NFL Tour isn’t just bad. It’s other-worldy bad. Needless to say with the announcement of the re-interpretation of the NFL Street series into NFL Tour, expectations were high that maybe we’d get a fun arcade game in the same vein as Blitz with a bit less of the complete silliness of that franchise. It was my hope that in this case less would be more, but unfortunately less is less. We are left with a completely boring and terrible game that I think could be justification for the NFL to revoke the license.

Where do we begin – first let’s say there are limited options – we’ve seen more depth in a Commodore 64 football game. You can play a custom exhibition game, an online game, two mini games, or take part in the NFL Tour mode which is supposed to be some sort of career mode. That’s it.

The Tour mode is where you would expect to spend most of your time – but everything is implemented so poorly that it’s a complete waste of time. The character creation page is bare bones and once you’ve created your person – that’s it. You don’t accumulate points as you progress through the game, you can’t even unlock sunglasses. You can put your name in the game, but you have to give yourself a nickname which is what announcer Trey Wingo will call you throughout. The nickname my character had was the very exciting “animal.” The problem with this generic nickname is that other players also have the generic nickname, so the commentator will say ‘animal did this’ or ‘animal did that’, but they aren’t talking about you! It’s very difficult to follow.

The NFL Tour makes you play all of the teams through various locales, but it’s the same field with basically a different backdrop. The game rules change from venue to venue – for example, some games are “play to a certain number of points,” while others are timed. Sometimes you’ll spot your opponent points and have to come from behind to win.

The gameplay is just plain stupid and pretty much focuses on the offense. The playbook is limited as you only have seven players on the field. Don’t worry it’s not much of a problem. Just select long pass, wait until the defenders come after you, throw the ball and it’s a touchdown. Of course this happens a lot when you’re on defense as well, so you’ll have to play accordingly.

Passing controls are poor; the default is ‘tour controls’ where you’ll have to cycle through receivers by pressing the B button instead of each receiver having their own button. You can change this but why was this changed in the first place? Other NFL Street rules apply – no kicks are allowed and after a touchdown you’ll have to either go for one point from the 5 or two points from the 10. Walls are in play so you can use them to avoid defenders. If you play as San Diego, using LT on a running play is pretty much a guaranteed touchdown. There’s no strategy whatsoever – just guide LT up the wall as defenders are attacking you and you’ll be in the end zone in no time. Instead of the loved-hated gamebreakers, this game uses a ‘reversal’ system that belongs in a pro wrestling game. It just doesn’t work and is completely a waste of time anyway because you’ll just keep scoring touchdowns.

The multiplayer has very little to redeem itself – against another human it would be fun to trash talk, but you’re limited to a real game only – you can’t play the minigames online. Of course, there are no leagues or anything fun to speak of online – just leaderboards. The game does work fine online, if you dare to play it.

The graphics are terrible. NFL Tour is football without helmets so you’d think the designers would make players look rather realistic. Tom Brady does not look like Tom Brady – Maroney has his trademark hair, but that’s about the only recognizable feature. Every stadium looks the same as well. It also has the worst audio and play by play ever heard in a recent football game. Yes the game has EA Trax, which is nice, but the track list is very limited. The play by play is pathetic. It’s a one man booth and the commentary is horrible. You see, someone thought it would be funny to make Trey comment on how repetitive he is. On the first play of the first game, it was funny. On the third play of the first game, it’s nerve ripping – and he keeps saying the same things. The play by play recording must have been a half a page at best.