Backbreaker Hands-On Preview (Gameinformer)

[CM Hooe]

If I really can't edit player ratings, I'm cancelling my reserve tomorrow.

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by p_rushing

How is any of that a bad thing.

Depends on how frequently that stuff happens, imo

It's great it happens - because it can and does happen in real life.

But it depends on frequency. "Several" isn't a good enough barometer for me.

[booker21]

exactly.

Like Bad snaps.. every once in a while is cool.. but if every 3 or 4 snaps, 1 it`s wrong.. it`s not good.

[TreyIM2]

Well, this doesn't sound much diff. than some of the other hands on prevs that were given a month or so ago. While I look forward to the game, this is just a tad disheartening that the game is still looking pretty much the same since those last previews yet I didn't expect much to change in so little time.
To me, it sounds like they're rushing this game. It sounds like it could use a year or so to get itself in a better position because, possibly by now, the game should have "gone gold" which means the final code is complete and ready for production. If it hasn't by now, it will soon. The retail game is due next month.
At any rate, like I last said, a rental, at least, from me. It will just be something different to fart around with til NCAA/Madden 11 hits.

[Crimsontide27]

I have become critical of Madden and Ncaa over the past few years and it would be unfair to criticize them over some of the major issues I see them having, and yet giving another football title a break.

Having read the preview multiple times, I see some huge deal breakers " to me" . What is a gamebreaker for some, may not be a gamebreaker to others.

Graphics = Mentioned they were robotic looking in nature, no cloth movement, all tinted visors etc... I can handle that, no problem

Recreating NFL teams, names , and logos= Cant take them online, but can mis-spell some names, add abbreviations etc.. I can handle that as well. Its not really an issue to me either

Customizing your players = Cant edit hight and weight. Can handle that as well. I dont play online, but I can see all the online players making every lineman as big as possible, making the WR as tall as possible, etc... So I see where they are coming from here...so I dont have an issue there.

Ratings = Limited rating system. Game only uses 4 ratings. Not an issue for me either. Madden probably has 20+ ratings for every player, but only 1-2 ratings have any impact anways. Since Maddens rating system is nothing more than a glorified spreadsheet with random numbers plugged in with no value, that makes no difference to me.

Gameplay = ================================================== =====

Offense

Good-

Offensive line formed pockets and had a decent blocking scheme.

Bad-

No team had over a 30% completion rate. Computer AI had no sideline awareness . End game clock management works for timeouts only. Computer would be down, yet still run the ball to let time expire. Qbs seemed to have no awareness when flushed from the pocket.

Defense

Good- Felt more fluid controlling the defenders.

Bad- Everything else. Almost zero defense logic. DBs didnt react to the balls , nor did they react to a QB taking off and having to run. Very easily exploitable by sending your recievers out for a deep pass and just running with the QB. Balls ghosting through DBs or WRs hands.

Presentation

Good = Nothing

Bad = There is none. Crowd is nothing more than white noise, however its still being worked on and will get refined down the road. Zero presentation with banners, stats overlays, etc. Cant pause the game to even look at the stats. Zero commentary, no play by play or nothing. Weve had play by play commentary in football games since 1992. There is no excuse for this to be left out 18 years later, none.


I can buy into the Backbreaker game and what its trying to accomplish. However, I pick up a football game to play a good game of football. If the core game is not good, all the wonderful animations and sequences are useless. It sounds like they forgot to program in the actual " footall " part of the gameplay so far and thats troubling.

I was VERY excited about this product, but I dont cut Madden and NCAA any slack, and Im not going to do it here. Everything about this game sounded great until the actual game of football was brought up.

[nyj721]

OK so no viewing stats in the pause menu, no challenges, no editing player attributes (if they even exist, other than the ones he stated), no editing player size (linebackers the same size as kickers?), and what appears to be a modified version of the QB vision from Madden 06 (which a lot of people hated with a passion), and thats not even going into the AI issues he mentioned.

Does it even matter if I can make Peyton Manning, but he has the same attributes as Jamarcus Russell. The only hope there is for the game now is if the AI is better on the pro mode with higher difficulty settings for both the CPU and the players AI controlled teammates. Either way this game just went from a first day purchase to a "if there isn't a demo I'm not touching this" game. Thank God for gameinformer

[t11]

Might as well take that whole portion about AI and throw it out the window...

He was playing on arcade and there was no mention of the difficulty he was playing on. But the numbers sound like Rookie Difficulty on Madden/2k.

When will previewers realize they need to tell us ALL of their variables?!?!?

This previwe raised more ? than it did answers...

[JayBee74]

Quote: Originally Posted by nyj721

OK so no viewing stats in the pause menu, no challenges, no editing player attributes (if they even exist, other than the ones he stated), no editing player size (linebackers the same size as kickers?), and what appears to be a modified version of the QB vision from Madden 06 (which a lot of people hated with a passion), and thats not even going into the AI issues he mentioned. Does it even matter if I can make Peyton Manning, but he has the same attributes as Jamarcus Russell. The only hope there is for the game now is if the AI is better on the pro mode with higher difficulty settings for both the CPU and the players AI controlled teammates. Either way this game just went from a first day purchase to a "if there isn't a demo I'm not touching this" game. Thank God for gameinformer

As I stated in another thread the Gameinformer "previewer" didn't even have the presence of mind to say what difficulty level he was playing on, or explain why arcade mode was the only properly balanced mode in the build that they got.
Having said that the developers are not doing a good job promoting the game if a good game actually exist here. The main speculation on my part to come to this conclusion is that the game could have been set to "kiddie mode" (Arcade, Easy difficulty), but that may not be the case because default settings usual start at Medium. It is also curious why custom mode (1 of 3 modes-arcade, pro, and custom) wasn't at least explored from a settings/sliders point of view.