Downloadable football games are few and far between because the market is so narrow nowadays thanks to EA’s chokehold on the NFL market. That isn’t to say that good football games can’t be made without a license; it just takes a lot of creative thinking. Backbreaker Vengeance is a stripped down semi-sequel to 2010′s Backbreaker, a non-licensed physics driven full on football game with an extensive built-in team/logo editor. Vengeance however is a much smaller package. It’s not so much a sequel, but rather more of a stripped down standalone experience.
Game: Backbreaker Vengeance
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: NaturalMotion Games
Genre: Arcade Football
Price: 800 MS Points
Pros: Fun arcade style football challenges. Easy to pick up and play.
Cons: Not enough content, inconsistant physics, no passing game.
Verdict: A shallow, stripped down version of last year’s inventive Backbreaker for PS3/360/iOS. Not worth it.
Acquired via Publisher
When you look at a football game, you immediately assume it’s in the Madden style of simulation. After all, it’s the only driving force we’ve had on the market for years now. Backbreaker Vengeance however doesn’t fit in that mold. It isn’t a football sim, and it isn’t even really an arcade style game. In fact, it’s not really a “football” game in the traditional sense at all. Gone is the 11-on-11 action. Think of it as an “Arcade Training Camp Simulator”. Unconventional, true, but it’s more fun than it sounds.
Backbreaker Vengeance features three basic gameplay modes: Tackle Alley, Vengeance, and Supremacy. Each of them basically boils down to the video game equivalent of training camp in obstacle course form. In tackle valley, you are trying to dodge color coded tacklers while getting in as much showboating as possible. The NFL as of late has taken upon itself the job of sucking all the fun and showmanship out of football. Backbreaker Vengeance, harkening back to NFL Blitz, scores you extra based on your showboating. It’s funny, but there’s little variety in the animations. Tacklers are color coded to the 360 controller. Red tacklers will try to grab you, blue ones must be slammed, and yellow ones will dive at you meaning you need to slide beneath. Vengeance mode throws you against the runner, and Supremacy pits you against other players, but it’s all really just the same thing.
Backbreaker Vengeance, like its full retail predecessor from last year, is a game built around its physics engine. Unlike other football games where you have a large pool of pre-canned animations for tackles, running, juking, jumping, etc., Backbreaker’s physics engine can create animations on the fly. This adds a degree of realism that most video games cannot match. Every single play is a little different. Of course, it isn’t anywhere near perfect. Often it seems a little too twitchy. You have to use the right trigger to speed up your run, but your turning ability totally vanishes while doing this. The green A button makes your player jump, however the randomness of the physics engine often causes you to not complete hurdles reliably. There also seems to be noticeable lag. The low set camera helps to put you into the moment, but it also blocks your view of the very tacklers you’re running towards. Often tacklers will dive at you and you won’t see them until after your player is already falling backwards.
Backbreaker Vengeance lacks variety, it lacks consistency, and it lacks depth. Every mode essentially boils down to simply dodging tacklers, juking, showboating, and jumping hurdles with a little variance such as out of bounds areas to limit the play field and create artificial “paths” on the field. The football never leaves your hand as passing mini-games are nonexistent. That’s it. Vengeance could be considered a worthy momentary distraction if it had a greater variety of football based mini-games, or at best a lacking companion to the full 2010 game, however as it is, Vengeance is a shallow, repetitive, and underwhelming obstacle course that fails to entertain for more than 15 minutes. Pass.
GrE Grade: D+
Popularity: 1% [?]
