They call it football resurrected, and that's not too far from the truth.

2K Sports' All-Pro Football 2008, the only contender to Madden NFL 08, makes up for the lack of NFL licensing by packing its game with more than 240 former NFL legends such as John Elway, Joe Theismann and even O.J. Simpson.

The lack of licensing also means that the game can include all the brutality and reality of NFL football, the sort of late hits and touchdown grandstanding that the league would prefer you pretend doesn't exist.

The last time 2K made a football game was NFL 2K5, back when it still had the blessing of the NFL, and Electronic Arts wasn't the sole license holder. The publisher took a bit of a break from the game before returning this year with the idea of injecting its game with football's greatest players and allowing gamers the chance to handpick their fantasy team.

The game ranks the former NFL players in one of three categories - gold, silver and bronze - and you're allowed to select two gold, three silver and six bronze players. The rest of your team is composed of generic players. Whom you select dictates what kind of game you intend to play, from aggressive offense, to unbreakable defense, to a balanced approach.

The game also provides plenty of memorable, "Oh, my God" moments. Like sidelining a quarterback with a hit so hard it flips him over your back, or spinning in the air to catch a long bomb with one hand and diving into the end zone.

The game's graphics, though slightly dated compared with Madden 08, are more than solid enough to convey the power and beauty of these plays, as well as the tremendous look of shock on the players' faces when something surprising, and most likely painful, happens.

The need to create original and unique stadiums for the game (licensing, again) leads to an interesting array of playing fields. These fantasy stadiums can be quite spectacular, and, in one case, disturbing. (The Assassins' home field sports a masked man with a knife who makes stabbing motions when you score a touchdown.)

The game's play mechanics are mostly solid, though I found Madden's more familiar and a bit more robust in the end. The biggest issue I had with All-Pro Football's controls was its passing, a process that seemed both counterintuitive and a bit hard to perfect.

The audio also is a bit lacking, with some lag between the play description and the name of the player, which obviously is being plugged in on the fly.

Despite these minor issues All-Pro Football 2008 is a relatively solid game that captures the nuance of football and mixes it with a healthy dose of nostalgia. But without being able to play as your favorite NFL team it just doesn't seem as fun - not even with a mullet-sporting Brian Bosworth.