Gaming Target - Game Boy: NFL Blitz 20-02

Written by Matt Swider on October 16, 2001

Review: Seems they have replaced the flaming ball with a flaming sac of shit.

Over the past couple years, Blitz was among the handful of football franchises that graced Game Boy and Game Boy Color, yet it seemed like every title released was limited in performance. This resulted in old school style visuals and gameplay parallel to titles from the eighties, and though some may take that as an ideal approach, it's about time that the football genre on the portable platform enters a new generation. With the release of the Game Boy Advance, that effect should finally be able to take place with football taking on a fresh angel in both visual presentation and concept.

Besides the Sports Illustrated for Kids Football title, Blitz 20-02 has an open field when it comes to the NFL action on Game Boy Advance, especially considering Madden won't be making an appearance until late in the fall season. But despite this lack of competition, Blitz will have to bring its well-known hard tackling premise to Game Boy Advance for the title to suit eager fans of the series. Sadly, the hits and pounding don't live up to the Blitz name as one might hope.

That single flaw of not being able to serve that extra illegal blow to your opponent presents a major problem when trying to match the game with its console counterparts, considering that's what Blitz has been about since game one. The extreme action seems to have shrunk with the screen's size, and it goes for the AI from the game as well.

Though not too surprising for a football game, not much of a challenge can be met, where too many times you're able to run down the open field to score a simple touchdown. Unless, of course, you're unlucky in getting sacked by an opponent who fell out of the sky and happened to stealthy fly by your blockers. With unfair advantages in passing, running, and tackling by both sides (though players will have more of the advantage each time), the AI within the game has deemed this football title unchallenging and rather light in comparison to what we expect Madden to bring to us towards the end of the year.

These two things combined have caused the game to receive a bad rap, when as dire as things may sound, there are somewhat decent aspects to this football titles after all. Graphically, things seem to be up to snuff, and rather large leap in terms of quality from Game Boy Color to Advance. No longer are you stuck in over the top angles with bit players, but actual Blitz perspectives featuring players that almost seem more than just midgets on a field. Though it comes with a couple choppy glitches here and there, visuals haven't looked better on a portable football game since.

Many moments of dead silence fill the game, but when the announcer does speak, things can be heard crystal clear with the titles topnotch voice samples. While we would have liked to see more of it, and possibly some background music, it might as well be better than some annoying commentator with a lot to say over some irritating techno tunes that don't suit football one bit.

Becoming familiar with Blitz 20-02's controls should be no sweat. The scheme is perfectly laid out, and movement is mapped out on the field just as nice. It's just too darn easy to score touchdowns when you find the gaps in the plays of the CPU. All there is left to do when you are fed up with the easy to beat AI is turn the system offЧno head to head play through the link cable, cause Midway surprisingly limited it all to one player, giving things an unfortunate ending.