Mutant Football League 2 hopes to follow on from the winning play of the original, whilst also reminding people of the cult EA classic Mutant League Football from the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. Is this early access run a touchdown, or does it need more time in the showers?
Writing & Concept
Mutant Football League 2 is a fantasy sports game. In the sports genre stories aren’t too much of a focus, outside of a few exceptions like the later FIFA titles, and thus this title doesn’t have any narrative to comment on. This isn’t really an issue as I already expected as such, just don’t get this game expecting any lore or reason as to why skeletons and mutants are playing American Football.
What I will take this chance to talk about is the writing of the game. The level of parody in Mutant Football League 2 is fantastic and, even though I am far from a superfan of the actual game of American Football, I appreciate the fact that all of the teams are parodies of real-life teams with pun-based names such as the Karkass City Creeps, Diami Krakens, or the Gnashville Lycans.
The referees throughout your match go from calling the game fairly, to dishing out “character building” levels of abuse as the crowd screams and shouts from the seats. Product placement is rife throughout, and it all just manages to capture a certain level of authenticity. If we did have a football league spearheaded by mutants and creatures of the night, this is exactly how it would look.
The commentary team has some absolutely diabolical back and forth while discussing the match that not only follows the action perfectly, but also slowly paints the world this game is set in. It’s a chaotic world full of masochism and pain, but brought together by the shared love of throwing the old pigskin around. I feel this will really come into its own when the game eventually releases in full with the advertised “Dynasty” mode where you can manage your favorite team.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Mutant Football League 2 is going to be one of the main points of interest for fans of the original like myself, who has put dozens and dozens of hours into the Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4 versions of the game. While there is nothing outright wrong with the game, it is worth going in remembering that its jersey says Early Access.
I’m not going to insult anyone or make myself look completely blind by discussing the ins and outs of American Football or the rules. My knowledge of the game comes from playing the original Mutant Football League and the tutorial mode it had. I have never even watched the Super Bowl so it’s not something I can comment on. What I can say is that, as it stands, there isn’t a great tutorial like in the original available. That’s something that needs adjusting ASAP for people like me who enjoy the concept a lot more than the actual source material.
The core gameplay at the moment is focused on the actual football match, with what I believe are the standard rules for American Football but with all the grace of Mortal Kombat. You can get very hands-on with the other teams. Slamming them into the ground, fist fighting, pushing them into spinning blades, triggering mines, and many other gruesome methods are on offer for you to make sure the opposition is going to have a hefty post-match medical bill to fill their team back up. Otherwise, it mostly plays as American Football normally would, if with that dash of ultraviolence and unfair play.
You’ll be tackling, kicking players in the chest, and causing decapitation via clotheslining. It’s utter chaos and so much fun to play even for someone like myself who doesn’t follow the sport. You can pay the Ref to look the other way while you put the boot into the better players to help give you the edge, throw a ball that’s actually a bomb, or even give yourself a speed boost to help break through that pesky defense. There are many ways to get yourself to the end zone, where you can treat the crowd to a choice of different win animations.
Controls & Difficulty
The controls are easy to get to grips with, and should you struggle to remember them you can always check the layout in the options menu at any time. Be it a sprint, tackle, or dive, they are all just a simple button press with the rest of the options being context sensitive mini-games such as kicking the ball. It’s an arcade experience to the core so don’t go in expecting Madden levels of authenticity and complexity.
You can set the difficulty and the length of the matches, allowing you to tailor how long you want to play each individual match. You could have a quick arcade bout, or make it something a little more substantial. As it stands currently, the A.I. is fairly relentless on every difficulty I have tried, making a change from the almost brain-dead A.I from the easier modes of the original game, but it seems to have gone too far the other way this time around.
Modes & Content
Upon booting the game you are met with a screen asking you to open the Mutant Football League 2 version of a card pack. This worried me at first, but there are no microtransactions here. These are just to use in the Season mode of the game. You are then met with a few modes, with single match, online play, and Season mode being your main meals for the game so far.
Season mode is currently the main single-player mode, with the actual main mode planned to be added later. It’s serviceable, but not much more. You go through one season of Mutant Football, choosing from any of the available football teams, and going match to match, hopefully winning enough to come out on top of the season at the end of it. You can hire more players, but as someone who experienced Dynasty Mode from the original this just seems a little too basic to be a decent time sink.
This is the major issue with Mutant Football League 2, and something that I’m confident will be remedied in time due to it being currently in Early Access; at the moment it just doesn’t have a lot of features. This is especially noticeable when compared to the feature-rich prequel. The developers have given a list of what will be in the full game and the Dynasty Mode will be returning, but as it currently stands I can only talk about what I’ve got in front of me. As it is, we have a good proof of concept, but it hasn’t quite hit the end zone and feels a little barebones and basic.
Presentation
On the presentation side of things, again it’s all a little basic. The in-game graphics have seen a substantial upgrade from the original, but the menus are lacking in character and there is a large chunk of reused animations. I hope this is just a placeholder as the stronger graphics and larger focus on gore compared to the original drive home how unique the game looks.
Football stadiums have a decent bit of variety, ranging from the standard to stadiums pouring lava with an evil hellscape in the background. Blades, mines, and other traps litter the pitch and you can clearly make out each of these traps. The crowds look fantastic and across the board this is a massive step up graphically from the original, which is starting to show its age.
As previously mentioned the audio is good, but there are a lot of reused lines for the commentary team. Again, I hope this is just a placeholder, and it wouldn’t even be noticed by anyone picking up this version over the original. The music isn’t the best. While it matches the action on screen, it doesn’t stay with you after the fact, something that a lot of sports games nail across the board.
Verdict
At the moment, I can’t recommend Mutant Football League 2. While it’s perfectly playable and tons of fun, it just lacks a lot of the content the original version had, and that game can currently be bought at a much cheaper price point. Should the developers manage to implement the Dynasty Mode and add onto it, the fact the game has many more teams and much better graphics would make it an easy sale.
WAIT FOR SALE ON MUTANT FOOTBALL LEAGUE 2
If you are looking for another sports game, you might enjoy our review of Mario Strikers: Battle League Football.
Thank you to Digital Dreams Entertainment for providing a PC review code for Mutant Football League 2.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
