NFL Blitz

Developer: Midway Games Publisher: Midway Games

Released: September 12, 1998 Rated: E 9/10

It’s easy to dismiss the feud between more serious sports franchises of past generations, like the one between Madden and Quarterback Club on the N64 (or Madden and GameDay on the PlayStation). Games produced to be on the cutting edge rather than to have simple, timeless gameplay regardless of rosters or graphics need context for their relative quality. No such prerequisites are in order when it comes to games like NFL Blitz. Created by a team headed up by Mark Turmell and Sal Divita, the same duo behind NBA Jam, Blitz is the intentional attempt to emulate the success of that series and, to a lesser extent, Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey, on the gridiron. And in spite of starting right off the bat with a fully polygonal product — i.e., no 16/32-bit 2D blueprint that informed the speed and simplicity of the concept before making a similar transition to those that defined the era of the late-‘90s.

Originally released in arcades the year prior before the essentially flawless console port we have here, NFL Blitz is, understandably, far from the feature-rich offerings of the simulation-focused franchises of the time. Play a single game or a season mode, or perhaps a tournament if you have the code for it. Like a classic game of Tecmo Bowl, it’s all you need — same for the playbook. Although there’s a play editor, which enabled one of the era’s coolest features — players could save their offensive plays to a controller pak and plug it into cabinets of the ‘99 version to play at the arcade — the slim, invariable default playbook is one of the game’s many iconic features. 18 offensive plays including classics like “Da Bomb” and “Sub-Zero,” and nine simple but effective defensive plays may sound stifling to the uninitiated, but it’s every bit the “less is more” philosophy that leads two players up the court after an inbound pass again and again. The gameplay is everything here, and it’s fast, simple, and hinges as much on direct input from the player as any football game before it, due in part to its reduced player count and snappy, overexaggerated movement of the players still involved. And it’s thankfully all incredibly simple and easy to pick up, with perhaps the only learning curve in the scheme being passing, which asks players to direct to a left, center, or right receiver, instead of icon-based passing — this is essentially a carryover from the arcade where fewer buttons and a great big joystick worked in tandem to make things accessible, but it can be a little tricky especially as receivers criss-cross on routes as you wait to time a throw or frantically get rid of the ball.

The being of pure light takes the ball straight up the hashmarks on the kickoff.

To achieve a necessary balance and bring the gameplay to the exact feel that makes it work, there are a lot of rule changes and quirks that would seem sacrilegious to longtime football fans that manage to make it past the attract mode or title screen. Ironically, it’s the reversal of a lot of these changes that would kill the franchise after only a few years, when Midway would forget where their sports titles’ bread was buttered, but for now, the text box that nobody reads when they start a game of Blitz advertise cardinal sins of football like “30 yards needed for a first down,” “pass interference is okay,” and “no penalties,” while seven players to a side cover tone of open ground with turbo meters and coast-to-coast length dives.

“So I said to the scriptwriter, ‘what’s the finish, brother?’ and he told me we’d go home in five minutes after the leg drop. Works for me, Jack!”

Rounding out the rest of the package are a lot of the same presentation cues and more that make Midway’s design philosophies work and give Blitz a feel that may not be entirely unique, but creates an instant familiarity, for better or worse, even if you’re playing for the first time. Personal records are kept with a PIN system, cheats are entered in a limited amount of time while your matchup loads. Tim Kitzrow enters the recording booth once again for over-the-top matchup announcements and commentary, though I struggle to pick out any lines as iconic as those from NBA Jam. Massive crunching hits, including the ability to keep whaling on opponents after the whistle, add just as much to the levity of the game as they do to the intensity, largely helped by the way the players bicker and taunt each other after plays. And of course, rubber band AI is as much of a staple as ever, for better or worse. But what more would you expect from the brand, really, than to keep turnovers in its back pocket for keeping things interesting? Whether or not you find that aspect of the game necessary or acceptable, though, NFL Blitz comes out of the gate lacking in depth, but still loaded with replayability. It’s the truest example of arcade-first titles cutting down on fluff and quite possibly the best iteration of the franchise because of it, depending on your philosophy. A gem of the classic arcade sports genre from every angle, and in its rawest form.

Continuing Legacy

The Blitz series would continue under largely the same design ideals through the 2003 edition, the same year that saw Midway sports titles cover the most ground ever — even soccer! Of course, the next year they’d undo most of this goodwill with Blitz and NHL Hitz’s “Pro” entries, which attempted to bridge the gap back over to the simulation style with more realistic features. This also, of course, lost them ground to EA Big’s burgeoning Street series. An ambitious, ultra-gritty take on the sport lost Midway their NFL license due to content (and EA’s exclusivity deal, but seriously, the NFL was not happy) but they marched on anyway with two entries in the very mature Blitz: The League series. A digital-exclusive revival moved the needle a smidge in 2012, but today, its bloodline lives on in the Mutant Football League series, with gameplay extremely reminiscent of these early glory years of Blitz and Tim Kitzrow on commentary once again. And even if you don’t want to buy it, I highly recommend looking it up just to see how they’ve parodied your favorite team.