EA is back to take another stab at arcade-style football with NFL Tour. You may remember the NFL Street series on the PS2 and Xbox. Well, NFL Tour is pretty much the same game minus the thug attitude. That means it is fast paced, extremely biased towards the offense, and ultimately pretty darn shallow. It’ll keep you entertained long enough to add about 700 points to your Gamerscore, but there just isn’t enough substance here to make it a solid experience in the long run.
Quick Hits
- Title: NFL Tour
- Platform:Xbox 360
- Publisher: EA
- Developer: EA
- ESRB Rating: “E” for Everyone
- Genre: Arcade football
- Pros: $40 price; fast pace; games only take 5 minutes
- Cons: Gameplay is too simple; playing defense sucks; commentary is awful; not many game modes
Features
NFL Tour comes out of the gate limping with only a handful of modes. You can play an exhibition game, multiplayer game, the NFL Tour campaign mode, and two minigames. And that is it. The minigames are Redzone Rush where you play one-on-one to try to score from 20 yards out and Smash and Dash is a one-on-one game of keep away in a small arena. Both minigames are only fun to play about once each and then you’ll never go back to them. The NFL Tour mode offers a decent number of events that will keep you busy for a day or two, but you’ll likely get completely bored of the game before you see the end of the Tour. Quite frankly, there isn’t much to do here, and what we do have isn’t going to keep you busy for long. EA was smart enough to price it at a “bargain” MSRP of $40, but that isn’t nearly enough to overcome the shortcomings of the game.
Gameplay
EA
What really seals the (non) deal for NFL Tour is that the gameplay itself just isn’t all that fun. The game is 7 on 7 and very fast paced and the controls are simple and easy to learn. The game is heavily biased towards offense, though, and basically it all boils down to whoever scores last wins. If you are even halfway decent at the game, which takes all of about five minutes to learn, there is no reason why you shouldn’t score on every play. That is fun for a while, but it just gets boring and repetitive after a couple of games. There isn’t really any strategy or game management here, which are the best parts of a real football game like Madden. You just score in one or two plays, get burned on defense, and then it is your turn to score again. There are a few things that make NFL Tour stand out from real football, but these shift the balance even further towards the offense. First, you can jump over defenders and run on the wall. Secondly, you can break tackles by mashing the A button. As long as they aren’t gang-tackling you, you can get out of most tackles and continue matriculating the ball down the field at your leisure, which is just ridiculous. It just isn’t fun. One thing I do like about NFL Tour is that the games consist of two, two-minute halves and even though the clock stops after every play, you can get through games in about five minutes. Its like ripping off a band-aid. It isn’t fun, but it is over quickly.
Graphics and Sound
NFL Tour’s presentation is okay, but it isn’t anything to get excited about. The players look decent, and the animation is okay, but everything seems to lack “oomph”. The players have no personality and the hits really lack impact. The only flashy thing about NFL Tour is the cheesy fireworks display when you score.
The audio, on the other hand, is completely awful. The sounds of the game on the field are completely generic. But the worst part is the commentary by ESPN’s Trey Wingo. He makes the same awful jokes over and over and over again and it starts to grate on you. Sure, it is funny when he is teaching you the history of the Roman Empire or tells you some unique fact about the city you are playing in, but for the most part his endless “Videogame announcers are repetitive” jokes are horrible.
Bottom Line
EA
All in all, NFL Tour is about as average of a game as you’ll find. A limited list of modes. Boring gameplay. Lackluster graphics and sound. Other than the commentary, nothing is truly bad here, but nothing is all that good, either. I like the fact they took the game off of the street and got rid of the hip hop attitude and instead focused on the football, but the fact remains that EA’s version of arcade football just isn’t that interesting. I don’t know what it is about the first couple of NFL Blitz games that is so addictive and fun, but EA sure hasn’t figured it out over the last ten years. Of course, Midway has seemingly lost track of the secret formula since then as well. Even at $40, I can’t recommend NFL Tour for a purchase. Give it a rental.
