Platform: Switch
Publisher: Digital Dreams
Developer: Digital Dreams Entertainment LLC
Genre: Sports, Arcade, Multiplayer
Players: 4
Release Date: October 30, 2018
If there’s one thing American football does not need more of, it’s violence. In the fictional world of Mutant Football League, however, violence is just another play in the book. Who knew football could be so much fun when you can bribe, cheat, and kill your way to victory? Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition is a surprisingly competent football experience distinguished by (actual) monstrous players, torturous arenas, and crude humor.
Monday Night Football with Mutants
As the title of the game suggests, Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition is wholly dedicated to parodying the National Football League. Down to the transition graphics and score presentation, Mutant Football League makes a fun effort to make each game seem as serious (and not so serious) as a Monday Night Football broadcast. Each match begins as a broadcast by EVLSN with the legendary voice of NBA Jam, Tim Kitzrow, headlining the commentary team. The colorful commentary provided by the team is characterized by vulgar and suggestive humor. It’s funny at first, but it doesn’t take long for it to become repetitive and somewhat obnoxious. This obscene humor carries over to player interviews/comments after certain plays are completed. Their comments can be enjoyably absurd at first, but again, it didn’t take long for their comments to repeat to the point of tastelessness.
The parodying doesn’t stop at the broadcast as there are 23 teams, arenas, and several players that all take inspiration from NFL organizations throughout the United States. From the Cracksumskull Jugulars (Jacksonville Jaguars) to the Nuked London Hatriots (New England Patriots), the game always finds a way to make you chuckle at its clever satire. Famous NFL players like Cam Newton and Julio Jones have their own MFL counterparts known as Wham Neutron and Ghoulio Jones. The stadiums aren’t direct parodies of their real-world locations but they are noteworthy because of their various death traps. Three Mile Island Stadium, home of the Blitzburg Steelheads, is a radioactive wasteland covered green puddles of acid from the irradiated rainfall. The Arrow In Your Head Stadium is littered with fire pits, buzzsaws, and mutant traps all across the field. Mutant Football League asks you to be on your guard at all times because your players can lose their life at any moment.
Dirty Tricks For the Win
Dying is an essential component of the Mutant Football League experience. Conducted mostly through the Dirty Tricks playbook, each team has access to a special set of dirty plays they run in order to brutally sabotage their opponents. From bribing the ref to straight up murdering the enemy team’s quarterback, violence and deception are encouraged throughout. You can hide ticking time bombs in the football when the opposing team is on offense or make the football super sticky so that when they make a pass it simply comes back to hit them in the face. After each play, there’s a brief moment where you can just start whaling on the opposing team in the hopes of injuring or killing them. Injury and murder completely affect the dynamic of team management because once a player is dead, they are gone. It’s possible to resurrect players through a highly coveted Dirty Trick, but trust me it’s better to simply take care of your players in the brutality.
The Best Dynasty in the League
MFL’s flagship play mode is in the subtitle of the game: Dynasty Mode. This mode sees you managing a team across various seasons in order to win the Mayhem Bowl and become champions of the MFL. Outside of playing each organized season game, you’ll be upgrading your players, conducting trades, and managing your revenue to improve your team’s overall standing in the league. Players can earn XP through successful plays conducted in-game or purchased with money earned per match. This isn’t pay-to-win though, as you’re limited to how much you can invest between matches. Each player type has different attributes to allot to. Quarterbacks can improve their intelligence and throwing accuracy while running backs can improve their toughness and speed. Mutant Football League’s Dynasty Mode is the best part of this game as it gives you the tools to organize your playbooks, upgrade your players, and feel like you’re truly participating in a real league as your players gain historical statistics.
Concerns
Aside from Dynasty Mode, Mutant Football League doesn’t offer any more special modes to play. There is your standard play now mode alongside online matches with randoms, playoffs, and season modes. The inability to organize online matches with friends is disappointing. Dynasty, playoffs, and season modes only allow one file at a time, meaning if you want to change teams or difficulty settings you’ll have to start fresh. At least, Mutant Football League’s training camp and practice modes do a great job of teaching newcomers to the game of American football. Local gameplay runs well, too. Allowing up to 4 players to participate in the mutant mayhem.
Mutant Football League’s overall presentation is a bit rough, and not because it fits the theme of the game. The game runs at a stable 30 frames per second, but in-game character models and environments are not as polished. Some arenas look better than others, but the ones that don’t look good have lower textures and lack anti-aliasing. On the bright side, it’s definitely improved over the E3 2018 build I got to experience earlier this year. Unfortunately, I had the game crash on me a total of five times throughout my review period. I’ve had it crash while picking a play, before starting a match, and once when I was informed that Ghoulio Jones would need a testicle replacement as a result of his divorce settlement. Hopefully, Digital Dreams Entertainment can patch these issues in a future update, but right now I’m just glad it never crashed on me while playing the Mayhem Bowl.
Final Thoughts
Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition is a novel and original arcade-style American football game that can be entertaining to gridiron fans and newcomers alike. The real stars of this game are its Dynasty Mode and Dirty Tricks gameplay elements. There’s something exciting about running plays that end with the opposing team losing a few players. Unfortunately, the novelty wore off relatively quickly for me and I was playing the game solely for the football over the crude humor and violent mechanics. You’re more than likely to have an enjoyable time with this game, but don’t expect something that will hold your interest longer than it takes for your entire team to be eliminated. Mutant Football League: Dynasty Edition is available at retail and on the Nintendo eShop for $29.99.
Review Copy Provided by Digital Dreams Entertainment
