The Backbreaker Patch: Changing my mind? - RaychelSnr's Blog

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RaychelSnr's Blog

The Backbreaker Patch: Changing my mind? Stuck

Posted on August 11, 2010 at 12:53 PM.

(6)

You may remember my review of Backbreaker, which was pretty harsh. I'm not going to retract that review, because the original Backbreaker was a steaming pile of horse manure when it came to the Xs and Os of football.

Now after spending some time with the 'Greathouse' patch, I can say Backbreaker has moved into the real of playable football title. However, it's still nowhere near a Madden/NCAA killer.

A majority of the issues were fixed or tweaked, although I would say several are still at least minor issues. More importantly, several of the wrong rule interpretations in the original game are now correct, at least largely so. If you are looking for some in-depth impressions from the patched game, check out this awesome thread.

The big thing this patch does is take Backbreaker from an atrocious yet innovative game to a playable and innovative game. I'm not even sure I'd assign it the title of good at this point still, but if you are burnt out with EA's football brand, give the newly patched Backbreaker a rent at the very least.

I think you'll find it refreshing.

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

# 1 deebo2246 @ Aug 11

I might blow the dust off later, but i 1st must pull myself away from NCAA.

# 2 zmcman1 @ Aug 11

It's definitely improved in a lot of areas. The lead passing definitely shines now that passing accuracy has been given a major boost. But the run blocking is currently broken, especially on the Hard difficulty. Both the User and CPU to even average 3 ypc. If they can fix the run blocking issues and make a few other fixes in the form of a next patch (without breaking anything else), it definitely jumps into the conversation for best gameplay of a current-gen football title.

# 3 zmcman1 @ Aug 11

struggle to average 3ypc*

# 4 videlsports @ Aug 11

Running is very hard now but I will keep working on it.

# 5 Dice @ Aug 11

"Consecutive hits tackle...is expressing real football" - Apexisfree
LOL!

# 6 MegaBearsFan @ Aug 12

The running game is now the weakest link in Backbreaker. If a second patch comes out soon that fixes the numerous problems with the running game (blocking mostly) and makes it a bit easier for Wide Receivers to catch the ball, we might suddenly be looking at a game that is not just "playable", but actually is "good"