Backbreaker – The MMOMFG Review

Backbreaker

With a summer set for love, soccer and many a mixed drinks, 505 Games and NaturalMotion have unveiled their latest entry to the football market. With the World Cup kicking off later this week, American football in the form of Backbreaker has one more opportunity to show us who the king of football really is. If you’ve outgrown the Madden series, prefer professionalism over NCAA standards, or just want something new, there is a new kid on the block in the world of pigskin action. We’re here to give you insight into NaturalMotion’s break from the norm in the latest in high-def, over-the-top football action. The only question now is whether the flashy, hard-hitting action of Backbreaker is enough to warrant picking up another football title each year, since honestly, which true football fan doesn’t buy Madden and NCAA Football each year anyways? Read on to find out if Backbreaker earns its spot on your pigskin rotation and if it can compete with the true industry big boys.

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What’s Good

Explosive gameplay keeps things fresh – From kickoff to highstep, Backbreaker delivers intense action, which makes you feel like you’re playing a truly next-gen game. The graphics and unique over-the-shoulder camera angle enhance your gaming experience, which provide realistic shaking and hard-hitting effects that really put you into the action. With the ability to actively monitor the field, reading the action around you and allowing the gamer to track what is active on the offense or defense, you feel like your captaining your squad. As soon as the soundtrack begins during the initial kickoff, you’re going to feel the Boom! Ready or not! Some may not be ready at first though, as the mechanics do take a bit to get a feel for.

High-def and high chance of deaths – Technically, there are no deaths in the game, but the hits are at times so brutal, you can only imagine the outcome of a similar real life hit. During gameplay, it is fun to check out the multiple angles of a particularly wicked hit, especially when it comes on your opponents’ generic quarterback with a corny name. I was playing as Honolulu and it reminded me of an episode of The Office where I could have sworn my running back’s name was Samuel L. Chang. NaturalMotion’s Euphoria Engine provides extremely sharp graphics offering the user a surreal set of visuals while enjoying a game of high-impact football. If the images don’t show the beauty, picture the old Nike commercial with Mike Vick and Terrell Owens playing football in the snow, circa 2006.

Something new – I won’t claim that Backbreaker breaks the mold, but it is something new that isn’t made by EA Sports. As a gamer who is upset by the limitations of a monopolized sports category by EA, I was pleasantly surprised with someone trying to challenge the kings of football. 505 Games have packaged a beautiful game with an array of game modes, the treat of a tutorial mode and a few fairly decent multiplayer modes with split screen versus or online play.

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What’s Bad

Over-the-top can be too much – After about 30 minutes of gameplay and still being in the first half of my first game, despite setting the game quarters to the fastest speed, I began to question if the pageantry of ridiculousness was too much. I highlighted the graphics and gameplay earlier, but at some point, one must put there foot down and say, “Hey, I don’t need replays of every single hit, especially one where the running back crashes into his own blockers and falls down.” The amount of time the game takes highlighting the explosive, high-speed action, such as kickoffs and extra points, really deters from gaining a feeling of becoming engrossed in an actual game. Based on the difficulty you set, you can either run away with a game early, or get your A shoved up your S, or something, faster than you can skip the next worthless highlight. The fact that kickoffs, extra points and timeouts take nearly 45 seconds to a minute each literally drove me insane.

Lack of rhythm makes Dustin something something – Go crazy? Don’t mind if I do! In all honesty, you don’t really notice until you’re first game is about halfway through. That is about the point where you realize you’ve nearly played an hour and you’re barely through a game. My suggestion, only watch the replays of the badass hits and avoid wasting time trying to understand the plays. The stop and start aspect of football is overly exaggerated by trying to make every event in Backbreaker seem worth re-watching. That is not always the case and the in-your-face style of Backbreaker lends to its downfall where you can really feel like you’re “in the game.” The play calling is rather limited with a max of 20 plays or so for offenses and defenses and you’ll never spend more than a few seconds figuring out what works best against said defenses. I honestly picked three or four plays and just alternated through them and won 42-7.

Customization doesn’t equal realism – These complaints may be somewhat arbitrary, but again, it stinks when you have to accept your favorite teams aren’t here. Try all you want, but the generic Houston and New York teams don’t really leave you dying to play multiple seasons, nor do the make-believe Little Rock or Portland teams. Again, blame EA for the Madden monopoly of the Players’ Association rights, but I feel no connection to these teams. Not even creating my own team, Fark City Fark (ran out of letters), allowed me to gain a sense of ownership. Call me old fashioned, but I truly miss my old connection to football titles, despite not really getting into the most recent football offerings. Give me Joe Montana’s Sports Talk Football and I’d be a happy guy. Kudos to 505 Games and NaturalMotion for providing a ton of customization options in Backbreaker for team creation, but every player looks identical, so customization only goes so far.

Multiplayer will leave you scratching your head – Having tried to play a number of multiplayer games with mixed results, I can only state that this mode could have been a lot better. The Xbox 360 version offered numerous dropped games, inability to find opponents and online glitches left me not wanting to give multiplayer a second chance. I will state that the versus mode worked well and despite the glitz and glamour, you can still focus on the action at hand.

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Worth Remembering:

The new look to football gaming has a promising outlook and hopefully if Backbreaker 2 ever makes its way onto shelves, some of the negatives can be worked out after a fantastic first effort. The action is exciting and with the new camera work, it is easy to find those “check this out” moments to show friends or unresponsive loved ones. If Backbreaker had an even playing field with 20 years of previous titles, it could easily compete with the big boys, but even for its first real season, it brings a lot to the table.

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Worth Forgetting:

The big boys make Backbreaker fail in comparison and the lack of rhythm leave the game feeling a bit ho-hum. If you’re wanting a fun multiplayer football game, I’d say skip Backbreaker, as the servers were still not functioning very well by the time of this review.

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Backbreaker is a brave experiment trying to enter a market dominated by EA Sports’ football titles. Without players or NFL team rights, 505 Games and NaturalMotion took a real chance and it paid off in terms of an exciting product, but fails to put a dent in Madden’s market of purchasers. If you can’t honestly wait until August for Madden 11, go pick up Backbreaker, but if you have will power, I’d suggest you give the game a rent, or demo a spin, and see if you like the gameplay style first before considering purchasing.

*MMOMFG was provided a review copy on the Xbox 360

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