Catching Up

Browns vs. Lions
Jake Delhomme continues to impress in the pre-season. The obvious statement is that if this continues to the regular season, Mike Holmgren is a genius. If Jake Delhomme is impressive this year, hopefully he starts next year, and the year after that, and it turns into a Brett Favre situation, where when we finally kick him out, Colt McCoy walks onto the field and starts throwing Touchdowns. At least until we play against the Delhomme-led Vikings, who will then be replacing Brett Favre.

Browns vs Bears
Colt McCoy gets the stage tonight. Hopefully he has more than Jake Allen and Alex Smith to work with on the receiving end. And with Montario Hardesty in there, maybe he can show us something. Colt has been unimpressive so far, but he's had no help. When your first option is Jake Allen and the second is Carlton Mitchell, what can you expect? We might get a better idea of what he can do.

Wanna see something funny?

Rank Player Comp Att % TD INT
1 Jake Delhomme 38 48 79.2 2 0
2 Tom Brady 33 42 78.6 4 0
3 Aaron Rodgers 41 53 77.4 6 0

We have the most accurate passer of the Preseason.


Jim Brown. Whatever. Mike said enough. I'll reiterate. You've been an advisor to Randy Lerner. Unless he's never listened to a word you said, I think you've done a terrible job advising him. Were you part of the Couch over McNabb decision? Gerrard Warren over Ladanian Tomlinson? Courtney Brown over anyone? Whatever. Now the kids just know you as the Sphinx guy from "Mars Attacks!"



Madden 11 officially sucks. I figured for sure that Backbreaker would at least give it a little bit of a kick in the ass, but no. Each year, all the same problems remain, all the same stupid things remain. Every year, they come up with some new marketing term. Last year it was, "If you see it on Sunday, you'll see it in Madden." This year, it's "Locomotion", and "More Time on the Field."

I don't have time for "More Time on the Field." Why? Because I don't want to set up any schemes. I want to pick my play (I know where the plays I like are, at least I did until you changed all the playbooks around) and go. I don't want to set up a section of plays I want available on third and short. I don't care. FIX IMPORTANT THINGS FIRST, then waste time on crap like this.

For the third year in a row, if a player gets hurt, you can put him on IR. BUT, in Madden, this doesn't free up a roster spot. Three years in a row, putting a player on IR does NOT free up a roster spot. Three years in a row, a measly running back can block the DT coming in at full speed with no problem. Three years in a row, the swat and tackle DB animations merge. Five years in a row, suction blocking - A defender running at full speed would NEVER do a 180 to engage in a block with a lineman who was BEHIND him. NEVER. For the third year in a row, they've changed the pre-snap controls. It now takes longer to define a hot route. It used to take one step to move your D-Line to the left, it now takes three steps. The game is pathetic. The same five tackles happen over and over, and they're the same tackles from the last three years.

After playing about a week of Madden, I went back to Backbreaker, and WOW, I appreciate this game even more now. The multiple person tackles, all unique, never the same tackle twice. The giant pile of bodies at the line of scrimmage, not just players sucked into blocking animations. When something negative happens in Backbreaker, I feel like it's because I made a mistake, not because the computer cheated me out of a play. I'll post some video comparisons so more people can see how completely superior Backbreaker is in terms of gameplay.

Alright, back to work.

Backbreaker

No blog posts lately because this game has eaten all of my time. Can't comment on where Mike's been.. but here's another good video, showing why this is a better football game than Madden:



Note how the Linebacker doesn't attach to the Offensive Lineman. In Madden, the Linebacker would get sucked into that Offensive Lineman's animation and the Running Back would be able to get right around him. And based on early trailers, this STILL HAS NOT BEEN FIXED in now 6 years of XBox 360 Madden.

Madden vs Backbreaker

Well, Madden just figured out how to save itself this year. It looks like Backbreaker is going to be the far superior game, and Madden's methods to remain in the game have nothing to do with gameplay. It has to do with their selection of a commentator.

Gus Johnson.

Yes, I am going to buy Madden this year because it will have commentary by Gus Johnson.

Backbreaker Football

Ok, I've played the Demo for 15 minutes. I spent about five minutes doing the tutorials, which went by really fast. Great tutorials, showing you how to play the game and how to get the Madden controls out of your system. No absurd loading times in between each tutorial, it all went by fast.

Backbreaker is the new football game by 505 Games, and if the demo is any indication, they NAILED IT on their first time out. Madden and EA Sports had a 5 year head start on the Xbox 360 / PS3, and their game immediately feels old, outdated, ancient, etc. Backbreaker uses the Euphoria physics engine and a company called Natural Motion has been working on this for four years now (or perfecting it for four years now) and it's finally ready. This is the first game I've played that was truly worth the wait. I've been watching this thing go through development for about two years now through YouTube and IGN Interviews and June 1st is when it finally is released. The Demo is available now for XBox Live Gold users, and in another day or two for the rest of the XBox Live users.

No, there are no NFL teams in this game, and this will be this game's only downfall. The actual football gameplay is incredible. Everything is physics based. In Madden, everything is animation based. So if two players get near each other in Madden, they have to lock up. In this game, they act as if they would really act on a football field.

This is tough to explain without videos, but imagine you're running straight ahead with the ball. There's a defender at your 12:00 running straight for you. There's a defender at your 3:00 with no chance at all of tackling you. But he's the guy who your fullback is supposed to block. The fullback will go out of his way to block the guy, leaving you wide open to get crushed by the defender running straight at you. This was one of the first things I tested in Backbreaker. Simple runs up the middle. Not once did the fullback do anything stupid. My Offensive Lineman double teamed the defensive lineman. None of the guards ran around in circles while a blitzing linebacker ran right by them and sacked me. Everything felt like it made sense.

After a couple four and outs from my offense (passing was a little different than what I was used to, and really, who Punts in a game demo?) I felt like I had the hang of the passing game. In this one, you have to select your receiver by moving the right stick, then flick the stick up for a bullet pass, or pull back, then flick the stick for a lob. This took some getting used to, but like I said, after a few tries I had it down.

People are saying "Arcade Football games are doomed to fail." They are. This one is NOT an Arcade Football game. This is NOT NFL Blitz all over again. This is as close to a simulation as you can get. This is what Madden wishes it was. The only thing that can possibly make this game fail is the lack of NFL players and teams (which can easily be created manually, and hopefully downloaded.) because after only a lunchbreak with the game, it plays phenomenally.



Here's another guy praising it. This guy has been criticizing football games, dying for an honest game that's true to the real game of football. 505 Games is definitely onto something here, and hopefully the NFL sees this and ends their exclusive deal with EA Sports. This demo is probably the only thing I'll play on my Xbox now until the full game comes out.