Genesis Cult Classic Review: Mutant League Football

On a few occasions now I have mentioned one of my favorite video games of all time, Mutant League Football for the Sega Genesis. Well it's about time I finally got around to writing a review of Mutant League Football and in the spirit of Mutant League Football let's just skip over the pretty introductions and junk and skip right to the ugliness of the game.

The concept of Mutant League Football is pretty simple. Mutant League Football is a football game but instead of humans you have mutants. Mutant League Football's definition of mutants ranges from trolls to skeletons. When you start Mutant League Football you'll have the same options as most football games. Length of period, what stadium you want to play in, and what team you want to be etc. Your choices of teams are the Turbo Techies, an all robot team with players such as IC Circuits, Wires, and Gil-9000. The Midway Monsters are a take on the "Monsters of the Midway" moniker and are led by Bones Jackson. There are the Darkstar Dragons led by Joe Magician. There are also many other equally menacing team names like the Bashers, Konvicts, Rockers, Slashers, Demons, Screaming Evils, Slayers and since every league needs an easy team in it, there is also the Sixty Whiners.

So what makes Mutant League Football different than regular football other than it has mutants? That's simple, blood and guts. As you play the game a player will be weakened by each hit he takes and don't be shy about hitting players after the play is over because there are no rules against it. Once a player is weakened enough one more bone crushing hit will literally crush their bones as you'll see the player explode into bits of bones, guts and blood. Whenever one player kills another he always has a comment to add insult to injury, something like "I didn't like the way he bleeds, so I made him stop!"

There is also all kind of trick plays in Mutant League Football. Not boring stuff like reverses or the statue of liberty, real tricks. You can give a new meaning to throwing a bomb by strapping dynamite to the football and purposely throwing it at another team. You can use a rocket pack to blow past everyone. You can turn invisible or you can even bribe the referee. However, bribing the referee will only help you for one play because the opposing team almost always counters with the "Kill the Ref" trick play. The "Kill the Ref" trick play is exactly what it sounds like. Your entire team will suddenly leave the line a scrimmage and pounce on the referee, beating him until he is just a pile of bones. But "ref bashing" is a 5 yard penalty so between bribing the ref and the other team killing him you usually get two penalties in a row in your favor.

To give Mutant League Football even more of a different look the game features some very different fields to play on. Every field has a different setting, a different surface and different obstacles.

One field is called Asteroid 66. Asteroid 66 is a field that is set in outer space. You have to be careful on Asteroid 66 because there is no out of bounds. Once you step outside the lines you go flying off in space and that player is gone for the rest of the game. Of course you can use this to your advantage by tackling people to the sidelines so they'll go flying off the field. Asteroid 66 also has some nasty fire pits and if you fall in you will disintegrate.

Another field, Battlefield, has a sand surface and there is nothing wrong with running out of bounds here. What you have to be careful of on the Battlefield is the on the field obstacles. There are mines, pits, and rocks that you have to avoid.

Frozen Waste might be the most dangerous of all the fields. Like Asteroid 66 it is in space so you can go flying away into the night if you're not careful. It's also slippery since the field is frozen. If that's not enough there are also mines and in some places the ice is thin and you can fall through the bottom of the field. There are many other fields including the Sixty Whiners home field Winkystink Stadium. Winkystink stadium is just a boring grass field, boring!

There are a few other nice touches in this game too and by nice I mean not very nice. During halftime your cheerleaders will come out onto the field for their halftime show. If you don't like them you can lob bombs at them and end it as quickly as possible. The coaches are a lot of fun too, they are often giving your team inspirational speeches like "if we win this game tonight, you can skip the team meeting and go tamper with brakes in the parking lot instead."

If you still own a Sega Genesis and you want to play a little boy's version of football then go get you a copy one of the of the early John Madden games. But if you want to play a real man's version of football then get Mutant League Football.