2MD VR Football has made a lot of progress through the years. While the core is still very much an arcade style, two-minute drill simulation, Truant Pixel’s latest iteration has evolved it from simply the fun experience to distract from other titles, it started as. 2MD VR Football Unleashed All-Star is now a fully realized, and surprisingly deep and fun experience to distract you from other titles.

Let’s not mince words: you are not buying a PSVR2, or any other VR unit, to get your hands on 2MD VR Football Unleashed All-Star. But what you are doing is paying a budget price for an experience that I fully believe you will keep dipping your feet in, well past when you think you are done and moved on. Who doesn’t want to toss on a helmet, listen to the crowd’s chant, and be the reason your team wins it all with a fantastically put together two-minute offense?

Starting things off with you in front of a chalk board in the locker room, things can seem chaotic. You are directed in how you can alter plays and routes, before putting them to the test. Formations, player positions, and routes are all able to be edited and fine-tuned for your offense. You then hit training so you can get use to the mechanics of the skill positions.

Yes, you can now get the ball handed to you as you push for 3 extra yards. You can leap into the air, after running a crisp route, to catch a 7-yard slant of the heads of defenders. There is even an exhibition mode where you play all three skill sets, but 2MD VR Football Unleashed All-Star still understands why we are putting on that helmet. We want to be the hero. It’s nice that we now have those options, and it does add replay and experiment ability, but we want to carry the weight of the game on our backs.

You are behind center, you have 120 seconds to score, you audible to another play, you hike it, you see one receiver blanketed, you see another with a defender over the top, then you see your third option crossing across the middle. Rolling out to your right, pump fake, you let the ball go just before getting hit. 12 yards and a new set of downs! This is what 2MD VR Football Unleashed All-Star is about, to its bones!

You can also play “full” games. Failing to convert allows for the other team the chance to add points, before immediately giving you the ball back. Scoring allows you to add on to those points with targeting rings and hitting receivers in stride.

Controls are simple and get you right into the action. You don your helmet to start game play and enter the field, you remove your helmet to go back to the main menu. Hold the trigger button hikes the ball, your joystick moves you. Pumping and releasing the trigger throws the ball. You can change up settings to adjust to your throw style. Using the d-pad cycles through your playbook. This isn’t a case of “easy to learn, difficult to master”. This is just meant to be fun and easy to play.

2MD VR Football wasn’t known for being a looker, and the same goes for now. To say it is basic, is about as fitting a label as I can think of. In the VR gear, you are seeing through the QB’s (or ball carrier’s) eyes. You need to look over top of your Offensive Line and anticipate where your receiver will be. For anyone else watching, the graphics are an isometric look, much like the original NFL Blitz. Appropriately enough, the graphics are much like that original ’97 game as well. But games like this, games like D-Day, seem to thrive in their basic presentation. Focus on the feel of the pressure, the sound of players crunching into each other, the roar of the stadium.

Weather can be incorporated into game situations, with sun, rain, wind and snow being factors. Additionally, you can unlock new teams and uniforms. If a destination is important to you, there are about 60 different clubs and stadiums you can play in.

2MD VR Football Unleashed All-Star is not meant to replace Madden. However, it is so confident in the experience it is, they put it right there in the title. You aren’t going to spend two hours in the game, playing through an entire season, nor are you meant to. But two minutes? Two minutes to become a legend? Two minutes to become a football all-star? Yeah. I’ll take that. You aren’t going to stop from being in the zone, staying loose on your toes, using your hand to wave your WR open, pump faking, nothing that is actually a move inside the game, and that’s ok.

Graphics: 6.0 Very basic character modeling and animations. Madden, this is not.	Gameplay: 8.0 Controls designed to get you in, and keep you in, the action from the start.
Sound: 8.0 Loud music, loud fans, just loud. Puts you in the mindset of being at a game.	Fun Factor: 9.0 You can’t help but feel you are under center and having fun. You’ll feel like a starting QB and doing needless moves and gestures inside your head unit.
Final Verdict: 8.0

2MD VR Football Unleashed All-Star is available now on PC VR and PS VR2.

Reviewed on PS VR2.

A copy of 2MD VR Football Unleashed All-Star was provided by the publisher.