It seems like every mobile game development house has taken its own approach to putting football on handsets. Making a good mobile football game is a huge challenge, and there's simply no sure formula for success. Indeed, over the past year or two, we've seen games that feature five, seven, and the full 11 players on a side; we've seen games that use the coveted NFL license, as well as games that make use of generic teams; and we've even seen a handful of games that let you quarterback from a first-person perspective. Michael Vick Quarterback 2-Minute Drill, a new entry into the latter category, attempts to capture the sort of nimble-footed, desperate passing action you often see at the tail end of pro football games. Unfortunately, the game's stodgy, generic presentation and dull gameplay make it feel more like "whack-a-mole" than football.

We're betting that Michael Vick will never play this game. You should follow his lead.

2-Minute Drill drops you into the cleats of the celebrated, mercurial Vick with two minutes left on the game clock. You have to direct Vick around the field from a first-person perspective, avoiding a three-man rush and trying to get the ball to one of your three receivers. You can choose from about 10 different pass plays to march the ball down the field, including several cross and hook routes and the time-honored Hail Mary. The game also offers a way to download new offensive plays over the air, but it wasn't enabled at the time of this writing. The controls are context-sensitive--if you're in scramble mode, the keypad will move you around in the appropriate direction, but if you switch into pass mode, Vick will bring up the football, and the keypad will switch to symbolize the different sections of the field you can throw to. On the game's lower difficulty levels, you'll get some targeting info to aim your passes: Amateur mode will tell you which button to press when, and semi-pro mode will at least tell you which row of buttons to hit to get the right distance on your pass. You accrue points by throwing touchdowns and two-point conversions, and earn bonuses by completing consecutive passes, earning first downs, and the like. The game clock starts and stops with each play, and if you run out of time or turn the ball over on downs, the game ends.

This may seem like a reasonable way to go about building a playable football game for the mobile platform, because it keeps things simple and focuses the gameplay on the passing action. The problem with this game, however, is that it is too abstract and disjointed to be much fun. For one thing, there are a couple of easily discoverable strategies that offer you immediate, unqualified success on the two lower difficulty levels. If you like, you can simply alternate between the Hail Mary play and another play, and with a minute or two of practice, you'll get a first down every time. You can also scramble for seconds on end on the lower difficulty modes--which isn't at all unrealistic, given Vick's superhuman athleticism, but it still makes the game too easy.

Conversely, moving the ball is inordinately difficult on the pro difficulty level. No matter which play you choose, and no matter how much you run around in the backfield, the rushers will get up in your grill before your receivers have a chance to run their routes. If you manage to avoid being sacked long enough to get a pass off, the defenders will simply knock the ball down 90 percent of the time--and if you try to defeat the rush by firing off a quick toss, it'll go incomplete. The game's lack of effective visual feedback is also frustrating. Your teammates will run their routes accurately and square up to you when they're ready to receive a pass, but it occasionally seems like they're able to catch a ball in stride, even though there's no indication of how "open" they are. The visual signals for the rush are even worse. The screen flashes yellow when you're about to get sacked, but it's still difficult to gauge how close the defensive linemen are getting to you, given the game's jerky animation. There's also no way to tell if they're going to knock down your pass, as they don't raise their arms, and there's no additional cue to help you out.

Are you getting sacked or completing a pass? It's hard to tell.

2-Minute Drill's presentation is a decidedly lackluster affair. Rather than dwelling anywhere near the present norm, this game's production values hark back to mid 2003, even on a first-rate gaming phone like the Nokia 6600. The character animation is limited to a few simple frames of running, and the player motion doesn't look realistic in the slightest. Furthermore, you never see the actual football in the air, any real on-field action other than running, or even Mike Vick, for that matter. Instead, you're informed of each play's result (there are only five: touchdown, completion, incomplete pass, sack, or safety) via a single canned picture that is supplemented with a few corny lines of scrolling trash talk. On the bright side, the animated play diagrams are a neat feature. The game's sound does nothing to take your attention away from the graphics. It's limited to a few strident beeps and a five-second opening theme.

Michael Vick Quarterback 2-Minute Drill doesn't claim to be a complete (or even abbreviated) version of football, but due to its glaring deficiencies, there's no way you could consider it a fun mobile game of any sort. The game's few interesting touches, such as the play downloads and an optional weekly contest, don't change the fact that it's simply a quick and dirty mock-up with a license pinned to it. We suggest that you avoid it.