All-Pro Football 2K8 is a football game for seventh generation consoles and the spiritual successor to the ESPN NFL 2K series. APF2K8 is the first football game to be published by 2K Sports since EA Sports purchased exclusive licenses to the intellectual properties of the NFL and NFLPA; the last football game published by 2K Sports was ESPN NFL 2K5. Barry Sanders, John Elway, and Jerry Rice appear on the cover. Due to poor sales, the franchise ended after one instalment.
Overview[ | ]
All-Pro Football 2K8 features a custom league called the All-Pro League, or APL. The APL consists of 24 teams that are grouped into six divisions of four teams each, whereas the NFL's 32 teams are grouped into eight divisions of four teams each. Both leagues, however, run a sixteen-game schedule and hold a championship game at the end of the play-offs.
Horse-collar tackles, which were made illegal in the NFL due to the risk of injury, are not penalized in All-Pro 2K8, though they cannot be done intentionally and are rarely seen. Midway's Blitz: The League is another unlicensed football title, though comparisons with APF2K8 are few and far between. The Blitz series has always featured over-the-top arcade style gameplay. This is in stark contrast to the 2K Football series, up to and including APF2K8, which offers a realistic simulation style game of football.
The game offers a free 30 minute mix card of the artists who add their songs to the game featuring DJ Z-Trip.
Reception[ | ]
The gameplay of All-Pro Football 2K8 is very similar to the gameplay of NFL2K5, lending well for existing fans of the series. However, All-Pro Football 2K8 has received criticism by some because of the game's lack of features previously made possible by way of the NFL license. Most notably, the lack of a multi-season Franchise Mode as seen in competing titles such as Madden NFL 08 and NCAA Football 08 is a large omission, given Visual Concepts' last football title, ESPN NFL 2K5, contained a similar Franchise Mode. 2K Sports and Visual Concepts chose to omit a franchise mode because since the game revolves around the use of Legends from different eras, naturally there would be no rational way for the Legends to develop or age, therefore a franchise mode with ageing no-namers and immortal legends would be nonsensical. As of October 3, 2007, APF2K8 has a score of 74/100 on Metacritic and 75% on Game Rankings.
Controversial Legend[ | ]
In a court ruling, O.J. Simpson was ordered to pay the family of Ronald Goldman any money made for his appearance in the game. Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman in 1995, but was found legally responsible for their deaths by a civil court jury two years later. A common misconception is that O.J. Simpson is a member of the fictional New Jersey Assassins. To make it worse, Assassins players will 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, Simpson is actually on the roster of a team named the Cyclones. Although he was on this team (New Jersey Assassins) in the pre-production of this game, as noted in the "Sign of the Apocalypse" part of Sports Illustrated.