Homestyle Flashback: Mutant League Football

Football season is upon us, with the playoffs under way, so I thought that I’d do something I didn’t really anticipate doing - review a sports game. I know, I know, sports franchises are big sellers on a yearly basis, but something about stat checking and formation calling never really appealed to me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy football as a sport, but not as a hobby, and always felt it was missing something. Something like mines, or jetpacks, or ref murdering. Fortunately, back in 1993, Electronic Arts had a similar revelation and released Mutant League Football on the Sega Genesis.

Mutant League Football was EA’s answer to themselves (which is weird in its own right) and their Madden franchise, a franchise which currently holds the NFL license exclusively. There really wasn’t much to this game other than something about being post-apocalyptic football. Rather than concern itself with realistic football formations and strategy, the game concerned itself with how best to destroy your opponent. This isn’t to say there isn’t a decent football game in here, but, really, when you’re outrunning a skeleton, jumping over a mine, and then punching someone in the face to get a touchdown, who really cares about offsides?

The game opens up with this really intense rock music and some weird voice screaming at you, which is just more 90s debris. Really, the 90s are a tribute to attitude and I’ve got a pretty decent feeling any of my future reviews of games from that period will reflect that. After the title screen, you’re given your choice of team and also get the opportunity to get a glimpse at the players. Teams are populated by skeletons, robots, monsters, and aliens - pretty much every fanboy’s wet dream for a football game. If it had Wolverine and Frodo Baggins in there, you’d better believe it’d be a worldwide bestseller.

Aside from the teams, you also get your choice of field to play on. This choice is pretty important for a few reasons. First, do you want to play a regular football game, or do you want to play football on a rubber field covered with firepits and mines? Grass or ice? Seriously, this game is what a Mario version of football would be, with all the variations in turf, if only Mario would blow Luigi up.

When the game starts, you get a talk from your coach, and then it’s game on. Typical football rules are in effect - kickoff, return, and then head to the line of scrimmage. You pick your play, and then you run it. One major addition to this game that you won’t see in any other game is the “Nasty” audible.

That’s right, the “Nasty” audible. This is where the game lets you use powerups such as super strength, invisibility, or, if on defense, cancel out the offense’s vision or screw with their controls. I remember when I was a kid and my friends were beating my ass at some sports game and I’d slap the controller out of their hands just to get a few seconds worth of advantage. This game did the work for me. Now I could just screw with my buddy’s controls and it was perfectly legal to do it.

Both teams get the option to kill the ref, too. You get a penalty for it, but it’s awesome anyway. And really, it’s balanced by the option to bribe the ref, which makes him call bad plays and dumb penalties against the opposing team, so all’s fair. Killing the ref does absolutely nothing other than what it says, which is pretty awesome that something as inconsequential as that was thrown in for entertainment’s sake. Thanks younger, less money grubbing version of EA.

And even more than that, aside from the obstructions on the field, the game adds more detail by placing the field in space. Step too close to the edge and the vacuum will suck you right out. Man, this game just keeps finding new ways to kill you. The funniest part of all this is that the game can actually be called on the fact that you have too few players left alive.

The players are pretty stiff to control, making navigating the field kinda difficult. Once you’ve got the ball, you can dive, spin, and jump, none of which really do anything really useful, because once you’re surrounded, you’re going down. All of the players are usually one of 4 or 5 different models, which is ok - they can’t all look different. The game makes up for it by having some of the players come up on screen to talk smack after a particularly good play, complete with weird voice noises. If I had to type out what they said, it’d look like “Rah rah raraha Rahg rrah.” Guess you’d have to hear it to know what the hell that was supposed to be.

Two last things I want to mention. During halftime, there’s a cool little show that goes on with a band of aliens rolling around in formation. You can watch the show, or, you can throw exploding footballs at the band (I know, awesome) until you get the following message:

Finally, at the end of the game, when the MVP is announced, he’s inducted into the “Hole of Flame” where he’s literally thrown into a hole and burned. This game totally went out of its way to get one more weird bit of violence in there, which is really commendable.

These days, if you want football, you’re only going to get Madden, but there was a time, when you had a hefty choice, and not all of them were serious football sims. Personally, I wish this franchise would be revived if only for the fact that it’s incredibly easy to pick up and play and just fun. Remember that? When football was about throwing the ball and getting a touchdown? The Mutant League series had one more entry, Mutant League Hockey, that I might review sometime in the future, but the tepid response from consumers all but killed it there. This is another of those “If you see it, grab it” games because it’s pure, mindless fun, and that’s why I got into games in the first place.

Technorati Tags: Electronic Arts, Football, Mutant League Football, Sega, Sega Genesis

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