2MD: VR Football Unleashed All-Star Review (PS5)

Who wouldn’t want to be an NFL quarterback? The fame, the adulation, the roughing the passer penalty flags – it’s the thing dreams are made of! 2MD: VR Football Unleashed All-Star is an upgraded version of Truant Pixel’s arcade-inspired two-minute drill simulator, and it’s come a long way since we reviewed it on Sony’s original virtual reality headset. (Although we liked it a lot back then, too.)

The meat and potatoes of the title are the same: you have 120 seconds to march your team down the field and score a game-winning touchdown. You’ll need to call the plays, toss the ball, and – in a newly added twist – you can also play wide receiver and attempt to catch your own passes. This adds a difficult but satisfying wrinkle to the gameplay, as catching dots from your own arm feels fantastic.

You can draw up plays on a white board if you get tired of the stock ones, and then call these in-game. All of the menus are blissfully interactive; you even quit back to the main menu by physically removing your helmet. While the visual presentation is basic at best, it’s clean and charming – and there’s even weather in some stadiums, forcing you to face-off against opponents in snow or rain.

The thing that makes the gameplay sing, though, is how fun it feels to throw the ball; you may struggle to nail a perfect spiral in real-life, but here you’ll manage a flawless release every time – but will still need to ensure you’re on target, of course. It’s honestly quite terrifying seeing big lineman up in your face mask, but working through your progressions and finding an open receiver feels legitimately great.

To extend the replay value, the release now features a full length exhibition mode, where you play all of the offensive snaps in a full match. All of your stats, including passer rating and rushing totals, will be tracked – and despite the arcade nature of the title, it’s quite fun comparing your in-game performances to those of real-life stars, like Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson.

All in all, this re-release doesn’t fumble the ball – and American football fans in particular will find a lot to like.