You may have noticed that your football-mad buddies are walking around with a glint in their eyes lately. That’s because the era known as the Dark Ages of Football Games will be ending this month, as the much-beloved 2K gridiron series is revived on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in the form of All-Pro Football 2K8. While it may – or may not – be everything its long-suffering fans are hoping for, it’s undoubtedly a loud shot across EA’s bow in the newly revived Football Wars this season.

Above: Let's be mature about this, sports fans

The hook in All-Pro is a combination of strategy and history. See, rival publisher EA locked down the NFL teams for its football games, but not the retired players. There’s a long list of historically-based gridiron gladiators at your disposal to scatter across your squad, but you’ve only got a handful of spots to allocate them. Each of the 240 available legends (we use that term loosely in some cases) is broken into three classes – gold, silver, and bronze. Unfortunately, you aren’t able to unleash your inner Jerry Jones and place a Hall of Famer at each position. Rather, you’ll have to field your squad with just two golds, three silvers, and six bronzes.

The choices are daunting – do you spend your precious gold on offense or defense? Do you split it up in hopes of a balanced team, go for an Elway-to-Rice high-powered passing attack, or terrorize opponents with monster defensive destroyers like Lawrence Taylor and Reggie White blowing up the offensive line? Decisions, decisions.