019s an exhibition mode, basic two-player online play and a pair of dull, tacked-on mini-games called Smash & Dash (it\u2019s like keep away or king of the hill) and Redzone Rush (take turns going one on one trying to score on the other player in a single play from mid-field).<\/p>\n

For all its gameplay woes, however, NFL Tour<\/em>\u2019s most unforgivable flaw is its horrifyingly lame and repetitive announcing. Trey Wingo, of SportsCenter fame, handles the commentary, rapidly spewing out oh so memorable (or not) lines like, \u201cI am videogame announcer, hear me repeat,\u201d \u201cVideogame announcers are like shampoo, lather, rinse and repeat as necessary,\u201d and worst of all, \u201cI\u2019ve run out of things to say so I\u2019m just going to repeat myself and you\u2019re just going to sit there and take it.\u201d Ummm\u2026 no Trey, my boy. I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n

Whoever thought this type of announcing would be funny or entertaining to the player was seriously mistaken. EA, making fun of repetitive game announcers doesn\u2019t excuse you from committing the exact same sin. In fact, it only goes to show how lazy you were in slapping this title together overall. So allow me to be lazy as well and end this review right here, because, honestly, I\u2019ve already wasted more time and thought on it than I needed to.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pros:<\/strong>
\n+ Easy to pick up and play, decent fun for maybe a game or two<\/p>\n

Cons:<\/strong>
\n– Some of the worst game announcing EVER!
\n– Bare bones gameplay and mode lineup offer no longevity
\n– Dumbs down the NFL Street formula so much it’s embarrassing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Platform: PS3, Xbox 360 Publisher: EA Developer: EA Tiburon Release Date: 1\/8\/08 Genre: Arcade Sports Players: 1-4 Wow, just when EA was getting back on track with its sports titles this generation, it goes and puts out a steaming pile of athletic gaming poo like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[183,90,49,3,21],"tags":[6148,6108,1804,3226,696,6070,6079],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2656"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14681,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656\/revisions\/14681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}