Mutant Football League has now been released outside of the Early Access program; you can read my initial thoughts on the early version of the game here.

When I initially received Mutant Football League, it was a broken, horribly unfair mess of a sports title. While I am happy to report the majority of the worst issues have been resolved in the full release, the game is still a bit broken.

The biggest frustration I experienced previously pertained to weird penalties that were called, often back to back, for random irrelevant issues that were in no way associated with football, such as political social media posts or insulting the ref’s mother. This has been toned down quite a bit; however, it has been replaced with AI that will regularly go off sides and attack your quarterback, essentially killing him (and any reserves), forcing you to forfeit. While this didn’t occur nearly as often as the previous issue, it is a bit frustrating and did result in breaking my perfect season.

Aside from the issue mentioned above, the AI is now much more balanced and is less likely to breakaway or become unstoppable when running for the end zone, as this was a pretty big annoyance when the title was in Early Access. The game is certainly more enjoyable now, but it still fails to live up to set expectations.

The visuals are still a bit rough around the edges, but the frame rate has been evened out, resulting in the game being a bit more appealing to watch. The controls have been improved and are much more responsive, working almost identically to the Madden franchise. The football aspect of the game is solid, but the overly violent player deaths and on field destruction is not nearly as satisfying as it could and should be. Sadly, the post play battles are still overly short, hard to control, and appear to be animated using character models from the mid 90’s Die Hard Arcade brawler.

The online features are now working in full force, although in the times I’ve attempted to battle it out on the gridiron, no other players have been present. I was able to play some PvP with friends locally, which was pretty fun; however, the remainder of the package is a bit lacking. The MFL only features a handful of teams, none of which are too different or stand out aside from their numeric rankings – if you’ve played as one team, you’ve played as them all.

Mutant Football League works well as a budget football title, but the otherworldly aspects that made the original such a joy to play are lackluster and come across as nothing but a disappointment. If you are looking for an alternative to Madden, there isn’t much else on the market, so this title will serve you well in that aspect. For those of us that want to relive the glory days of the original, we’re best left to dusting off the classic console and leaving this title on the sidelines.

6 out of 10

Pros:

• Plays Well as a Football Game
• Some Humorous Commentary

Cons:

• Lack of Stand Out Features
• Brawling/Violence is Not What You Would Expect
• Some Crap Penalties

Mutant Football League was developed and published by Digital Dreams Entertainment. It was released on Steam and Xbox One Early Access on October 31st, 2017 and November 3rd, 2017, respectively, and entered full release on January 19, 2018, for $24.99. The game was provided to us for preview, and thus review, on X1. For more on Mutant Football League, visit its official site.

 

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