Backbreaker

Review from Sarge - Wednesday, 25 August 2010 @ 3:15am

I'd written a review for this game when it first came out a few months back, but unfortunately Backbreaker came with a number of problems; The passing game was almost unusable, bizarre penalties caused for no conceivable reason, sluggish response times in the running game - the list is pretty damn long. Backbreaker has a large and loud community who made their concerns heard, and the result was the update so big, it's been given it's own title: "Greathouse", named after one of the most out-spoken of the community. The changes were so great that it pretty much made my original review obsolete and in no way a fair indication of game being playes today.so in the footsteps, I figure I'd give my review a major overhaul too.

This may not come as the biggest surprise you'll read all week, but games based on American Football rarely sell that well in Australia. This isn't helped when the only other major franchise on the market is the always-popular Madden series. Others have come and gone, but with the market for US-based football games so small here, it's basically Madden or nothing. Until now. I've played nearly every Madden game since Madden 95 on my Super Nintendo, so I was eager to 'jump teams' and test out the new kid in town.

NaturalMotion, creators of the now-often used Euphoria graphics engine have pumped out their very own title, a debut for them, in the form of Backbreaker. This game actually started out as a tech demo for the Euphoria engine, and grew from there. This new title seem to make a point of making their game as non-Madden as possible, and in a number of areas, they actually pull it off.

It's scientific fact that doing too many steroids make you glow yellow

For starters, the game is unlicensed by the NFL, meaning that all the teams and all the players are fictional. Some of the teams are completely different, Miami Dolphins are now the Miami Thunder with a totally different colour scheme and logo, where are some are slight homages, in regards to the New England Patriots, which now become the fairly recognisable New England Militants. As well a their roster of pre-made teams, you also can make your own team, but more on that later.

Backbreaker also tries to stray away from the whole "tv broadcast simulation" Madden-esq feel for a larger portion of the game. You don't get any long-winded intros on each team before each game, nor are there any commentators to give play-by-play commentaries. There is a PA announcer that gives a general "first and down!" announcements with the effect to make it sounds like it's being announced over the stadium's PA, but an actual commentary track would've been a be nice addition.

While we're on the topic of sound effects, I need to address the music. Or, that should be, the severe lack there-of. There seems to be two songs used in the entire game - and after the first 10 minutes, this becomes painfully obvious. For every kick-off and every replay shown (which is defaulted to every single play), a sample of P.O.D.'s "Boom!" would play. I think if I hear that song one more time, I'm going to find something that makes a "boom" sound, if you know what I mean. And as much as I love Refused, they're another overdone sample too - a few brief clips of "New Noise" are used far too often. Would it really have killed NaturalMotion to have thrown in some extra bucks for some more music licenses? Even after the Greathouse update, I was hoping for some updated music, although for reasons I can't understand, they just use the same songs, only less frequently.

The main focus on Backbreaker though, is of course, the physics engine. This is presented perfectly in it's third-person style of play. Nearly all of the play has the camera over your shoulder, with much the same feeling as Gears of War, or one of EA's Skate titles. It's very much made to make you feel like you're really on the field and your player truly is a part of the team - as opposed to the 'broadcast' view of Madden, and it truly does make for a far more intensive game. Pressing the left trigger switches you into "aggressive mode"; You run faster, there's camera-shake to emphasis the panic, the sound is dulled and the breathing of your player is heightened as the controller vibrates in rhythm with their heartbeat. Having the camera this low means that you can't always see around you, but this only adds to the realism, giving you that frantic feeling of not being entirely sure who's around you.

The controls are fairly simple, with a lot of the controls coming from the dual-stick. Left controlling the direction you run in, and the right being for various actions, like throwing the ball, performing a number of sweet spin moves to avoid tackles, or if you're in the offense, flicking the right stick will get you to tackle in a manner of techniques. One of the great features is their "Training Camp" which takes you through the majority of all the moves you'll require to play, so a quick run through of that will definitely give you enough info.

Don't embarrass yourself, just do what the pretty lines and arrows tell you

While there isn't nearly the same level of complexity that you'll find in a Madden title, Backbreaker is still not exactly an easy "pick up and play" game, but it's definitely a much easier football title to get used to. Even during the game, depending on the situation, there's only ever 4 different plays to choose from, and most of them are varied enough to keep it fresh. When you're playing offense, you'll typically play as whoever the ball carrier is. In defense however, you still pick your position - but be careful, because if you screw up what your role is meant to do, the AI will know it, and immediately take advantage and turn it into a touch-down. At the start of each play, you can press a button to show the play diagram, so just do yourself a favour and do what the little arrows tell you.

Backbreaker has a number of game modes. There's the standard Exhibition if you just want a quick game with no mucking around, a League mode, if you want to play a season against 8, 16 or 32 other teams, or you can play The Road To Backbreaker. In this mode, you take a customised team that you've created, and play through an 8, then 16, then 32-team season, making sure that you win each season.

So, before you start your Road To Backbreaker, you need to create your own team - this is another one of the bragging points of Backbreaker - the level of customisation. You can essentially create your team from scratch and there's a world of options available - you pick uniform colours, seemingly endless design combinations when it comes to designing your team logo and end-zone. If you're the person that loves their customisation, then you can easily spend hours in this section. I'm personally one of those people, so this is something that really does appeal to me. I'm currently up to my fourth fully customised team, and am constantly looking for more excuses to make yet another team

There is an option fore online play, but remember the lack of sales in Australia thing I mentioned earlier? Here's where that becomes a factor. I know of one other guy in Australia who owns Backbreaker, and at the time of this review, never managed to be online the same time as him. I played half a game against a guy in the US, but had to rage-quit due to the epic lag. Luckily, the guy was so surprised to play against an Aussie, he was more than understanding.

Now, I really have saved the best till last - Backbreaker Alley. It's a little mini-game that doesn't get the attention in the game that it probably deserves. Essentially, you start with the ball from the opposing end and have to run in a touchdown to an ever increasing level of difficulty. It becomes insanely hard very difficulty and to finish - so much so that less than 1% of the 360 community have picked up the xbox achievement unlocked when completing all 100 levels. If you can get even half way, then I think you're doing a pretty damn good job.

I will go into more detail in my Summary below, but ultimately this is a thoroughly enjoyable, if not slighly intense football title with it's fair share of teething problems, which, given the way that NaturalMotion have handles things, is totally acceptable in my books, and Backbreaker seems to be laying the foundation of a truly great NFL Football franchise. I can't wait to play Backbreaker 2012

Pros

- Backbreaker Alley
- Customisation levels are truly outstanding
- The most intense gameplay in an NFL game I've ever experienced

Cons

- Lag makes playing online useless
- There's a grand total of 2 songs that appear in the game
- At times, it truly does feel like nothing more than a tech demo