Midway built a football game that breaks football. NFL Blitz, first released in arcades in 1997 and ported to the Nintendo 64 the following year, throws out penalties, substitutions and the idea that a defense should get a fair chance. What is left is seven-on-seven chaos with an NFL license slapped on top. It is the best thing the studio did after NBA Jam, and it holds up.
Seven-on-Seven, No Penalties, No Mercy
The rules are the pitch. NFL Blitz uses seven-man teams on each side. There are no penalties and no substitutions. Players can dropkick each other. Those are the illegal attacks the game lets you commit on purpose, and it lets you commit them constantly.
This is not a simulation and never pretends to be. A normal football game asks you to read a defense, manage a clock, protect a lead. NFL Blitz asks you to snap the ball and hurt somebody. The field feels smaller because it is. Every play is a chance for a big hit, and the game rewards you for taking it.
The NFL license is real. Teams and players come from the 1997 season, so the rosters are the ones a fan of that year would recognize. Midway did not invent a league to avoid paying for one. It bought the real thing and then let you dropkick it.
Mark Turmell and Sal Divita Bring the NBA Jam Playbook
The development team was headed by Mark Turmell and Sal Divita. Both were known for NBA Jam. NFL Blitz was a deliberate attempt to translate that game’s exaggerated arcade style to football.
That lineage explains everything about how NFL Blitz plays. NBA Jam took basketball and made it loud, fast and slightly absurd. NFL Blitz does the same to football, and the fit is better than it has any right to be. Football already has collisions. The arcade treatment just turns the volume up.
Kordell Stewart, then the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, was the cover athlete. That is a detail worth sitting with. Stewart was one of the most unpredictable players of his era, a quarterback who ran as often as he threw. Putting him on the box of a game built on unpredictability was the right call.
The Ports Landed in 1998
The arcade release came in 1997. The home versions followed in 1998, arriving on the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Windows and Game Boy Color. The Nintendo 64 version is the one most people remember, and it is the one this review is about.
| Version | Year | Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Original arcade release | 1997 | Arcade |
| Home ports | 1998 | PlayStation |
| Home ports | 1998 | Nintendo 64 |
| Home ports | 1998 | Windows |
| Home ports | 1998 | Game Boy Color |
| Release | Year |
|---|---|
| Arcade debut | 1997 |
| Console and PC ports | 1998 |
The spread matters. Midway did not treat NFL Blitz as an arcade curiosity. It put the game on four home platforms in a single year, which is a statement about how much faith the studio had in it.
Why the N64 Version Still Works
The Nintendo 64 port keeps what made the arcade game work. Four players around one television is the correct way to play this. The game was built for multiplayer, and the single-player mode is really just practice for the nights when somebody else is holding a controller.
The perspective is bird view, isometric, which keeps the whole field readable. You can see the dropkick coming. You can see the receiver break open. In a game this fast, that clarity is not a small thing.
The 1997 season rosters date the game, and that is fine. A licensed sports game is a time capsule by design. What dates it more is the design philosophy. Modern football games chase realism and broadcast presentation. NFL Blitz chased the opposite and got there first.
The Score
GameSpot published a 9.1 out of 10 for NFL Blitz. That number is right, and not just as a piece of history.
The case for a lower score is thin but real. There is no depth here in the way a simulation offers depth. No playbook worth studying, no clock management, no penalties to respect. If you want football as it is actually played, this is the wrong disc. The single-player mode runs out of reasons to exist quickly.
The case for the score is stronger. NFL Blitz knows exactly what it is and never apologizes. Seven-on-seven, no penalties, no substitutions, dropkicks allowed. Mark Turmell and Sal Divita took the NBA Jam formula and found the sport that could absorb it without breaking. The result is a game you can hand to someone who has never watched a down of football and have them scoring in five minutes.
That is the whole argument. NFL Blitz is not a great football simulation. It is a great arcade game wearing a football jersey, and the jersey fits.
9.1 of 10.
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