''All-Pro Football 2K8'' is an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

game for

seventh generation consoles The seventh generation of home video game consoles began on November 22, 2005, with the release of Microsoft's Xbox 360 home console. This was followed by the release of Sony's PlayStation 3 on November 17, 2006, and Nintendo's Wii on November ...

. ''All-Pro Football 2K8'' is the first football game to be published by 2K since

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they imitated real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) ...

purchased exclusive licenses to the intellectual properties of the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...

and

NFLPA The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) is the labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. and president J ...

John Elway John Albert Elway Jr. (born June 28, 1960) is an American former professional football quarterback who spent his entire 16-year career with the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). Following his playing career, he then spent 1 ...

Barry Sanders Barry Sanders (born July 16, 1968) is an American former professional football running back who played for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons. Sanders led the league in rushing yards four times and in rushin ...

, and

Jerry Rice Jerry Lee Rice (born October 13, 1962) is an American former professional football wide receiver who played for 20 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He won three Super Bowl titles with the San Francisco 49ers before two shorter ...

appear on the cover.

Overview

''All-Pro Football 2K8'' features a fictional league called the "All-Pro League", or 'APL'. The APL consists of 24 teams that are grouped into six divisions of four teams each. The league runs a sixteen-game schedule and holds a championship game at the end of the playoffs, similar to the NFL. Since the exclusivity deal the NFL has with EA only covers team licenses, 2K contracted the individual rights to over 240 retired NFL players to appear in the game. Even though there are no NFL teams in the game, the player can still create teams that resemble their NFL counterparts. A Create-a-Player feature allows the user to add in players that were not included in the roster.

Teams

Many of the teams in the game have one or more aspects that are thinly veiled references to other elements of popular culture. While some link to sports teams past and present, others refer to TV, films, cars, comic books, American history and even Native American tradition. * Arizona Scorpions * Atlanta Wasps * Boston Minutemen * Carolina Cobras * Chicago Beasts * Dallas Gunfighters * Detroit Firebirds * Denver Cougars * Las Vegas Rollers * Los Angeles Legends * Miami Cyclones * Milwaukee Indians * Minneapolis Werewolves * New Jersey Assassins * New York Knights * Ohio Red Dogs * Philadelphia Americans * Pittsburgh Iron Men * San Francisco Sharks * Seattle Sailors * St. Louis Rhinos * Tampa Bay Top Guns * Texas Rustlers * Washington Federals

Reception

The Xbox 360 version received "generally favorable reviews", while the PlayStation 3 version received "average" reviews, according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. The gameplay of ''APF2K8'' is considered better to the game play of

Visual Concepts Visual Concepts Entertainment is an American video game developer based in Novato, California. Founded in May 1988, the company is best known for developing Sports video game, sports games in the ''2K'' franchise, most recently ''NBA 2K'' and ' ...

' previous title, ''

ESPN NFL 2K5 ''ESPN NFL 2K5'' is an American football video game developed by Visual Concepts for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles. Co-Published by Global Star Software and Sega, it is the sixth installment of the '' NFL 2K series'' and the last to use ...

''. However, ''All-Pro Football 2K8'' received criticism for the lack of a multi-season Franchise Mode, as seen in competing titles such as ''

Madden NFL 08 ''Madden NFL 08'' is a 2007 American football video game based on the National Football League that was published by EA Sports and developed by EA Tiburon. It is the 19th installment in the ''Madden NFL'' video game franchise. It features Tenne ...

'' and ''

NCAA Football 08 ''NCAA Football 08'' is a college football video game created by EA Sports, the sports video gaming subsidiary of Electronic Arts. It is the successor to NCAA Football 07 in the NCAA Football series. It was officially announced with the launch ...

'', given ''

'' contained a similar Franchise Mode.

2K Sports 2K is an American video game publisher based in Novato, California. The company was founded as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive in January 2005 through the 2K Games and 2K Sports sub-labels. The nascent label incorporated several developmen ...

and Visual Concepts chose to omit a franchise mode because since the game revolves around the use of legends from different eras, they felt there would be no rational way for the legends to develop or age.

O. J. Simpson controversy

In a court ruling,

O. J. Simpson Orenthal James Simpson (July 9, 1947 – April 10, 2024), also known by his nickname "the Juice", was an American professional American football, football player, actor, and media personality who played in the National Football League (NFL) ...

was ordered to pay the family of

Ronald Goldman Ronald Lyle Goldman (July 2, 1968 – June 12, 1994) was an American restaurant waiter and aspiring actor. A volunteer working with children suffering from cerebral palsy, Goldman appeared as a contestant on the short-lived game show '' Studs' ...

any money made for his appearance in the game. Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife

Nicole Brown Simpson Nicole Brown Simpson (née Brown; May 19, 1959 – June 12, 1994) was the second wife of American professional football player, actor, and media personality O. J. Simpson. She was murdered outside her Brentwood home, along with her friend Ro ...

and Goldman in 1995, but was found legally responsible for their deaths by a civil court jury two years later. During pre-production of the game, Simpson was a member of the in-game team called the New Jersey Assassins. Players on the team perform a throat slash as a touchdown celebration, and the animatronic mascot for the Assassins will make a slashing motion. Some pre-release videos showed Simpson performing these moves, implying to some that the designers were intentionally referencing the murders. However, in the retail version of the game, Simpson was moved to the Cyclones.

References

External links