In football, the Quarterback cannot see the the entire field from the XFL Camera, correct? So why should the person playing the video game? Backbreaker puts you on the field. You now ARE the Quarterback. You have a blindside. You have people in your way. You have to react to what the defense does and find the open man. Then you have to put the ball where only your receiver can get it.
This game is a fantastic first attempt at a new type of football game. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of Madden, but it has the gameplay that a lot of us have been dying for. If you're satisfied with Madden's gameplay, then you may be impressed by this. If you love Madden's gameplay, then maybe this isn't for you. If you can't stand Madden's gameplay, then this IS for you. Everything is physics based - can't stress this enough. That means the game tries to be honest. Diving through players is a rarity. Players getting locked up in animations is a thing of the past. If you're running around an offensive lineman to sack the QB, no longer will you get pulled or sucked into a blocking animation. No more "no look interceptions" - but there are plenty of interceptions and they feel honest.
The "pick up and play" is a bit misleading, because this takes a lot of time to get the hang of.. If you try to play it like it's Madden, you'll throw pick after pick. Nothing in this game feels pre-determined. Sometimes in Madden, it feels like you had no chance on a play. (The tackler just bounces off the QB, and its not an animation.. or the defender spins around at the last second to go into a blocking animation instead of just continuing on to sack the QB)
I would recommend this to anyone who feels like Madden is just a roster update each year. In Madden 11, the whole locomotion thing? It's here. And here, it's combined with actual physics so that you DO plow over defenders if they're not in a good position to make the tackle. Some are complaining about how each player "weighs the same" - meaning that if a 300 pound player and a 150 pound player ran into each other at full speed, they would just each fall over on impact. This is Bull, this is fiction that just isn't true. Not once has my running back plowed over a nose tackle in this game. And meanwhile, over in Madden, nine times out of ten Darren Sproles will perfectly block Shaun Rogers. Madden is ten times worse in this regard.
And regarding the lack of NFL license? It's not difficult to get around this. Just do a google search or two and you'll have all the teams and players that you want. You'll even be able to make the conferences and divisions. It took me all of 15 minutes to set this up.
Franchise mode lacks, but to me, the gameplay makes up for it, and really what's important? Being able to set the price of hotdogs? Upgrade your stadium? Or have a game of football that tries to be honest and not just animated? The camera angle is fine, but it would've been nice to be able to move it around on replays. No saving replays. But again, this is all just bonus that they seemed to overlook in favor of making a kick*ss FOOTBALL game.
I'm sure Madden 11 will have all new animations of fans playing cornhole and the referees running out with the measuring sticks, and that's fine. But I'll take FOOTBALL over that extra crap any day. And for the Madden die-hards, guess what - Your franchise mode sucks too, why? How many times have you gotten a player injured for the season and had to release a completely different player to replace him, because the injured reserve does nothing? 4 years now and Madden still doesn't have a working injured reserve list in their franchise mode. But you can put nice TVs in your stadium.
I totally recommend this game, it is a great new choice of how to play video football, in a world where we should have options. We should not just be held hostage to one game. Whether you love Madden or not, you can't disagree that point. We SHOULD have options. We should be able to have the god awful NFL Blitz back. 2k Sports should be able to make NFL 2k11. 505 should be able to release Backbreaker NFL. This whole exclusive license thing is horrible. And until we get legit new football games like this one, we're going to be stuck with one type of game.
Gideon summed this up best - "Madden is the fancy restaurant and atmosphere, Backbreaker is the actual steak dinner." Thank you for reading.
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