Backbreaker vs EA's Madden 11 - dxhowe2k's Blog

dxhowe2k's Blog

Backbreaker vs EA's Madden 11

Posted on August 19, 2010 at 09:25 PM.

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Ok, the common ground should be, Backbreaker is not Madden or ESPN NFL 2K5. Number 1) The NFL License shouldn't be an issue due to the fact that Logos and rosters can be replicated. What should be an issue on a very small scale are sponsors. Ex: Reebok, Nike, Riddell, and a few others. We'll give the madden-ites that, we're not worried the least bit on that. 2) Physics is a must issue in this game. Football is a 100% contact sport. When contact is made it should be impossible to script the result. If you hit a runner from behind (in Backbreaker and REAL life) just as he's making a cut, your end result will be different every time. Where as though with EA's Madden football (all of them) your end result will be the same. Now there is a small possibility that you'll get a different end result 2 out of 6 times because the script says "he must fall this way or that way PERIOD". So Backbreaker wins on the physics.

Football injuries. Now we did mention earlier that football is a 100% contact sport. When you're engaged in a sport of this scale of contact injuries is a must. We all know that injuries are a part of football from the pop warner level up to the professional level. Madden has a big win on this one.

Control of weather. We all know that this plays a huge part in football. Night, Day, Rain, Snow, Freezing temps. These all play an important part in game planning. I have to give this to madden also.

Player movement. Animation vs Natural Motion. This is one of the reasons why we have scripted and non scripted. Number 1)Animation is a scripted motion which mean all movement can be PREdetermined. The anims in madden are all acted out via MOCAP. (All moves are being copied from an actual person). Number 2)Natural Motion on the other hand cannot be PREdetermined. This is all computer generated. TRUE Next GEN GAMING. Backbreaker wins on this one big time.

So, in a nutshell it looks like Backbreaker has Madden Football beat but barely. WHY??? CUSTOMER RELATIONS. Although they didn't fix every issue, they poored their all into the Greathouse patch. Here you have a game that's out for the first time with many flaws. The customer relations win this one for Backbreaker. The proof is in the PATCH. They Value Their Product and They Listen To Their Community. I commend Natural Motion on this. EA Please take notes.

Comments

# 1 tommyboii2008 @ Aug 19

Ehhh.. u sound a little bias.. The physics and licensing part was correct but with animations, i find that neither game mirrors real football but when it comes to single player animations i.e. catches, throwing, and running with and without the ball, Madden is better

# 2 tommyboii2008 @ Aug 19

Another thing, the player models in Madden definitely win over backbreaker..

# 3 TreyIM2 @ Aug 20

I've said this before - Remember, Nat. Mot. is NOT exactly a game developer. They make/made middleware so they have PLENTY of time to focus on putting out such a big patch. Backbreaker is the ONLY game they have EVER made. Don't forget that

# 4 dxhowe2k @ Aug 20

@TreylM2 True to that however, the rookies have done a great job for a first make.

# 5 RobDonald @ Aug 20

The NaturalMotion Games team are separate to the NaturalMotion animation middleware peeps, Trey. We ARE 'exactly' a games developer... in fact, we got nominated for DEVELOP awards by industry peers for best new game studio and best new game IP just a couple of months ago. W00t!