Blitz: The League sacks factory

Midway today announced that its latest football game, Blitz: The League has gone gold and will hit stores October 17. The game will be available for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox.

When Electronic Arts grabbed the exclusive rights to the NFL license, other developers and publishers were left with a quandary. Should they make a game with fictional teams and players, or scrap their football franchises all together? While several publishers bowed out of the genre, Midway used the situation to its advantage.

The NFL has often frowned upon anything that gives the league a bad image, and Midway's NFL Blitz series has done just that by depicting players as thuggish, delivering bone-shattering hits and flaunting big-time plays. Now, with Blitz: The League featuring a pro football league completely from the imaginations of the developers, Midway was able to include all sorts of shenanigans that the "no fun league" would disapprove of.

Included in the game's story mode are some devious methods of winning games. Some objectives may ask players to simply cover the Las Vegas sports book spread, while others go as far as requiring gamers to injure certain opposing players. Owners can juice up their players with some illegal substances (with the risk of being caught), players can get into fights at nightclubs, and gamers can even send hookers over to the opposing team in hopes of tuckering out their players for the big game.

On the field, gameplay continues the tradition of the Blitz series, with arcade-style action, flashy moves, and ridiculous end-zone celebrations.

Blitz: The League is rated M for Mature and will retail for $39.99. For more information on the game, head over to GameSpot's previous coverage.