Flatform: PlayStation Portable
Also on: Cell, Xbox, PS2, X360, Wii
ESRB: M for Mature: Blood, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs, Violence
Genre: Sports Action
Publisher: Midway Games
Developer/Co-Developer: High Voltage Software / Midway Games
Release Date: December 12, 2006
Blitz Game Trailer (Blitz The League)
About The Game
The game which revolutionized pro football is back and better than ever, starring Lawrence Taylor, as Quentin Sands, and the new bad boy on the block, Bill Romanowski, as linebacker Bruno Batagglia. Step onto the field with more customizable options than ever before, with new cities, logos, and unlockable players which will help you to create what could be the greatest franchise in league history. Take your team online and dominate your opponents using new offensive and defensive evasion moves, or try and defeat the three new division All-Star teams stacked with the best talent on the field. Get ready for another dramatic season of Blitz and experience The League like never before.
Blitz: Overtime is a PSP update to Blitz: The League, which was released last year on the Xbox and PS2, and earlier this year on the Xbox 360. Generally speaking, this is very much the same brand of over-the-top, bloodthirsty football the console games contained, but with more than a few caveats. First of all, the developer clearly couldn't get the game to run at the proper speed on the PSP hardware, no matter how many textures it blurred and lighting effects it removed. Secondly, the load times are just abysmal, lasting only slightly longer than the average pro football player's career. Yes, there's a bit of new content, and yes, the game that lays underneath all these technical gaffes is a fun one, but you'll be hard-pressed to enjoy it in the state it's in on the PSP.
If you ever played the Blitz brand of football in its arcade heyday, the core mechanics of The League will be immediately familiar to you. This is eight-on-eight football with an incredibly quick pace, 30-yard downs, and the kinds of barbarous hits that would snap a typical human being in half. But really, anyone with a basic understanding of football ought to be able to pick up The League's simplistic mechanics quite easily. You still call plays as you would in any football game, and you can run, pass, and tackle at the press of single buttons. Just don't expect any fancy audibles or defensive scheme shifts to be available. You'll call a play, and that's the play you'll run, dammit.
Overtime does fuzz with the Blitz formula a bit, however, and in quite satisfying ways. As you earn yards and touchdowns on offense, and as you stuff your opponents on defense, you'll build up your team's clash meter. Clash is basically the gamebreaker concept from EA's arcade sports games, but it's done better here. Any time you have any clash built up, you can simply press the left shoulder button to slow down time for everyone on the field except the player you're in control of. Passing the ball while in clash mode will let you take control of the wide receiver, tight end, or whomever else you choose while he's in midroute, letting you shift him to the position he needs to be in to manually catch the ball. Runners can use this mode to shift and juke around would-be tacklers with relative ease. Defenders use clash differently than offensive players, because it doesn't slow down time for them. Essentially, clash lets them lay down the dirtiest, foulest, meanest hits you'll ever see.
Thursday
Blitz Overtime PSP
