First And 10
When I first fired up Gameloft’s NFL 2010, I wasn’t looking for something that would basically emulate the Madden series. All I wanted was a quick loading, well controlling, fast and smooth gameplay experience. Basically, I was looking for something to give me a quick and satisfying football experience because I’m likely to only play on my iPhone whenever I have just a few minutes time. Gameloft seems aware of this and defaulted the experience to Easy with two minute quarters, while making load times swift on my 3GS and keeping the controls ‘safe’ by neglecting any motion control. Motion control is great when used right, but I don’t think it belongs in a football game, so I’m glad it’s not included.
What is included then, obviously, is a touch only interface. You can touch to skip through the opening full motion video highlight reel to get straight to the title menu. From here, you can choose between Quick Play, Game Modes, Settings, and Options. Let’s break these down. The Options button is in the lower right and just allows you to view the controls and the Twitter page created by Gameloft for NFL 2010.
Under Settings, you’ll find the usual suspects: the ability to change the difficulty, quarter length (2, 5, and 8 minutes), and you can set your favorite team, too. By setting your favorite team, players can automatically hop into Quick Play games as their team to take on a randomly selected CPU controlled team. You can also disable the sound, or adjust volume sliders for the music, effects, and commentator. Finally, tutorial messages can be turned on and off, as well as vibration, which activates primarily during tackles.
Other modes besides Quick Play include Exhibition (same as Quick Play, except you chose both teams), Season, and Playoffs. To this point, I have played several Exhibition/Quick Play games and a Playoff run, but I’ve only started my Season.
Regardless of game type, it begins with a coin toss. Players tap which side of the coin they wish to call, and moments later you know if you’ve won the toss or not. Whether kicking or receiving, the playbook screen opens up. Touch controls allow you to cycle through the available options. First, you have to choose either Basic or Advanced modes of play selection. Most players, especially those with some Madden background, will want to choose Advanced. From Advanced, there are more formations available and more plays, too. When you choose Basic, available plays are limited and broken down into “Pass” and “Run,” and furthermore into categories like “Long,” and “Short” (for Passing). I didn’t spend much time in Basic mode and I doubt you will either. You can always get back to it by pressing the Back button in the play selection interface though.
That said, the Advanced screen offers a variety of familiar defensive and offensive formations. The 3-4, 4-3, Nickel, Dime, Quarter, Special Teams, and Goal line defensive postures are all here. On the offensive side of the ball, there are also plenty to choose from: I-Form, Shotgun, 4WR, 5WR, Two RBs, and so forth. Personally, I rotated between Nickel and Dime schemes, mixing zone coverage with blitzing, that often resulted in five yard sacks lots of picks (too many really — I had twelve in four games). When I’m on O, I primarily operated out of the shotgun. Running the ball just wasn’t satisfying enough nor efficient enough; besides, I get more enjoyment out of big pass plays. I tend to play football games like an arcade, not getting too serious, nor too sloppy.
Fourth And Long?
Despite having about two hundred plays, and several other factors that make it look like a sim, treating NFL 2010 like an arcade isn’t a bad way to play. With 2010, only basic rules are in place. Sure, you do have to stay inbounds, there is offsides, and you do have to manage the clock (something the CPU has a very hard time doing sensibly). On the other hand, there is no fatigue factor, trades, contracts, drafting, injuries, pass interference, audibles, and there is an unrealistic amount of turnovers (usually interceptions). The only flags I experienced were for offsides, which were all my doing in that I was a little too anxious to try to hit their QB. Furthermore, big plays (20+ yards), are really the primary means of scoring and advancing the ball. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with that, especially if you are playing on the default setting of two minute quarters. I think it’s safe to say that gamers don’t want a 3-0 game, they want normal or realistic scores in an unrealistic time frame. To achieve that, I found it best to play 2010 like an arcade; i.e., be aggressive.
Playing aggressively can come back to bite you sometimes in games and life, but NFL 2010’s difficulty is very forgiving. Of the twenty-plus interceptions I’ve witnessed so far in playing, roughly 80% of those have gone my way. Keep in mind I’m playing as the 49ers who don’t exactly have the best, well, anything right now. Interceptions came as more of a surprise than from skill, although sometimes my coverage was overwhelming and a pick was the expected result. Most times though, my CPU controlled defensive player just made the play. I don’t know if I should complain about that or not, because while it may have made me smirk in wondering just how realistic this game is, it also made me smile because, hey, I just intercepted the ball…
The difficulty setting didn’t seem to make a whole heck of a lot of difference, either. The first couple of games I played were on Easy, then I switched to the Playoff mode and bumped things up to Medium, expecting a stout challenge. Instead, I nabbed twelve picks and often shutout the CPU. The CPU’s poor time management near halftime and the end of the game didn’t help, either. The CPU does use time outs, but they don’t try to get out of bounds or take time outs properly. Oh, and you can’t spike the ball either, or at least not that I’ve found.
