Backbreaker

Games
1

I’ve started hearing some word of mouth that we might finally get a viable alternative to EA Sports’ stranglehold on console football games. Beyond comments in passing from people that seem to know less about the game than what’s posted on the official website, I haven’t seen or heard any useful information about it.

I know Backbreaker won’t have any NFL licensing, which is honestly a pretty big strike against in my book, but if it can deliver on its promise of true physics-based play, that might just be enough to make me forget about the color of the uniforms.

It already has one big point in its favor: no play-by-play from Chris Collinsworth!

2

I’m intrigued, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

3

Operation Sports has an entire forum dedicated to Backbreaker, which might give you some more information if you’re interested.

There’s also a fairly comprehensive preview there, which is the best I’ve seen so far.

I’m more into the management-sim side of football, but Backbreader does have me interested.

4

Short but impressive trailer. Quite interested. Hoping for a demo.

5

I’ve been looking for a football game ever since EA bought the exclusive license to the NFL. I’ve never been a fan of Madden and NFL 2K5 is the last good footbal game I’ve played. While I gave All Pro Football a chance it ended up being a disappointment but this game has my hopes up. It looks great, has an awesome physics engine, and customizations options almost as deep as Forza car painting. Not having an NFL license doesn’t bother me as long as the game plays well but I don’t have a lot of faith in 505 making a football game. Hopefully it’s good enough to get a sequel so they can improve on the weak spots.

There are some interesting videos showing off the customization, running game, and passing game.

6

It would be seriously awesome if someone could pry the football games stranglehold away from EA. Not likely, but awesome.

7

Any idea of if it’s coming out for the PC? I don’t have my hopes high, but they’re there alright.

8

When does EA’s exclusive license run out? It feels like that was quite a few years ago, but maybe I’m deceiving myself.

9

http://news.ea.com/portal/site/ea/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&ndmConfigId=1017092&newsId=20080212005647&newsLang=en

After the 2012 season at this point.

10

The demo for this is out on 360.

11

I was really hoping there would be a demo. I want this to be good. I’ll try this out tonight!

12

And it’s 4gb, wow!

13

Tried the demo briefly at lunch; it’s a fun ballcarrier game, but that’s about it. Zero depth whatsoever.

14

Dammit! I’ll try it myself this weekend, but I’m not too surprised at this.

15

Example: on offense, there are 4 pass plays and 4 run plays. At least, that’s how it appeared from my brief time in the demo.

16

I -really- hope you’re wrong, because that’s a terrible design choice if you’re not.

17

uhh, you mean around 400 mb?

18

Website says 400mb, but I swear the download on xbox said 4.1gb I’ll know in a bit once it’s actually downloaded.

19

Heh. My download didn’t take long at all. It is definitely not 4gb.

20

OK, I’m wrong – there are more plays in Pro mode.

I really, really hate the over-the-shoulder camera view. If there’s a way to get a more traditional football sim view, please let me know :)