Natural Motion Football: "Backbreaker"

Agreed. I have been considering this my "support a Developer" fund for this generation, essentially buy a game that I want to support as a tip of the hat for the willingness to push the envelope in the gameplay department. I can live without the license. I can live without a ton of extras in v.1. What I cannot live without is the action on the field (from play calling to balance to AI) being bad.

 

Euphoria is the company? They apparently tried to sell the engine to EA which declined. So their only hope is to get some kind of traction.

Remember back to the last '90s. GameDay went polygons while EA said polygons couldn't be done on the PS1 for football games at least.

But EA apparently felt the shame of being upstaged by GD and NFL2K on the DreamCast and they set up a skunkworks team to develop the PS2 3D engine while the regular team worked on the last 1 or 2 versions of the sprite-based Madden games for the PS1.

Without competitive pressures though, it seems there would be too much inertia and laziness to implement a physics engine in Madden for the next generation, either using middleware or internal tools.

Our only hope for progress in football games is that this kind of gambit succeeds enough to get EA's attention. Probably not likely. EA doesn't seem to be in a mood to innovate like they did back in the '90s. Their games still exhibit the same crappy behavior like suction blocking, which existed in the Genesis days.

 

EA has a new physics engine for NHL. Maybe it'll find its way to Madden, but we'll see. I doubt it's really amazing. The Euphoria guys will hopefully make enough money elsewhere.

 

This is pretty cool, kind of a knock off of All Pro.

You get up to 11 Gold Players. If you select fewer are they "better" Gold players (i.e. get more of the points from the pool?)

Does the game have Clock Acceleration?

Sadly the reviews are brutal. The play book seems spartan, basic rules are violated (not just facemasks, which is fine if OFF in a game), AI has issue, limited player editing, etc. Kind of sounds like they should have aimed smaller (like Tackle Ally XBLA game, then maybe a simpler game that really emphasized the engine) and gone from there. Football fans can tolerate a lot, but the game's core needs to be really solid.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mX_yHAVVtg&feature=player_embedded#!

Nice sack avoidance, but he waited to long to throw which shows off an epic failure by the receivers. Nice.

 

I had to give myself room to set my feet before the throw

check this one out.....it was crazier....and you get a good look at my 60th Anniversary 2006 49er uniforms.



imo, the game has a deep learning curve, especially if you are used to traditional football videogames....but it feels soooo rewarding when you break a big run, after following your blockers and squeezing through a hole.....or completing a deep pass, after avoiding a strong pass rush.

 

Looks very good, although the final tackle doesn't seem quite right in that I'd have expected the guy in white to fall backwards a little more.

 

Depends on the size of the players. With some WR clocking in at 6'5" 230lbs and a lot of DBs in the 5'8"-5'10" range @ 175-185lbs if the DB was moving the same speed and failed to drive low then what was seen is what happens.

 

http://kotaku.com/5573883/major-patch-is-on-the-way-for-backbreaker

Patch coming. And after playing BB the NCAA 2011 demo was horrible. I know BB is broken, quite broken to be frank, but in terms of motion and control there is no real competition. EA Football has become more and more what I disliked about 2K (arcade over realism). BB's problem is it lacks refinement and has some flaws and bugs that obscure the realism.

 

NFL2K couldn't get traction against Madden until they dropped the price to $20.

And they had the licenses.

For BB2, they're going to have to be more aggressive.

But guess what, EA Sports is using a physics engine after all, on NHL 11 and NBA Elite (rebranded NBA Live?). So maybe they may modernize Madden yet. It's EA Vancouver though, which isn't as lazy as EA Tiburon.

Turns out it's the Fight Night engine, which they demo'd at the E3 where the PS3 was announced. What was that, 5 years ago?

 

Yeah, the NHL guys brought in the person who did the physics for Fight Night Round 4. I'm absolutely PUMPED to play it. NHL and NBA tend to be the places they try new things, since they are the lesser franchises. Fifa and Madden will get it after, when they know it works. So I'd look for new physics in Madden next year. I really think Back Breaker had something to do with this. I think they saw the light, and decided they needed to stay with the curve or they were in danger of falling behind. NHL is just the testing ground.

 

Wow, that's an amazing list of improvements. I wonder if they made their money back on the game, since they aren't leaving it dead in the water? Will there be a backbreaker football 2?


And that highlight video is AWESOME. I already can't get into Madden, but after playing a bit of Backbreaker, Madden feels dated.

 

It seems like the 3rd rounder isn't happy about his position no the depth chart. Instead of waiting for next season he hit the HGH in season

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7A8Z8L_O1o

Been playing the BB and Madden 11 demos today. Gotta say I am really sold on the running game in BB. This video is of the patch showing how nuanced it is.

 

Funny, and just like a real Bear running back he completely ignores the well blocked trap hole and instead runs right into the defender.

 

Well c'mon, it was third down!

I liked this bit:

 

you have to love the tech in this game....

here is an interview awhile back about the rendering with various videos showcasing the effects on compared to off.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/847/847497p2.html

with this and the animations.....basically when it all comes together, there are certain instances where it just looks Real.

like from my video here.....when I switch to the other camera view (from the endzone at 00:12)....that sequence right there just looks Real, imo.....mainly when compared to other football games.

don't mind the music though, mute it if you will.