Have you ever heard a joke that you didn't understand? You wait ages and ages through the main meat of the story - guy walks into a bar, guy crosses the street, guy goes to the doctor or whatever - then the punchline is delivered and you absolutely do not get it, either because you just didn't find it funny or because it's intentionally unfunny. You stand there in joke limbo, unsure if it's just you who is out of touch with comedy or the joke teller is really not that great at spinning yarns. NFL Tour is stuck in a similar limbo, but is far from funny and you can't help wondering what was going through the minds of EA when they cobbled it together. Similarly you sit there questioning what you see before you on the screen, asking if it's there on purpose or because of some mad irony. Even if you love the sport, read on and dissect the evidence for yourself and decide.

NFL Tour is part of the EA BIG range and this typically means exaggeration. Tackles look painful, the attitude is ramped up to eleven and the visual style is more abstract than the Madden games. This is a stripped-down arcade version of the sport where team size is reduced to eight and the pitches are much smaller than their professional counterparts. A perspex wall, like the one found around a hockey rink, surrounds the playing field, which adds new tactics to the game and is great for slamming rivals into - ouch! So let's run a checklist; it's big, it's ballsy and it's brutal. Why then doesn't it work?

The main Career mode is lengthy and sees you creating your own player to take on tour. A simple season format sees you taking on authentic teams across America and rubbing shoulders with the game's elite. A short season states that the NFL want to see how an average Joe fares against the pros, hence why you've been recruited by your chosen team. Right - not quite necessary or believable then. You can customise him (sorry ladies, it's apparently guys only) with some of the sparse options and hopefully try to concoct a player that looks slightly like you, but don't count on it. Next you select what position your Frankenstein's monster of a man will play in. I, naturally, chose quarterback, but oddly in each match you still control every player on field. Surely the natural thing to do here would be to include two modes, with one where you control a single player for a whole season, just like the similar mode in FIFA 08 that worked really well, then alternatively you could opt to play as the entire team. This time around however we'll have to make do with the illusion that this character 'customisation' makes an iota of difference to the overall game.

I feel I have to insert the positive elements of the game here at this point, because there are some small positives beneath the bonnet of this overpriced farce. The control mapping is excellent and simplified for quick play. Depending on your situation, the button layout changes. When you have the ball, B is for juke (a quick dodge manoeuvre), A is throw, the right trigger is for turbo and Y pitches. So that's four buttons and the sticks for movement - and this is brilliant and very effective. Because the game is aimed at party play, it's a relief that the control methods are easy to pick up so that you don't have to explain every single move to your mates when they are over to your place for a gaming session.

After each down, a playbook opens up displaying all the tactics available to you and these are laid out clearly, showing you where your attackers will run and the areas your blockers will defend. While on defence, the X button becomes your best pal as it launches a crushing flying tackle that can stop even the burliest of runners in their tracks. Do it near the perspex walls around the pitch and watch as their face connects with it. This is very satisfying and will leave your friend's ego hurting in two-player mode. The 'Wall Hurdle' is great fun too; while in possession of the ball, sprint diagonally into the wall, tap Y and watch as you run up the wall and over into the end zone to score a touchdown as your mate sits there in disbelief! This is the only cocky move in the game and when pulled off results in opponent humiliation - it's a shame there weren't more of these special moves put in because they would have really mixed things up. The playbooks on defence are similar and blitz is a common favourite, as your blockers steamroll the opponent but leave the backfield open for a long pass, so a bit of careful planning reaps rewards.

The online mode is just as you'd expect; head to head or two to four player co-op as you control different players in the team. It's fun enough but a bit limited; these elements lay the foundation of any next-gen NFL game and EA have done all of these things correctly, but negated most of this via some very silly choices.

"Hi! I'm the game mode described as a 'Revolutionary Reversal System' on the back of the game box. You may remember me from such games as Resident Evil 4, God of War, Conan and, funnily enough, Bee Movie." Sorry for the Troy McClure reference, but a quick-time event system dolled up in revolutionary game dynamics clothing doesn't fool anyone. If you are running with the ball and an attacker dives at you, a split second before you are taken out a button flashes above your player's head - tap it quickly enough and you shake the guy off, but fail and you get floored painfully. Simple and adding a bit of variety? Maybe. Revolutionary? No chance. This would be an excellent addition if it wasn't so predictable, as you can clearly see an attacker about to make a dive at you, so you brace yourself well in advance for the prompt and if you do succeed in countering his attack there's a 99.9% chance that another attacker grabs you directly afterwards, rendering your effort pointless. The AI is competent enough and reacts to your position on the field, making for some impressive long throws, but every so often there are 'headless chicken' moments when team mates run around like they're being chased by a pack of hounds.

Coming back to the whole unfunny joke theme, each match starts with cameras swooping over the pitch, which for some reason is always next to a city street. This is possibly in a bid to make the game more urban (read: cool) or possibly because the land value in New York City is incredibly high at the moment, what with the credit crunch and all. Pyrotechnics go off and one of the surprisingly so-so EA Traxs kicks in for about twenty seconds (Lupe Fiasco's ace Superstar'= is the highlight) and you then realise how dull and lifeless this celebration of football really is. There's no attitude, no sense of excitement, no nothing. Then the coup de grace, the icing on the cake, the clincher comes, as Mr. Commentator feels the need to pipe up. By far the lone element that drags this game down most - and don't get me wrong I had high hopes that this game would be as good if not better than the superb NFL Blitz - is this uninspired and tedious man that makes you wish that DJ Striker from Burnout 3 was still in business (remember him?) Comments such as "You know how annoying it is when in-game commentators repeat themselves?... you know how annoying it is when in-game commentators repeat themselves?" just aren't funny and get right under your skin when you're losing by two points in your final play and all you want to do is take the game seriously but are being bombarded with lounge-singer humour every five seconds. The phoned-in lines are diabolical and add nothing to the description of each match. The players' names aren't even spliced into the dialogue correctly and this is almost embarrassing. With all their financial clout, surely EA could have got some better lines in there? Baffling.

Graphically, NFL Tour is no patch on Madden and lingers dangerously close to the low standards set by Pro Evo 2008, which while an excellent sport game, lacked the technical prowess that it should have included. The character models look cheap and non-descript while the crowds sway in automated fashion and make virtually no noise. It's as if ball gags were handed out as special prizes to every ticket holder as some sort of weird promotion. The colours are rich enough and the motion capture is realistic, but the street surroundings bordering the pitch feature dark skylines, micro machine traffic flows and plain green masses of parkland. Utterly souless and unnecessary.

The real crime here isn't the shoddy presentation or waste of a good control method however, but the price tag. Found in your local gaming emporium for no less than the £45-50 mark, this is astounding. Perhaps in the US, released conveniently close to Superbowl 'Super Tuesday', it bore more relevance, but for a country that largely prefers rugby there is no point in selling the game for such an escalated price. If a sequel does come - and I hope it does because the trick system should be expanded like FIFA Street (imagine scoring a forty yard touchdown dash full of forward flips, wrestling clotheslines and sliding between defender's legs!) - it'd be fantastic and something people would want to pick up. NFL Blitz comes close to this idea and for a much cheaper price, so avoid NFL Tour unless you absolutely adore American football.

There is massive potential in NFL Tour for some fleshing out of the source material. The gameplay is fun and easy to pick up, just as you would expect from an arcade style sports sim, but the overall package doesn't seem to take itself seriously, due to the parody commentator and muted atmosphere. Combine this with the below par graphics and high price and you've got a game that is still really only worth a look for those who love the sport it is based upon.

Reviewed by Dave Cook for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).