(I have to post this here because Facebook is apparently broken)
NFL Blitz 2000 was released by Midway Games on December 11, 1999. as my grandparents were retired from the business by the dawn of the NFL Blitz series, it wasn’t until about 12 years later I played them for the first time. some 15 years ago (that’s 2009) my grandpa wanted to go to an auction in Alsip, IL and as a result of my car accident settlement I apparently ironically bankrolled this operation. it was there I found a couple of broken Blitz games, a Blitz 99 and Blitz 2000 Gold. I want to say I got them for $275 and $250 respectively. they were fun fixer upper projects and the differences between them amidst all my other responsibilities were difficult to triangulate at the time but I was able to learn a lot eventually. since the development team was mostly the same as NBA Jam, they added an On Fire mode in Blitz 99 which you could achieve by completing passes to the same player 3 times on offense or sacking the other team’s quarterback while playing on defense. this didn’t exist in Blitz 97. what also didn’t exist in Blitz 97 was 4 players, that was part of the Blitz 99 upgrade kit, which both games I bought received as they were Blitz 97 cabinets. for Blitz 2000 there was Customize Game mode added after you selected your team, you could choose day/night games or if there would be weather. in all, the NFL Blitz series wound up being highly successful and I believe was 3Dfx Graphics’ entry into the arcade market for a brief stitch in time.
I upgraded the Blitz 2000 to Midway Sportstation in December 2009. both games had their array of monitor issues, the Blitz 99 being my first ever tube swap (another story for another day), so in the grand scheme of what I do they wound up being very educational.
props to Tim Kitzrow and Dan Forden