NFL Blitz 2000 was ported to several home consoles in 1999. Midway made things a little confusing by porting NFL Blitz 99 and renaming it NFL Blitz 2000. I was trying to find a simple way of explaining this. It isn’t all that complicated; 99 is the arcade game, and 2000 is the console port.
Like a lot of the sports games out there, this is mostly the same as the previous game in the series. Midway updated the rosters, but kept the gameplay basically the same. There are other instances of this happening with arcade games being brought to the home console.
Games like this are a lot of fun. Arcade sports games don’t need a lot of the features that the simulation games need. I wish this genre of video games had been more popular so we could see more of them.
Thankfully, I know what I’m getting into. These are over-the-top football games where the rules are mostly relaxed, and the tackles are hilarious. It looks like a wrestling game at times, which is part of the fun of playing this game. Anyway, let’s get into this game and see what it has to offer.
TLDR: Another great arcade port from Midway
Narrative
There isn’t a story for this game. This is common for sports games. When it comes to arcade games, a few of them do try to add something to them by having a story that explains the world. Because this is more of a standard NFL game, there wasn’t a story added to it.
Gameplay
Midway didn’t really change much when they made NFL Blitz 2000. The core gameplay is largely the same, and it is quite good. There aren’t many game modes, the controls are good, and there were some other minor additions to the game.
While there aren’t many game modes, it is what you should expect from an arcade game. There are just three game modes, no story mode, and no franchise mode. Some of these are staples of simulation games, but this isn’t trying to be one of those, so I don’t have a big problem. I still would’ve loved a career mode in a game like this.
The controls are pretty good. Everything is easy to do, and nothing is really different from the previous game in the series. NFL Blitz 2000 didn’t have any major changes to the rules, which is nice. Basically, the rules of Football have been relaxed to allow for more violence. The AI is also improved to make the game more challenging.
There are some little things that are different in this game. There is an On-fire mode that is similar to NBA Jam, and I like that the game is a little more challenging. Having weather in the game doesn’t really alter the gameplay, but it is nice to have.
I like the gameplay in this game, but I don’t think Midway did enough to really elevate the game. The controls are still solid, but there is a lack of game modes. Like a lot of these sports games, things get a little tired in the single player mode. At the end of the day, this game delivered what I was expecting when I started playing it.
Visuals
The graphics in this game look decent for an N64 game. I’m not sure if it looks better or worse than the previous game. The character models look a little different, the game is bright, it has weather effects, and the field looks a little boring.
It has been a while since I played the first game. The character models look different in this game. NFL Blitz 2000 has good models, but they look a little blocky. There is a little variety between them, like the linemen being thicker than the WRs, QBs, and RBs. The models don’t look as detailed as I remember.
I like the bright and colorful graphics. Many Nintendo games have this, but on the N64, things were given a muddy look. The NFL Blitz games look a little different, which is a nice switch from what I’ve normally seen.
Fog is the big thing I noticed in this game. It felt like the developers watched the famous Fog Bowl game from the 1980s and wanted to recreate it here. It looks pretty close to that, but you can see much better, which makes the game more playable.
Much like the previous game in the series, the playfield is a little boring. There isn’t much they could do, so I’m not going to put too much weight on it. It is easy to see everything, like the yard markings. Seeing things on the screen isn’t too difficult.
I like the graphics in this game. It is one of the better looking N64 games, and I like that it doesn’t have the muddy look that other games on the system have. The tackles are also a big draw for this game, as it adds that bit of humor to the game without becoming an ultra-violent game.
Reviews for NFL Blitz 2000 at the Time
NFL Blitz 2000 received positive reviews at the time. The scores were between 7 and 9.2/10. I looked at four reviews for this.
EGM had four people review this game; it is hard to read the watermarks on the reviews. The average was 7.875/10 according to other sites. The major problem they had was slowdown in the game, and they praised the four-player mode.
IGN gave the game a 9.2/10. They loved the game and praised the additions made by Midway. The reviewer added that this game stood out from the other football games on the N64.
GameSpot gave the game an 8.7/10. This review compared the game to its arcade counterpart. I haven’t come across another review that did this. They praised the tweaks made to the game while it was being ported to the N64.
Nintendo Power had five people review NFL Blitz 2000. Those scores were combined into one, and the scores given were between 7.8 and 9.8/10. Because this is a composite of five reviews, you don’t really get a sense of why those scores were given.
There weren’t any surprises in the reviews for NFL Blitz 2000. All the reviewers seemed to enjoy the game, and there were only minor complaints. They really liked the addition of a four player mode at once, which is a cool feature, assuming that you have three friends who want to fire up their N64 for this game.
8.5/10. NFL Blitz 2000 is another great game from Midway. They did an excellent job of porting this game to the N64. There are only minor issues with this game, which don’t have a significant impact on the gameplay.
Pros
- Good Graphics
- Four-Player Mode
- I like the weather effects
- On-Fire mode
Cons
- Minor slowdown
- Repetitive
Conclusion
NFL Blitz 2000 is one of those games that I could’ve seen my friends and me playing on a Friday or Saturday Night. There were quite a few of those games, mostly on the N64 and Dreamcast. Those were the only consoles with four player options without buying a multi-tap.
Most of the time, we played GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. Super Smash Brothers, Power Stone, and Dynamite Cop were also in the mix if all four of us were together. I was the only one who played sports, so I wasn’t there all the time. My friends weren’t ever interested in sports, even if I was playing, which is kind of funny that I had this alternate high school experience they didn’t have.
This could be in its own post, but I’ll put it here. I worked at a Little Caesars when I was in high school, and I would always bring pizza with me when we got together on a Saturday night. So, I tend to think about pizza when I play these older games. That was the feeling I got when I went back to play this game. I kept looking for a pepperoni pizza while I was playing this.
NFL Blitz 2000 is a great game. The over-the-top tackling is something that looks great on the console. There is enough here to keep you entertained for a while, and it is a solid football game. While it isn’t the ultra-violent experience you get with the Mutant League games, it is a ton of fun.
If you liked this post, check out some of my other posts on Midway games. Such as NFL Blitz or NBA Hoopz.