Gamernode: Reviews - NFL Tour

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• NFL Tour
• Xbox 360
• EA Tiburon
• Electronic Arts
• January 08th, 2008

It's a shame really, because when you're on offense, the game feels normal and fair. Big plays are exciting and few, and tackles are fair and happen when they should. Sometimes you'll break a lot of tackles in a row, but when that happens it's because you did something miraculous. The computer does it whenever they want, every single play. To give you an idea, once on a kickoff the computer return man actually broke a tackle attempt by every single one of my guys on the field. The process took so long that a couple of the guys who failed in the beginning of the play were able to run back into the fray and fail again. I honestly didn't count how many tackles were broken before he ran in for the touchdown, but it had to have been at least ten. (Note: I was using the Chicago Bears, the team with the best defense in the game.)

Graphically, the game is fine, and is what you'd expect a budget football game to look like, maybe even a bit better. The big name players all actually look like they are supposed to, and as for the less well known players...well I couldn't exactly tell you, because I don't know what they look like. The stadiums on the other hand, are all practically identical. The only difference in the stadiums is that an orange tarp that is stretched over the roof-like scaffoldings in every stadium, is in a different shape. They even have the logo of every NFL team on the side of the field and ambiguous endzone logos so they could copy and paste the same stadium underneath the orange tarp.

By now, I've pointed out some terrible flaws in this game, but none of them is as atrocious or annoying as the sound. The sound effects are on par with what you'd expect, but the music and commentary will make you want to plunge a screwdriver through your ear. There are only four songs played endlessly throughout the game, between plays, in menus, and in loading screens. You'll get to know these horrid faux rock/emo songs by heart in a few short games. I grew to hate them intensely. It would be a forgivable flaw if it weren't for the commentary. Guest commentator Trey Wingo has about 50 lines of dialogue for the entire game, and no less than half of them are making fun of videogame announcers who repeat themselves. I was awestruck. This is compounded by the fact that he never freaking shuts up. He talks constantly throughout the game, and never has anything interesting to say.

It sounds like exaggeration, but I would honestly estimate that 1/3 of the things said by the commentator actually had to do with the game. Even then the extent of its relation to the action on the field was Wingo saying, "Sweet!" or "Please tell me you saw that!" at the end of a play. If he wasn't saying vaguely relatively comments to the game, he was making jokes about how he likes Earl Grey tea like Star Trek's Jean-Luc Picard. The rest of the time he would make lame jokes about repetitive game announcers like, "Don't you hate repetitive videogame announcers? So do I. Too bad," and "I'm just going to repeat myself over and over again, and you're going to sit there and take it." This isn't a joke about how bad the announcing was...he actually says that.

He was right though, I had to "sit there and take it." Such is the life of a game reviewer. I had to trudge through countless frustrating, infuriating, and boring hours of play, but I hope that you, my dear reader, won't make the same mistake. Even at the discount price of $40 this game is vastly overpriced. The only way I would consider purchasing NFL Tour is if it was being sold for $6 in one of those Burger King kids meal specials alongside those games starring the King.

Truthfully, this is one of the worst football games I've ever played. If you crave arcade action football, go pick up one of the NFL Street games. They're cheaper, and even though they're five years old, they're still much better.

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