Axis Football 2020 Review

"Good Improvements"

Campaign

October 24, 2020 at 3:42am
By Jason Stettner

This is the latest entry in the Axis Football series, bringing with it some seriously impressive upgrades to the overall experience. We’re really starting to see a solid indie football competitor in the space. With this release you get the option to just swiftly jump into a play now, to enjoy a never ending franchise or even experience some smaller modes as well.

To firstly focus on franchise it has most of the features you would expect. That includes trades, player contracts and even athletes retiring. There are sixteen week seasons and you can go forever if you so choose. It’s got a lot of depth even past what I’ve mentioned, but it’s basically a fully functional option for playing seasons of football. There’s also a coach mode to play, or even just watch the AI go at it.

If you want to play with others there’s local multiplayer for two, I do hope in the future that online multiplayer becomes an option though I do understand the limitations of course with this being more of an indie effort. While this is the scope of the modes, I should mention there are a number of customization options available which is great. Even aside from that there are thirty-six teams present with some awesome logo work.

Gameplay

So, this isn’t necessarily the best looking football game. It does provide some really sleek broadcast UI, and the announcing was well done. Sort of funny, provided a good laugh or two and it matched the speed well. The commentary that is, if it wasn’t clear. Like I was saying, it’s the visual aspect of the game that sort of drags things down. It takes awhile to load a match, and even then the general visuals aren’t too impressive.

It captures the players perfectly well, along with the formations in regards to how the AI interact with one another. I did find the animations a little too quick, it looks like they’re teleporting sometimes. The crowd doesn’t look good, and sometimes those far backdrops are sort of stick out points in not being the highest of quality.

I think there’s work to do visually, but they definitely have the core mechanics down now which is a good thing. It plays decently fine, it’s got something like over two thousand plays and options for adjusting what you’re doing on the fly if needed. Players can use jukes, dives and the hits are fairly solid. I felt that it actually played well enough to capture the core movement and style of the sport.

The Conclusion

Axis Football 2020 is a really great improvement over the previous entries, they’re getting close to providing a very compelling simulation of the sport and at this time it’s definitely alright. It has a good selection of modes, appreciated content for customization and an expansive franchise option.

You can play unlimited seasons of the franchise mode, and have a good time with many of the smaller mechanics you would expect. From trading, to a redesigned draft experience and even new startup selections. It has a lot going on, and I felt that it had an impressive enough offering of modes. I think they’re really working towards something great with this series.

The effort they’ve put in over recent years has really started to show here. I’ve been playing the series for quite awhile, and this particular year’s effort stands out the most to me out of any of them. It’s got a lot going for it, and if you want to see good football alternatives to Madden it’s probably best to support alternative options such as this one.

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Axis Football 2020 Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Axis Games

Rating Overall: 6.2