Mutant Football League 2 review: Brutal arcade nostalgia with a glitchy bite

For gamers who remember the days when exaggerated sports titles such as NFL Blitz and NBA Jam entertained through violent, absurd and theatrically hilarious action, Mutant Football League 2 (Digital Dreams Entertainment, Rated M, reviewed on Xbox X|S and PlayStation 5, $29.99) will be a welcome but sometimes frustrating nostalgia trip.

Unlike the Madden franchise that smothers in licensed superstars and is obsessed with realism, Mutant Football shuns any authenticity and wears excess and slop proudly down to deadly fights, bloody gore, bones on the turf and generally the nastiest kind of World Wide Wrestling matches one could imagine.

At first glance, the reckless appeal is obvious, and this steroid-fueled successor to the venerable 1993 Sega Genesis game Mutant League Football now gratuitously expands to boast more than 36 teams to choose from.

In eight versus eight matches, challengers such as The Brawltimore Razors, Sin Fransicko Forty Nightmares and Blitzburgh Steelheads — populated by ogres, skeletons, robots, demons and superpowered mutated humans — clash on fields rigged with buzz saws, land mines, lava pits and even a guillotine blade that occasionally blocks goalposts.

Quarterbacks are pummeled into the turf, receivers dismembered, and referees — unrepentantly corrupt — can be bribed or slaughtered for their bias. Take the case of a potentially successful return of a kick turning ugly as the runner gets cut apart with a saw crossing across the turf, and his team then getting hit with a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary manslaughter.

Teams are equipped with a set of dirty tricks, such as a running back bursting into flames and burning through the defense; a Murder Ball that, when thrown by a quarterback, cuts through and kills all defenders in its path; and, equally potent, individual players can collect and assign skillroids for temporary boosts of talents.

Through a presentation that leans hard into outrageously dark humor, teams do battle within 16 gothic arenas ranging from themes of Toxic to Nuclear Winter and Haunted. A demented option even allows sadistic gamers to build customized stadiums with a set of traps to their liking on the field.

Combatants, online or locally, and even cooperative (up to two players per side), can pick from single games, practice, a 17-game season, playoffs and even immediately star in the Mayhem Bowl (the Super Bowl of Mutant Football).

The entire game anchors to the time-consuming and teeth-gnashing Dynasty Supreme, a hardcore franchise mode.

Built around long-term team survival rather than short-term spectacle, an owner takes control of a single team down to building uniforms and home field traps and guides it across three seasons to reach the Mayhem Bowl.

During the journey, the owner will collect bonus cash for wins to develop players while managing the team rosters, salary cap and even making trades and signing free agents for big bucks.

Each team operates with a deliberately small 52-player roster, while only eight players are on the field at any given time, a design choice that magnifies every temporary death.

Yes, players can die on the field, and as rosters dwindle, so does the impending possibility of a forfeit increase. It’s not uncommon in a match played on a field that includes electrified poles, land mines and large, hungry mutant worms to have more than a dozen players perish before halftime.

For as much fun as mature adults can have virtually beating players on their opponents’ teams to death, the game’s programming verges on being a challenge to navigate.

The downside to the experience accumulates with the more hours clocked in, especially for those not understanding the function of this hilariously reckless and stupid version of football.

Character animations sometimes freeze, computer-controlled players might leave large swaths of the field unguarded, replays do not look like what actually happened on the field, statistics lie and even some points (2-point plays specifically) might not get counted.

It’s the most gruesome of sandlot football built by developers catering to 13-year-olds who have a general sense of the game but lack its finesse.

The color commentary from veteran Tim Kitzrow (famous for NBA Jam, NFL Blitz and MLB Slugfest) as Grim Blitzrow, Brickhead Mulligan and Bricks Jr. gleefully mocks players, teams and the very idea of sportsmanship.

The commentary will elicit a few juvenile giggles for its sophomoric and profanity-laced observations but will infuriate and distract due to the mind-numbing repetition.

I heard over and over again, “The momentum in this game may be shifting,” even though most of the time, it was not shifting. Yeah, thankfully, I was able to shut off the quips in the options menu, but come on, developers, spend some effort mixing it up and stop the brutal duplication.

A truly head-shaking and impressive feature is that a writer actually took the time to create a way too-detailed backstory for all of the teams and the players. The time might have been better spent investing in fixing game issues.

However, please remember Mutant Football League 2 mission is to humiliate a beloved pastime as the darkest of satires, mocking the gamer and his patience, giving a middle finger squarely at the modern sports simulation industry and demanding descent into the basest levels of virtual survival.

Not only will rebellious gamers embrace the chaos, but those in love with the history of video games will fondly embrace Mutant League Football 2’s uneven and gritty experience.