2K returns to the football world with some of the greatest players to ever play the game.
When you pop the disc into your console, the first thing it brings you to is the player select screen. This is where you will completely create and customize every aspect of your team. You start out by picking your two gold tier players, than your three silver ones, and lastly your six bronze players. Each position has at least one player in each tier, covering all of the greats from years past. Once you pick those eleven players, it takes you to the fill roster screen. The objective here is to let the game know what type of players you want filling out the rest of your team. Do you want pass or run blocking offensive lineman? How about some pass rushing defensive lineman? Or maybe some safeties that hang back to help out on the deep ball? The choice is yours. Once done here, you are then able to pick your team’s logo, name, stadium, city, and uniforms. The customization is endless as you have thousands of combinations to choose from. It could take you at least a half an hour deciding on what fits best for you, but that’s what Visual Concepts wants. Delve, dig deeper, and use strategy to create a team that can easily dominate your opponents.
Once all of that is done, you are taken to a team select screen for a game, and this actually doubles as All Pro Football 2K8’s main menu. It definitely takes some time getting used to, but once you grasp the concept it turns out to be one of the more innovative menus in sports games today. You push the right thumb stick to the right and the menu slides out, while pushing it back left will obviously send it back. From here you can choose quick game, teams, season, practice, options, features, or online. Most of these are pretty self explanatory, while features has some things of note. You have a feature called 2K Reelmaker, which allows you to edit saved replays and upload them onto the 2K Network to share with everyone. This sounds like an amazing idea, but you have to purchase the editing software off of the Xbox Live Marketplace or PlayStation Store. So that’s a bummer. From the features menu you can also select V.I.P which shows you all of your cumulative stats across all games played, as well as show you your tendencies depending on how you play. This can come in handy if you’re looking for a way to change your game plan. The one last thing in the features menu is celebration maker. This lets you assign celebrations to four buttons so that when you do something miraculous on the field, you make sure everyone else knows it. So once you get through all of that, it’s time to play ball.
If there’s one thing that Visual Concepts knows how to do, it’s give the player a great experience while playing their products. The gameplay, as you would expect, is magnificent. The players move so fluidly and just seem so real. Each player plays different depending on what they were like in real life. They really got it down to the tee as I’ve seen some things that player’s do that I never thought they could capture. For example; in real life when Dan Marino would get to the end of his drop back, he would dip the ball a little bit while looking for receivers and that is totally in the game. The new dynamic sideline is interesting as well. Now when balls fly into the sidelines bench players will catch them instead of just stand there, and if someone runs out of bounds the players will try and slow him down or just get out of his way depending on which side you fly into. Overall I was shocked at the realism that brought into this game, and it was really a joy to play.
This visuals in All Pro Football 2K8 aren’t stunning, but they aren’t bad either. The graphics seem dated at times, and some of the player models don’t exactly resemble the person they are portraying very well, but they aren’t disgusting. All of the different player animations were a sight for sore eyes however. You can really tell that you’re playing a 2K football game, and that’s a great feeling. The way the players move and fight for the ball is fantastic. Not only are the player animations good, but the crowed looks outstanding as well. A lot of the stadiums feature something that has to do with the team you chose. Say you chose the Sharks, the default stadium is Amity Stadium. This place has a huge, and I mean huge, shark at one end of the field. After every home touchdown the shark goes crazy and sprays water everywhere, and this really gives you a sense of the over the top nature that Visual Concepts brought into this game, and it really is quite refreshing.
Dan Stevens and Peter O’Keefe are back again as the announcers for All Pro Football 2K8 and what a treat it is. They really do a great job presenting the game to the player, as well as crack a few witty jokes every once in a while. Some of the voice tracks have been brought back from past games, but it’s been three long years so I’m not complaining. They conduct a nice recap at the end of each half, and all in all do a great job commenting on the game. The stadium noise is filled with excitement, and the crowed seems to know what’s going on. They cheer when they need to cheer, they boo when they need to boo, and they even shout chants and phrases to pump up their team’s legends. While the voice acting for the players is a little more than a bit off, the on the field sounds are phenomenal. Each hit sounds earth shattering, and the quarterbacks couldn’t sound more annoyed by the referees’ bad calls. There is even a Rush song on the soundtrack, albeit a remix but it’s still Rush. The other songs on the soundtrack aren’t bad either, and just feel right for football.
Although this game has some incredible gameplay and a tremendously deep customization feature, it lacks severely in any real depth. The season mode is obviously only one season long, and there really isn’t much else to do offline. Thankfully the online play is outstanding, and this could set a new bar for online sports games in the future. The teams you create offline are the ones you play as online, so this brings a whole new element of strategy into the fold. You have your basic lobby system as well as quick play, leagues, and tournaments. The way the leagues work is just like the offline season mode, except you’re playing against real people of course. You get all of the features of the season mode like trades, scouting reports, league leaders, and a playoff ending with a champion. Players can scout you by using your 2K player card, which works much like the V.I.P. system offline and tracks all of your stats and tendencies across every game played online. Users can also trade created teams by using the team code provided for you in the game. You can give these codes to friends and they can input them to unlock the team you created and use it as they please. There is also a 2K ticker that is implemented in the entire game. Once you activate it with the push of a button, it will always be there. Online or off, as long as your console is connected to the internet, it will keep you up to date on everything in the world of sports. All of this helps to add to a pretty shallow game as a whole, and provides some great online experiences to boot.
So without an NFL license, Visual Concepts has created something that any fan of the game of football can enjoy. Even if you’re too young to remember any of these classic players, just knowing that you’re playing as some of the greatest men to ever put on cleats can send shivers down your spine. With all of the hall of famers aside, the return of that classic 2K style of play combined with an exceptional online component is enough to warrant at least a rent, if not a buy. Even with its shortcomings Visual Concepts definitely brings back the look, the feel, and the atmosphere that all football games should have. The tagline doesn’t lie, All Pro Football 2K8 is without a doubt football resurrected.
~Mike Pelletier