NFL Blitz back in the game

Last year saw EA Sports bring back the NBA JAM arcade basketball franchise for its first outing in seven years. Now the publisher is bringing back another semiretired over-the-top Midway arcade experience, as it has announced a downloadable reboot of NFL Blitz for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Set for a January release at $15, NFL Blitz is being developed at EA Tiburon, the studio behind EA Sports' flagship football franchise, Madden NFL. In keeping with its predecessors, the game will feature two-minute quarters of penalty-free action and huge hits. However, the developers are also adding their own take on the game, with a new Gauntlet mode that lets players pit a fantasy team against NFL squads and fantasy boss teams to unlock various cheat codes.

NFL Blitz will also feature a variety of online modes, starting with standard competitive and cooperative matches that can be played locally. EA Tiburon is also including a Blitz Battles mode, where players are matched against others in their area and climb local, regional, and finally national ranking boards to earn induction into the Blitz Hall of Fame. The game will also have a trading card-based Elite League mode similar to the Ultimate Team offerings in EA Sports' other titles.

The Blitz franchise was last seen in 2008's Blitz: The League II for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. However, that title touted sex, drugs, violence, and scandal among its main features and did not carry the official NFL license. It has been eight years since the last time the NFL Blitz brand was used, for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube game NFL Blitz Pro. That title was itself a departure from the series, skewing closer to simulation than arcade-style action with 11 players to a team and 10 yards for a first down instead of the Blitz-standard 30.

For more on EA Sports' reboot, check out GameSpot's preview of NFL Blitz.