After you have filled your clash meter multiple times, you then upgrade to "unleash" mode, which in effect makes your player indestructible. If you’re on defense, you’re more likely to create injuries in unleash mode.

Oh yes, there are now injuries in the game. Graphic, violent, Theismann-esque injuries. By pulling the left trigger on defense, you attempt to do a dirty hit. This dirty hit can result in an injury depending on the player. You get to see the injury in a jarring, X-ray type of video. Watch as the players shoulder/spine/leg breaks! Once the player is injured, you have the choice to either ‘heal’ the natural way (and be out for an extended period of time), or immediately juice the player up so he can finish the game. Of course the more juice used, the more likely the injury will be worse or the player will be more prone to injury in that game or next week. You can also be fined for using too much juice; however in my experience with the game I haven’t seen many fines.

Although the campaign mode is the main area of the game, I find it also the most frustrating. You cannot start separate campaigns – you have to use the one under your profile, which is very weird. So for some reason, if you wanted to go back and change your coach you can’t do it without losing your progress (you can’t keep your current campaign going). Your options are also limited – you are stuck with two minute quarters and cannot choose a difficulty level.

The blitz gameplay has not really changed – it’s still 30 yards to a first down. You do end up punting and kicking field goals from time to time, and you do also have two timeouts per half.

There are still bugs that carried over from the other Blitz games. For example, in the 4th quarter, if you score a touchdown with 0:00 left on the clock, there is no point after try. It really sucks if you’re down by seven. It also hurts if you placed a wager on the game (for example if you’ve bet $50,000 on your team to win by 4 and that touchdown puts you up by 3). Missing things like this is totally unacceptable and really hurts this game.

Playcalling is relatively easy – teams do have different plays although they don’t feel substantially different from one another. The plays themselves are too easy to execute. I can run a pitch left all day and get a TD on that play after using turbo and clash over and over again. The playcalling screen uses a bizarre X/Y/A combination. You can audible on offense and defense.

Although stats are kept and displayed after the game and stats for defense, passing, receiving and rushing as well as team standings are kept, you do not get a team schedule. All you know is that Division 2 has six teams and to move to Division 1, you need to win 7 games. You don’t know how many games you have left, which again makes for a frustrating time.

The training camp is highly recommended to make full use of Clash Mode, as they’ll go through all of the ‘how tos’ and it will also unlock other cheats for the quick play mode.

The best part about this game is Xbox Live. Using your custom team from your campaign, you can then take that team online and challenge non-brain dead opponents. This is a fantastic idea and a lot of fun. It’s a shame that you can’t do an online league with this game.

Graphics aren’t bad – they do make you feel dirty and games are played in the rain as well. The players are very nicely defined and you can tell that a fat guy isn’t going to run as fast as say a lean RB. Cheerleaders are a step up from the 2K and Madden games, but they still aren’t anything to write home about.