All-Pro Football 2K8 is an experiment. The question is: Can a non-licensed football game succeed in a market already dominated by a staple of the industry? The question isn't whether or not the game can knock Madden off its pedestal. It cannot do that. But can it make a profit? Can it just succeed? We'll find out soon as the game is finished and ready for its July 16th release. After spending about an hour with it, one thing is clear -- this is one unique football game.
Without the license, 2K Sports can't even reference NFL teams, so instead of playing with the Eagles, Browns, or Dolphins you make custom teams by selecting from a large pool of city names and nicknames. Every major US city is in the game and a surprising number of smaller ones. There are also a slew of nicknames with an accompanying logo. There are over 100 generic logos in all, several of which look, oddly enough, like an NFL team logo. Add in the fact that you can customize your team jersey and color scheme to a ridiculous degree and you can get your squad to look an awful lot like your favorite NFL team or something totally unique or even downright bizarre. You cannot create or import a custom logo -- again this is due to licensing issues because 2K knows full well that people would simply import an NFL team, and that's a no-no.
You also get to choose your stadium from a pool of 30, many of which are really over the top in design; they don't look silly but the stadiums are loaded with personality and many reflect the team logos found in the game.
After you get your team logo and colors sorted out, you need to fill your roster with players. There are 240 legendary players in the game, and they are divided into three categories: Gold, Silver, and Bronze. A Gold player might be Joe Montana or Dan Marino whereas a Bronze player might be Andre Ware or Bubby Brister.
Players are also not given specific ratings as in a traditional sports game. Instead, they are distinguished by special skills; Dan Marino has Pocket Presence, Quick Release, 4th Quarter Comebacks, Laser Arm and Rocket Arm. These traits are what separate the players from one another, and you can clearly see the difference in Dan Marino and the aforementioned Andre Ware. There are over 80 of these traits in all and they run the gamut from generic strength upgrades to powerful skills such as Acrobatic Catcher or Signal Stealer.
When building your team, you are allowed two Gold, three Silver, and six Bronze players. This prevents you from fielding a roster with nothing but superstars. Your other eleven players are generic with no special attributes; they are vanilla stand-ins with computer-generated names. You can, however, give them specific roles. Take offensive linemen for example; you can choose your generic linemen to be better at pass or run blocking or your running backs to be more power- or finesse-oriented; this helps to tailor your generic players to fit your needs. This means that half of your roster will be filled with name players and the other half with Joe Schmoes who aren't particularly good. Or they're at least not as good as Andre Ware.
