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awoodrin's NFL Blitz (N64)
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| [March 5, 2008 06:13:40 PM]
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GAMELOG ENTRY #1:
SUMMARY-
NFL Blitz 2000 for the Nintendo 64 console is an arcade style sports game that redefines the rules of football. It is a football game that removes the foul aspect of gameplay and allows the player to be more aggressive during the game. The objective of the game is to score more points than your opponent within the alloted time. Through offensive and defensive play, the player must limit the other team's points, while scoring as many touchdowns and fieldgoals as possible. You beat the game by defeating various teams throughout the course of the season and playoffs until you reach the superbowl. Here you face the best team in the league and must outscore them to triumph as a true champion.
GAMEPLAY FIRST SESSION-
During the first session of gameplay I started the campaign option of a regular season. The game allows you to select a team from a list of the NFL teams that exist in real life. It lists every teams' overall offensive, defensive and special teams score out of 100. This allows the player to gage how good his team will perform against other teams in the league. The best teams have a leg up in speed, performance and strength and are naturally the hardest to beat. The option of choosing your team is a great feature because the player can elect either an outstanding statistical team, or a hometown team. Since most players of football games also watch football, this option instantly develops a commradery and investment of the player's emotions in the game's outcome. This was true for me too. Being from San Francisco, I picked the 49ers. My emotional state while playing the game was energetic and aggressivly excited. What led to this was the fact that conflict is established in the game through performance. I had to outscore the other team in order to win. My emotional investment in the 49ers in real life also added to the gameplay because I wanted to lead my team to an artificial victory as well. Another thing that led to my aggressive emotional state was the fact that in NFL Blitz, the standard rules of football have been tweeked. There are no penalties or late hits, so the player is able to knock down and tackle opponents during and after the play. This restriction with penalties in real life leads to the satisfaction of illegally hitting another player in the gameworld. With no consequence, the player is able to do any late hit or dirty move that is prohibited in the real NFL. Football players and fans can live vicariously through the success of their artificial team as they try and capture the superbowl trophy.
The characters in the game are well designed and fun to play with. This is because the designers created all of the characters to be big, muscular bohemiths. Regardless of what position they play, most characters are about the same size and speed and can certaintly hit just as hard. This removes an element of strategy in the game because there are very few player mis-matches on the field for a coach, "or player" to take advantage of. This is one way that the gameplay differs from the traditional Madden style football games. There is nothing too unique about individual players in the game and it is primarily the names and teams that certain gamers will develop attachments to because of real-life affinities. The game's progression and narrative story are simple, easy to follow and effective. The game does not get caught up in any off the field issues or injury reports. It strictly sticks to the game on the field. The player must win as many games as possible to emmerge as the best team within his division. If you win the division, you make it to the playoffs and can fight your way to the superbowl. The game follows the structure of the NFL season in real-life and therefore, many of the rules for narrative progress are implicit amongst football fans and gamers. The gameplay is sensational and very fun to play because of the way that NFL Blitz re-defines the flow and style of a football game. The game is not concerned with running plays for a few yards and field position, but rather designed for big-play action. This means that running plays typically go for huge gains and hail-mary passes down the field often result in touchdowns. The high scoring outcomes of most games keeps players interested because it is easy for even a beginner to score a touchdown. As well, the turnover margin is about three times as often as a real NFL game. This means that the ball changes possession and the rate of scoring are extraordinarily high. There is never a dull momment because of this and games are frequently very close.
The lack of penalties really helps to establish the flow of this arcade style game. There are few pauses in the game, so time moves very quickly. The camera angle only changes when a turnover occurs and gets behind the team with the ball. The lack of a panoramic view adds to the de-enfasis that the game places in the background and aesthetic visuals. The game is all about the game itself that is being played. In addition, there are cut-angle images that pop up on the screen between quarters. Here a scandelously dressed cheerleader offers tips for special "juke" moves in the game and then the box closes immediately for the game to resume. The cheerleader is a nice character touch because it contributes to the game's animalistic and primal tendency for violence and competition within the gameplay. The game is catered to men and the cheerleader is effective for that reason. Flow is also established by the rules of the game. The rules for penalties are altered, but the rules of scoring in football remain the same. This maintains the objective of the game by giving the player no reason to feel confused while playing. The interactions that the player has with other individuals is highly competitive and interactive. The tendency for big plays to occur in the game keeps players and spectators on the edge of their seats. The natural hatred that some people have for certain teams keeps the atmosphere competitive and full of appropriate trash talking.