It’s in these ways that NFL 2010 just seemed to have a tendency to make the experience more so enjoyable for the player rather than necessarily realistic. As this is just a mini-NFL game for my phone, I’m cool with that. I’d rather have a fun time than one that has much of a chance at frustrating me; leave the more hardcore play to the consoles. So just bear that in mind if you’re looking into buying this game — it’s more of a light, ‘express NFL arcade’ than a sim.
That may be the case, but 2010 does have the NFL license and a full season mode, so it certainly has some sim elements to it. The NFL license doesn’t carry a whole lot of weight though. The graphics don’t lend themselves to any kind of facial rendering of the players, and the character models do look quite similar, although there are a few different body types and proper jersey numbers are used. Player names also appear at the feet of the character model. Other than that, players are assigned a two digit rating that describes their overall ability. The lone commentator never mentions any individual’s name, and has a very small and predictable script in general. Everytime I went with a Dime formation and chose the Engage 8 play, for instance, I could count on the commentator saying “The 9ers are in the Dime formation. Here comes the blitz!” with maybe one variation on that phrase. I’m glad there is commentary, but it’s extremely basic; the team names (really the only variable in the dialogue) sound computerized too, but eh, it’s functional. The only glitch I have noticed in the commentary is when you intercept a pass and run it back for a touchdown. When you do, the commentator acknowledges that there was a touchdown, but says the wrong team name.
To OT (That’s overtime, not off topic)
There are a few other aspects of NFL 2010 I need to talk about. For one, more on the controls and how they work. Player movement is done via an onscreen virtual d-pad, not unlike other ones used in other iPhone/iPod Touch titles. To move, simply slide and hold your thumb in the desired direction. This works well, and while it’s not as responsive as a real d-pad, it does the job. Hiking the ball, viewing player routes while at the line of scrimmage, and changing players (during defense) is done with two icons in the lower right of the HUD that appear when applicable. For example, when on the offensive, the hike and ‘view play’ icons appear. Also, in the upper right hand corner of the HUD there is a small NFL icon — if you press this, you’re taken to the Pause menu where you can call a timeout, quit, and view stats.
You may wonder, as I did before playing, how do you go about fighting off defenders while on the run? Well, in 2010, it’s a bit odd. Say you’re running back a kickoff or are just doing a rushing play. When the first defender comes at you, the game slows down, flashes a single defensive player, and gives you about a second to tap one of three icons that correspond to hurdling, spinning, and ramming into them. For jukes, you tap to the left and right on the virtual d-pad. Most of the time, I just got tackled, but other times you choose the right move and slip by for the next defensive attack. Interestingly enough, you don’t get a second chance to avoid the defense with the slowdown mechanic. It’s a one time mechanic that is available once per play.
The passing game has a few of its own unique controls. After the play is started, each receiver has an icon over their head that changes from green to yellow to red, indicating how open they are. You can throw to whomever you’d like, but a red icon player is very likely to have the ball deflected or picked. However, just because the icon is green, and the receiver is wide open, there is no guarantee that they are going to catch the ball. I had the CPU’s number during a drive once where I was running a shotgun formation with a 3 WR, 2 RB set, using a quick slant route to the sideline. The defense missed my receiver several times in a row, but my wide open receiver only caught the ball just twice out of five attempts. I thought that was a little goofy.
I wanted to add to what I mentioned earlier regarding Playoffs and Season mode. Season mode is significantly deeper than other modes in that you can view league stats and edit your rosters. There is no create a player or trading going on, but you can rotate which player starts at a given position, so long as they are in that position in real life (i.e., you can’t take a lineman and make him a QB). Furthermore, you can look ahead on your schedule, but you cannot sim games.
In Playoffs mode, the idea is to get through four games and win the SuperBowl. Doing so gives you just a single still image ‘congratulations’ screen, and nothing else, which is a little unfortunate. Interestingly enough, your Playoffs and Season save games can’t coexist, should you try to start both. Indeed, you can only have one save file at at time. Speaking of saving, it’d have been pretty cool if you could save your replays. A replay is available only for the previous play, and it’s accessed via the Pause Menu.
Not unlike other iPhone titles, NFL 2010 does well when you receive a text or phone call; the game pauses and allows you to handle your business and then switch back to where you were — that’s a necessary but very much appreciated feature.
Lastly, a word on the presentation. Visually, 2010 features some pretty good 3D graphics, although animations and character model differences are pretty basic. The frame rate stays smooth and overall it’s a nice looking game. Oh, there are no weather effects by the way, so every game is played in a standard sunny setting, which is kind of a shame. As for the audio, I’ve already talked about the commentary, which is functional but not great. Effects are fine and the music is limited to the menus, which is also fine with me.
With that, let’s head to the summary.