All-Pro Football 2K8 first impressions

I picked up the much-anticipated (by me) All-Pro Football 2K8 today for the Xbox 360, and I've had time for two games. Here's what I've noticed so far:

The teams: My first question about this game: does it come with ready-made teams, or are you forced to make your own? Answer: the first thing you do in this game is make your own team, and then the game fills in the rosters of the other squads. I pored over the various inconsequential uniform and logo choices endlessly, eventually annoying myself. You have a ton of options for making teams, and you could probably rip off an NFL team pretty well. But if you're going to do that, why not just buy Madden?

The nice thing is that you don't have to make all these little decisions-the game comes with ready-made team mascots along with matching stadia, and the default options are pretty good. Check that, the default options are impressively good. I don't know about you, but when I see a fictional pro team in a movie or TV show, I almost always think that the uniforms look ridiculous. But these look pretty professional, without being total NFL ripoffs. And they look like they'd work together in a league, if that makes any sense.

The players: All-Pro Football 2K8 lets you assign eleven legends to your team. The players are tiered, though, so you can't actually overload on all-timers. You get to pick two gold players, three silver players, and six bronze players.

Gold players are the absolute best: Joe Montana, Walter Payton, and cover stars Jerry Rice, John Elway, and Barry Sanders. I picked Payton and Elway. These players aren't ranked on the 100-point scale like Madden; instead, they're given a list of attributes, and some lists are longer than others. Elway's, for example, are cadence, fourth-quarter comebacks, scrambler, speed burner, and rocket arm.

Silver players are a step down, but still pretty sweet. Some examples are Randall Cunningham, Ickey Woods, and Roger Craig. I chose Karl Mecklenburg, Jack Youngblood, and Herman Moore.

The bronze level has some nice names, but also some "sure, you can use my likeness for free" guys like Bubby Brister and Andre Ware. My bronze players were The Fridge, Albert Lewis, John Taylor, Joe Jacoby, Jesse Sapolu, and Carl Banks.

I eventually switched Banks for Dexter Manley, since I usually play as a D-lineman and besides, who doesn't love Dexter Manley? It was pretty fun just trying to pick guys, and I'm sure I'll do it again very soon.

One interesting note is that the way players are tiered, you can almost re-create the late-'80s 49ers offense. Montana, Rice, Craig, Tom Rathman, Taylor, and Sapolu can all play on the same team.

Graphics: All-Pro Football 2K8 goes in a different direction from many recent games, and I'm grateful. Instead of aiming for ridiculously nice screenshots but occasionally choppy play, 2K8 looks terrific in motion, with some of the best animations I've ever seen. From a straight staring-at-the-screen standpoint, it doesn't look like a huge leap from ESPN NFL 2K5. However, you're only thinking that if you haven't played 2K5 in a while. (That, and 2K5 was ahead of its time.) 2K8 looks very crisp in high-definition.

That's not to say there aren't those occasional graphical glitches, like guys walking through each other, that we see in every single sports game.

Gameplay: This game plays a lot like ESPN NFL 2K5. A lot. It has a new kicking mechanism, which I'm pretty sure sucks. (You have to swing the stick forward as the kicker swings his leg...but it's tough to time, and not really that fun even when you get it right.) But most everything is the same, which is cool, but may not be the leap you're looking for.

All right, I'm off to play some more. Expect a full review later this week.