[CM Hooe]

I'll be that guy.

All Pro Football 2K8 isn't a great game, in my opinion.

The biggest problem it has compared to all other sports games is the ability to create context. The omission of a year-over-year season mode and the complete absence of any idea of player progression absolutely ruins this game for anyone who prefers to play sports games with an eye towards long-term team building. Such gameplay modes have been offered in just about every simulation sports game regardless of sport for the past decade, and I can't brush off the lack of such a mode so lightly.

Also, for a game as customizable as APF was and with so much of its premise dictated by user customization, there were also some key restrictions in the customization, which the article hit on a bit but I'd like to expand upon. The create-a-player interface was mediocre at best from a visuals customization perspective, and a created player couldn't be assigned any combination of player traits unless one unlocked every achievement in the game (an absolutely silly requirement, and one which may be impossible to meet now if any of the achievements required online league play since online league servers were shut off). On a team level, non-tiered players could not be customized beyond simple team roster filler options. Further, the stadium selection, though featuring a reasonable variety of architectures, could have been more expansive or even contained a stadium creation interface. Finally, if my memory serves me correctly, season mode AI opponents could not be customized without the use of external game save editors which only worked for XBOX 360 game save files, so anyone wanting a variety of opponents on the PS3 beyond what the game offers is out of luck. In fact, if my memory serves correctly, it was impossible to play against a CPU-controlled custom team without jumping through hoops; in other football games, I just select the team I want to play against and I'm off.

In addition, there were a couple of presentation quirks which ranged from mildly disappointing to particularly grating. The commentary was almost entirely recycled from previous 2K football offerings; at the time, it may have been the class of the genre, but it's since been surpassed by many other sports titles. More strongly speaking, IMO the 2K FieldPass feature was absolutely terrible; the players all sounded the same, the audio was contrived and pointless, and it did more to remove the player from the football experience than supplement it.

Finally, the gameplay, though really solid, wasn't without exploits. Upon the game's release, complaints were about on this board that Gold power-style running backs were particularly imbalanced, especially Earl Campbell. In my experience, the Flea Flicker was as close to a "money play" as I've ever seen in a football game, my opponents ran it against me with completely unreasonable and preposterous success rates.

I don't think APF was the best total package football game released this console cycle - not even close - and the strong on-the-field gameplay wasn't so engaging to me as to completely overcome longevity issues. Anyone expecting a decent franchise mode should look elsewhere, for starters. I don't think it's a must-have, and I don't think it holds up to the test of time.