NFL Tour

Basic and boring gameplay, teamed with poor presentation, anemic customization and a total lack of motivation to actually win make the prospects of NFL Tour’s future less likely than the return of the XFL.

NFL Tour is just Arena Football with professional teams. Instead of releasing this game, they really should have made NFL Street 4, especially since the third entry in the series was so bad.

So while this game may flaunt itself as the grand successor to the NFL Street series, it only falls flat on its face before it hits the turf. What you’ve got instead is a hyped arena football game with some poor choices in atmosphere and fun.

NFL Tour does play an exciting and fun game of arcade football, but in the end it feels as if it was meant for a stand up arcade machine rather than in the home.

So, NFL Tour is a $40 mess for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

There have been worse football games out there, but not a lot. If you've got young gamers in your household, sit down with them and break down a Madden playbook instead of forcing NFL Tour on them. Unlike its spiritual predecessor NFL Street, there are no Gamebreakers here. Instead, the game itself is broken.

This is one of the worst football games I've ever played. If you crave arcade action football, go pick up one of the original NFL Street games.

One thing NFL Tour is great for is padding your Xbox gamerscore. Otherwise, don’t bother with this one.

The gameplay is fun and easy to pick up, just as you would expect from an arcade style sports sim, but the overall package doesn't seem to take itself seriously, due to the parody commentator and muted atmosphere.

NFL Tour's last-team-with-the-ball-wins emphasis on offense deflates whatever air this pigskin had left in it. [Feb 2008, p.76]

There's bad, and there's really bad. Somehow, someway, EA has managed to eclipse both with NFL Tour. Please bring back NFL Street.

Budget buyers, beware: This half-assed rebranding and rethinking of the NFL Street series is one of the limpest sports experiences I've played in years. NFL Tour is shockingly inorganic, severely underdeveloped, and thoroughly limited.

There are no injuries, field goals, audibles, safeties, penalties; it's just pick a play and then pick up and play, with as few things to think about as possible. We expected that, but it turns out it's also the main reason that NFL Tour is rubbish: American football needs these things. It needs a bit of complexity and nuance. Without it, it's only ever slightly entertaining.

NFL Tour is not a good game, simple as that. The NFL Street franchise had enough good elements for the developers to come up with an entertaining game. NFL Tour, however, fails in this. If you don't like American Football, ignore this game. If you do like American Football, ignore this game extra hard. This sport deserves a better treatment.

Boring offence, terrible defence and a poor substitute for a series that could've taken a huge step forward on the 360. [Issue#30, p.93]