Chris' Backbreaker Review - RaychelSnr's Blog

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Chris' Backbreaker Review Stuck

Posted on June 1, 2010 at 02:54 PM.

(26)

Pros

Tackling/Player Interactions - The game never 'feels' stale in the sense that each play often brings about some new looking outcome of a play.

Tackle Alley - I LOVE this mini game. If the developers were wise, they'd package this mode as a $10 DLC or something.

Control Scheme - The controls are simple, and they are effective. Probably my favorite part of the game.

New Take on Football - The game does offer a unique and interesting take on football with the almost first person perspective. Your first impression will likely be one which you might really like the game. Madden should totally take note of how defense is done in Backbreaker, perspective wise and nothing more though.

Cons

This is sim? - No injuries. No fatigue. Limited playbooks. Need I say more?

Artificial Unintelligence - Your computer opponents will be so bad that the progression of AI over the past 20 years might have been set back a decade. I have yet to lose a game, even while stacking the deck against me.

Stats? What Stats? - The stats are just bad. If you want realistic stats with your football games, steer clear of Backbreaker...unless you are into your games resembling Pop Warner stats with 5 - 21 with 6 INTs being the norm for opposing QBs.

That's not a penalty - The penalties are just bad. I'm not even sure how to describe them except to attach bad and inaccurate to most calls. Some penalties are implemented wrong.

Random Bugs - There are just so many little bugs that it really does drag down the experience.

Conclusion

Backbreaker is a first effort best left on the shelf. It has been the subject of immense hype because people hope every football game not made by EA can stand up to the giants in the room. Backbreaker not only doesn't stand up to Madden in any way, it also offers no reasonable reason to do anything but rent it. It's a shallow game of football which offers no real reason to consider single player and has too many bugs to make the multiplayer experience more than average at best.

Chris' Backbreaker Rating:

Chris is the Executive Editor of Operation Sports and maintains this blog on the site. He is also a native Oklahoman and avid storm chaser. You can follow him on Twitter @ChrisSnr.

Comments

# 16 RaychelSnr @ Jun 1

@dj...I'm glad I'm not the only tackle alley addict...I love that mode! I really think 505 should package it as a standalone xbla game.

# 17 TracerBullet @ Jun 1

I think a lot of people agree with you on tackle alley chris.

# 18 user600 @ Jun 1

[sarcasm]yes not a sim[/sarcasm]
maybe the nano blitz, or the suction blocking, or the morphing...

# 19 TreyIM2 @ Jun 1

I'm waiting for the "EA payroll" conspiracy theorists to start posting. Lol. People really get beside themselves when someone states a different opinion to their own.

As for playing this game, I have yet to and thanks to Sony STILL not posting the demo on the PSN AND Blockbuster NOT getting the game in-store, according to this cat at my local Blockbuster, I don't know when I'll be playing the darn thing. However, the guy at Blockbuster said it's avail to be ordered online through the store but I would have to pay the full $9 + tax to get it instead of the discounted amount I would have to pay if I traded in a mailed movie. I MIGHT bite the bullet because there's no telling when the PSN will get the demo. Hell, we just got the Tecmo Bowl game, TODAY, but NO DEMO! Not trying to pay for that game, at any cost.

# 20 they call me kevin @ Jun 2

I played a game in the demo and decided to never touch the game again. Seemed more like a glorified tech demo they were hoping to sell to EA more than anything else to me.

I like how they are actually attempting to do something new and challenge Madden, but seriously this needed a lot more iterations or time to build before they actually attempted to release it as a legitimate game to the public(and not just a tackle alley demo.)

I mean good that they are trying, but this is going to need at least 3 or 4 games I guess before they get it fully right and honestly even though they announced a second one, I really don't see this game selling more than say 50-75k copies due to all the bad reviews and most people just not being into it.

Thus I doubt a second one ever actually sees the light of day, which is a shame.

# 21 GOBLUE_08 @ Jun 2

Pretty fair review.

I picked it up saturday morning, and to be honest I really haven't stopped playing since. It cetainly has some flaws, but its been a lot of fun for me too. I haven't really seen a lot of the bugs outside of the sacks and int's. If we get a patch for it and its done right, i think this can be a pretty good alternative.

# 22 rudyjuly2 @ Jun 2

I like the bullet points for the review.

# 23 Bad_Intentions @ Jun 5

I really really wanted to love backbreaker, but other than the physics theres not much there. They need to give us more of a traditional camera angle....playing against another person in split screen is totally unacceptable to me. I'm playing football not Gran Turismo.

They also need to figure out if this game is a sim or an arcade game. It seems like they try to go back and forth between the two and the overall product suffers b/c of it. I think the devs of this game tried to be too different from what we've seen in video game football up to this point and it hurt the final product.

There is nothing wrong with being different, but it has to work and make sense. Feels that they were just trying to be different just to say "hey this is different from anything you've played!"

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