GAMELOG ENTRY #2:
GAMEPLAY SECOND SESSION-
For the second game session I invited a friend over and tried the multiplayer feature. This became very frustrating after a short while because the game is not designed well for the two player option. One player controls the quarterback while the other controls the receiver of the football. The result was a lot of mixed signals, busted plays and yelling at one another. The gameplay during this second session was much more enjoyable, however because the character became easier to manipulate as the controller became more familiar. I could now get the character to juke, spin, accelerate, jump and stiff arm. This is tremendously significant in the game because of the arcade format. Each team in the game has the same playbook, so you are working with the same offensive and defensive schemes for any team. This downplays the significance of strategy in the game and makes the execution of a pass or run dependent on the player's skills, not the strategy used. The acquisition of proficient "juke" skills becomes the main difference in the game. The outcome of a match is therefore, more dependent on a player's skills than any random outcome or play selection. The knowledge of defensive sets and play-calling is not very important in the game, which is an innovative feature that sets NFL Blitz apart from other sport games such as Madden football.
My emotional state while playing the game changed when playing against another person. The computer intelligence of the game makes the opponent rarely miss tackles or give up big plays. Against a friend, I was more excited when playing because the potential for making touchdowns increased. The games are typically offensively driven and often more than 40 or 50 points are recorded. One thing that disappointed me was the lack of character development within the game. The lack of injuries and fines/suspensions in the game made it really feel like a videogame and at times removed me from the magic circle. This can make some teams virtually unstopable because their rating is too high for most any player to overcome. The game was interesting and fun to play because every match is different. There are no two games that are played identically. Each new play involves different approaches to tackling and running and keeps the matches fresh. And of course, the late hits make it fun to play regardless of what the score is. The social interactions between me and my friend were highly competitive with a lot of trash talking. This is due to the high level of skill that it takes to beat another player, since you are both playing with the same strategy and playbook.
DESIGN-
The design of this game is certaintly unique for a football sports game and is the source of the games greatest strengths and weaknesses. The main innovative element of the game is the alteration that NFL Blitz makes to the gamerules. The lack of penalties and fouls in the game is a unique feature that differentiates the game from the Madden football series. The alteration from the standard rules of football is an innovative element because it allows for more freedom and aggression during gameplay. The lack of penalty assessment removes the restriction that most football games impose on the players that demonstrate "unsportsman like conduct." It is innovative because it allows for freedom within a structured set of rules. The ability to succeed within these guidelines and have the freedom to foul at will is a large part of the game's success. Another innovative element is the icon, slot-machine-like wheel at the bottom of the screen that allows the player to unlock cheats before each game. Dirt fields, big heads, fog, etc are some examples of avatar variations and environmental changes that the player can introduce into the gameplay. Another innovative feature is the "on fire" option that is unlocked after a certain number of sacks or completed passes. It gives the muscular avatar even greater speed and strength and makes the character super-human for a short period of time. It contributes to the arcade style flow of the game by making it less realistic and more fantastic.
The lack of character development and level variation is an example of an overlooked design element in the gameplay. All of the characters look identical in the game as large muscular avatars. The flaw to this is that they all have the same speed, catching and tackling abilities. The rating of the team at the beginning of a match is the rating that each character has, so there is no individuality for specific avatars on each team. There is no real "play maker" on offense or defense because all of the members of a team are equally skilled. This creates a degree of separation between the player and his avatar because he can not target and lock onto a specific character that he loves from real life. Jerry Rice is just another avatar in the game and no more special than any other receiver. This fact makes the game less realistic and less enjoyable for a campaign season where the player can not set records. The fields that appear in the game are all identical with the exception of whose name i written in the endzone. The stadiums have nothing original about them and the concept of home-field advantage does not exist because of this.
Something that I would change about the game would be the lack of individuality that players have. I would make the faster players appear leaner and give them greater speed. Another thing I would change would be the computer's recognition of a lop-sided game. When one team is winning by too much, the computer forces the other team to turn the ball over, which makes every game close. The down side of this is that too many forced turnovers can cause the player to lose a game he should have won because of the computer intelligence. Other than this, the game is truly fun to play because of its innovative elements and is distinctly different from all other football sports games.
This entry has been edited 8 times. It was last edited on Mar 5th, 2008 at 23:21:57.
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awoodrin's NFL Blitz (N64)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 5 March, 2008
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