All Pro Football also starts to lose its legs a little when you start to realize its key strength, NFL legend versus NFL legend, can also be its weakness. Success in this game is all about match-ups. Against a weaker defense, you can take a speedy gold star back down the sidelines with alarming frequency. Take that same back against a defense loaded with gold and silver star players and you'll be happy to get past the line of scrimmage. Obviously there should be a difference when you see these kinds of match-ups, but the results are a little too feast or famine. This isn't a game-killer, mind you, but it is something that detracts from the immersion factor and something that should be better balanced if we see a 2K9 or 2K10 edition.
On the bright side, All Pro Football easily has the best passing game in any football game on the market. Go ahead—try to throw a pass with your quarterback on the run. To mix metaphors a bit and channel Crash Davis, you wouldn't hit water if you threw that ball off a boat. If you don't let your QB set his feet before heaving that ball downfield, don't expect a good result. And unlike APF2K8's competition (both Madden and NCAA), defensive backs react realistically to the ball. If their head doesn't turn to locate it, DB's in don't auto-magically home in on it. You will never see a DB in this game intercept a ball using magical eyes in the back of his helmet. The result? You don't have to find a wide open player to complete a pass. Throwing a pass to a receiver in tight one-on-one coverage in this game is not only permissible, it's required. Like the real thing it all depends on positioning, the talent of the guy throwing the ball and the talent of the receiver and defender trying to make the play.
Off the field, All Pro Football has a little less going for it. In fact this is as no-frills as it gets. Create a team, “draft” your players and play a single season. That's it. You can manage your existing depth chart, but the players you start the season with are the ones with which you'll finish it. There are no trades, and no pool of free agent backups. During the season you can check your player stats and league leaders and check the standings, but there's little else to do except play the games. The lack of intricate depth does hurt the long-term potential of APF2K8, but it doesn't kill it. After all, most of the franchise features in Madden and even NFL2K5 don't work very well anyway.
Still, if single season play is more boring to you than watching the Oakland Raiders try to mount an offense, there's always the online component. Taking your custom team and seeing how you match-up with the custom teams of other gamers is an experience other sports games can't match. And although you don't get full motion replays for the halftime and postgame shows, every other aspect of the gameplay works just as well as in an offline game. You also have the option of joining a tournament or online league for a little extra competition.
Even with some missing features that longtime sport gamers have become accustomed to and some notable flaws in the gameplay balance on the field, nothing stops the pure fun factor of playing All Pro Football 2K8 from shining through. Here’s hoping we see the continuation of this series.
