DFL2

Saw this on a Not The Expert video on youtube of worst reviewed Football games. As a fan of the endless runner and with this being only a dollar, I was intrigued. This game has a lot to offer for its price and I can't help feeling like this is the start of something that would be a quite popular mobile game. I'm not saying it's great or even good. But for the price point, it's a competent runner that shows some future promise and not the asset flip you might expect. I had fun.

Lucky me gets to write the first review for DFL2! Don't worry, it's getting held to the same standards every game does. DFL2 is, well, it looks like a sports game, but I think "endless runner" is more appropriate. In this sincerely (if perhaps not well) made game, you take on the role of a low poly, badly animated athlete and you must progress down the gridiron field avoiding other players, swerving left or right, and sprinting and jumping (but never stopping), to see if you can reach the goals. The game also has American Ninja style obscale course modes, which is nice I guess... more of an average thing makes it better, right? From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. There's no options to change the resolution for the game or customise the graphics settings. There's no way for gamers to ensure this is running at the native resolution of their displays... there's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. There's no way for gamers to try improve the low quality graphics. The game features lazy low-polygon "retro" assets, making this look like a barely functional 3D game from the 1990s. It's unclear why the developers weren't able to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets for the game, and also irrelevant... what matters is that this looks bad as a result of their decisions, a compromise PC gamers shouldn't have to put up with. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers. The controls and game handling are notably very clunky and unsmooth here. It's janky and unsatisfying to play... and any experienced gamer will tell you, the handling, responsiveness and general gameplay feel of the control scheme must be well polished for this kind of game to succeed. Unfortunately, this is something the developer seems to have phoned in, with little to no apparent gameplay testing. They dropped the ball on this one. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected in the general public reception. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 2 players. That's right, only 2. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in the game is to be expected. Gamers just didn't take this low quality game seriously. DFL2 is relatively cheap at $1 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend.