• 8Feb 13

  A Survey response to Microsoft and a good bye

  This is a rampant issue in this forum. It regards the redemption of a one month gold card for the Cloud Saved Games Service Issue (12/28/12 - 12/30/12). I received a code for the free month but was on a family gold plan that was in good standing when I received the code and posted on the forums. My code that I received through the xbox guide blade did not work. My xbox live gold membership expired 2-7-13. I did not renew my membership due to Hotswap Modding on Grand Theft Auto Iv multiplayer (free mode).

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZeNKk35EDE

  I've also complained on the forums regarding that issue and received the same amount of help...ZERO. None of the accounts associated with my family gold plan received a code I read on the forums that every gamertag associated with the main gamertag would get a free month. It is coincidental that my family plan was about to expire, and the one game I spent the most time playing had become infested with pirates. This on top of the rumors that the next xbox system will have always on drm, system locked games and no used game ability (would also indicate no backwards capability, but consumers today won't know and will buy anyway) have convinced me that microsoft as a company is no longer about the customer and all about the money. I was a fan for five years, but if the new rumors are true coupled with my recent customer service experience have convinced me that I no longer will support microsoft as a gaming system in the future. That is a loss of 6 consoles if you must know along with 4 xbox live gold subscribers. I will look into moving to Sony if they don't do the same.

  The greed of gaming companies and console makers is astounding, they punish their paying customers to fight of the small percentage of pirates and loss of sales for people who can't afford new things. They would close the Good Will if they sold clothes, and the Free libraries if the sold books instead of video games and systems. They should be ashamed for their bullying habits and more concerned about the customer and their experience. In closing I'd like to say that if micrsoft changes it's [heart] and remembers they actually need the consoles in as many hands as possible, and that any problem the customer has is not a small one and should be addressed with the same amount of diligence, I may return until then the ******** family bids you farewell.

  • Posted Feb 8, 2013 11:23 pm GMT
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• 23Oct 12

  {} BackBreaker a second look...Maybe EVERYONE was wrong! {}

  It's the thick of the NFL season once again, and as it has been since 2005, there's only one licensed football vidoe game, Maddn NFL 13. This years touted additions are:

  
  

  The Ifinity Engine:

  "With Physics You Can Feel, Madden NFL 13 delivers Next Generation gameplay today. Powered by the all-new Infinity Engine, true player impact and authentic momentum transfer ensure that no two plays ever look or feel the same."

  
  

  Connected Careers:

  "Live the NFL dreamwhenever you want, wherever you want in a fully interactive, social, and connected online experience. Create your personal legacy or relive an all-time legends as you build the ultimate franchise as a coach, an NFL superstar, or yourself. Manage your team from your console, the web, or mobile phone in a 24/7 world as NFL insiders and experts analyze, praise, and criticize every move along the way"

  
  

  Read and React Defense:

  "With a completely redesigned passing game including new a new pass-ready system and improved play action, and the all-new read and react defensive AI system that features the most intelligent pass defense to date, Madden NFL 13 achieves greater realism on the virtual gridiron on both sides of the ball."

  
  

  Better lead passing and trajectories:

  (see also Read and React defense)

  
  

  Madden sure pulled out all the stops for what should be it's curtain call on this generation of consoles. Yes we are nearing the end of another console generation, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. Take for instance the fact that EA can't seem to add anything to Madden NFL without stripping major parts or features. This is their M.O., anyone who has bought the game over a ten year span knows the feeling. They get used to a feature that just seemed to get the attention it deserved only to be plucked from the game and never seen again, or to return in pseudo fashion.

  It's no wonder people pan for 2K to return. If your looking for a football fix, something different from the norm, and just want an all around fun game. i suggest BackBreaker the Physical Football Originator! That's right, I said it the ORIGINATOR. While EA has the animations, the photo real look of the players and licensed stadiums and music, it gets nothing else right. It dawned on me while my short play time with Madden 13, that even with the addition of the Infinity Engine (for all intents and purposes is really just an articulation engine as all of the collisions are pre renedered animations chosen by the cpu), Madden is still making football moments happen in the game rather than situational football.

  Every other football game this generation has been able to use animation to get the players to look and act realitically in a football manner while EA/Tiburon still makes things happen that are not fundementally sound from a football perspective and make even less sense logically once you break down the film.

  
  

  
  

  Madden this generation has been too neat, tidy, and controlled. Your no longer playing football with all of it's intricacies and strategy. The players on the field have no bearing or resemblance to their real world counter parts other than likeness and name. You have 11 players on offense, and 11 players on defense and for all of it's touted animations, there might as well be a 4vs4 because all of the players move exactly the same. (Is it too processor intensive to have WRs come to the line with 3-4 different walking animations?) All of the running backs run the same, All of the wideouts can perform the same insane catches, hell there might as well be 11 #90's on defense because there's not even such a disticntion as to separate a off corner from a press man corner...I say all of that to say this...since Madden and it's developers continue to get even the most basci football fundementals wrong, and they don't seem to care about fixing them, why pay $60 when you can pay $20 or less for games that do respect football fundementals and the human form.

  
  

  I'm speaking of games like All Pro Football and BackBreaker...."did he just mention All Pro Football and that trash BackBreaker in the same breath?" Yes, yes I did, and here's why. BackBreaker suffered from lack of polish. I believe the game was in development by Natural Motion and 505 games for about 3 years. Had the game had:

  
  

  Better player models / Madden gets the gold star here

  Motion captured animations / Madden hasn't used these in years, but already had a library deep in reserve

  Better presentation / NFL2K5 and All Pro Football 2K8 still blow Madden away in this category to this day.

  
  

  it would have had a better chance at garnering more than mediocre critics. One thing it got that Madden still doesn't respect is situational football and respect to the players on the field. This is where BackBreaker almost embarrassingly beats Madden. You see, BackBreaker gets at least the fundementals of football and physics correct. Players move and look like robots, but they do what they are designed to do on the field and they do so based on their ratings...yeah, anyone whose played Madden knows that the only rating in the game that meant anything before the addition of speed threshold was.....well, speed. In BackBreaker, the ratings have more bearing to the actions on the field.

  
  

  Focus

  Agility

  Strength

  Speed

  
  

  These are the main areas of importance to BackBreaker. Take for instance Lesean McCoy of the Philadelphia Eagles.

  
  

  He would need to be fast, agile, focused and fairly strong in the BackBreaker realm to be a good back, but he would also need a group of agile, strong, and focused blockers for him to have any success. This is where BackBreaker trumps Madden. As I mentioned before, Madden makes things happen through animation, it doesn't matter if players have to slide, morph or what have you in order to make these things happen. If your TE is supposed to miss a block to let the QB get sacked, that's what's going to happen and it's going to happen through an animation. In BackBreaker, if your TE gets beat on a block, he probably was slower, weaker, or less focused than the player he was blocking, he simply missed, or he fell from a collision.

  
  

  Many people felt the camera and passing were too difficult in BackBreaker, but I think it contributes to the realism of the game. Even I myself had a difficult time adjusting to the passing but soon realised it was actual a revision of the Madden Vision Cone. You have to be looking at the receiver you want to pass the ball to. In would contribute a lot of the mistakes BackBreaker made to being impressionable by Madden. There are a lot of similarities between the two games even though they couldn't be more individual. both games prohibit blocking of field goals, punts by limiting user interactions, and both games have difficulty with balancing an effective 4 man rush with good line protection and interaction.

  
  

  The most disliked feature of BackBreaker may be what makes the game so enjoyable. The camera being from an on the field 3rd person perspective limits what you can see of the field. In Madden you can see the entire field this makes playing both sides of the ball equally unchallenging. Add in speed, and you have the ability as a safety or linebacker to covera unfatomable amounts of space in unrealistc time. In BackBreaker, you have to play your responsiblilty...guess wrong and your going to be out of place, and possbily responsible for touchdown. This is the best part of the game. Yes the copmputer AI is dumb, no dumber than Madden, but the Euphoria engine makes every tackle different unlike it's licesnsed counterpart. Get a QB in your grasp, and he can still get the pass off, but he may also get stripped and fumble, what I'm trying to get at is that football in BackBreaker is unpredictable. You may face a 4-3 cover 2 zone, but you may be facing a fast focused linebacker, or a slow, agile strong safety. Your receiver might fall down, or your line might get be by the rush... certain plays work well against others sometimes too well and running is a chore of dedication. But it's my belief that BackBreaker is a more affordable and enjoyable physics based football game where Madden 13 is simply more stylish and polished. The physics in BackBreaker are more respectable because you can actually effect a play. You can converge on a receiver along with 2 other team mates and push the pile forward or back. You can have tackles of 3 or more players...I can't recall ever seeing a tackle in Madden 13 that involved more than 2 defenders...I bet you ahven't either.

  
  

  If you want an inexpensive customizable football game based on physics, pick up BackBreaker new, it did physics best first and deserves at least that recognition.

  
  

  
  

  http://www.operationsports.com/forums/madden-nfl-football/582295-linebacker-play-vs-draw-urgent-attention-needed.html

  
  

  
  

  • Posted Oct 23, 2012 9:16 am GMT
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• 23May 10

  .::[] BackBreaker Demo impressions []::.

  I was on the fence about BB. I couldn't make up my mind because on the one hand, I'm tired of the stagnant progression of Madden, on the other hand I know full well going in that BB is a new IP from a small group of European developers who have very little football knowledge or experience.
  
  The good
  The Euphoria engine is perfect for Football.
  Running the football is easier than passing.
  Offensive and Defensive line interaction is spot on on their first try!
  
  The Bad
  EVERYTHING else.
  
  Now before everyone gets their flame throwers ready, let me explain. I say everything else is bad because the game is clunky.
  
  *The players all move the same, no matter whether they are a QB, TE, or DE. They run the same, and the animations for such a physics based game are stiff. Every time a player got knocked to the ground, they had the same robotic, stiff "get up animation".
  
  *The camera isn't as bad as I previously thought, but the camera is erratic at best. I'm sure this is for effect, but the only time the camera feels right is right before the snap of the ball and when running the football.
  
  *Passing the ball is a horse of a different color! Anyone who loved the vision cone in Madden should feel right at home. I for one hated the vision cone because of the flicking of the right thumb stick. It would often register incorrectly, and I would wind up taking a sack trying to get the cone back to the open receiver. The same can be said about the passing in BackBreaker. Yes you can change the control layout, but you are still forced to "cycle" through receivers. This is another half good half bad implementation. I can see that flicking the stick resembles an actual QB going through his reads, but it's far to clunky and slow. Yes I took a bunch of sacks playing the game.
  
  *I often found that I would get knocked to the ground through incidental contact with anyone on the field which would indicate the need for more precision control so I could avoid contact, but the camera and player movements simply don't allow that to happen. Even when I didn't get knocked to the ground I had to make myself get involve in the plays because in about 3 hours of playtime the computer only ran one play in my direction the rest of the plays seemed to intentionally go to the opposite side of the field from where I was playing no matter what position I played. Even if you switch to the closest defender, it is often too late to have an impact on the play.
  
  While playing the outside linebacker on one play, I was in the perfect position to pick off a pass, but couldn't jump for the ball. After the play, I went to the controls screen to see what is jump, and found that jump and catch are missing from the controls. Your player either does these on their own or they don't. Once you have the ball jumping is mapped to the thumb stick in the form of hurdling.
  
  *Kicking takes waaaay too long.
  
  *EXTREMELY generic plays (and yeah man to man coverage is abysmal)
  
  *Replays, Ugh! I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say that 505 doesn't watch alot of football or even play a lot of football. Often the replay just follows the player you are controlling, and as stated before if you don't make your player get involved the replay is just irrelevant UNLESS its score or A POINT AFTER ATTEMPT. You cannot control the replay, switch cameras on the replay (which you can do during the player intro?!?).
  
  Playing BB is much like playing Superstar mode in Madden which I never cared for with the exception that you can switch the player your controlling, and you call the plays. I can say that after playing the demo for a few hours that 505 did a good job. BackBreaker will please those who hate Madden but like football. If you were already going to purchase the game, nothing anyone can say will change your mind. I have however decided against buying BB. I wasn't excited while playing the game. While Madden has it's faults (repetitive commentary, cheating AI, sliding and morphing players), it has far more control, and player involvement where as in BackBreaker, your involvement in the play is determined by where the play is going. If the play isn't going to your side of the field, your just there, and that's the way it is in real football but there just isn't any excitement on the plays your not involved in.
  
  I can't make a strong comparison between Madden and BackBreaker other than they are both football games. The design decisions made by the development team are mind boggling. Even if you wanted to have the 3rd person camera as default... why not offer at least 2 others to appeal to people that don't like the default. The same could be said regarding the button layout. There's only 2 and for a game that boasts about it's customization options this puzzles me also. Why not make the controls at least familiar. There's no jump or catch button and the field is silent the majority of the time... I have played organized football, and I never heard any silence on the field (other than when a player was injured) even with a helmet on. There will be a BackBreaker 2 so I'll wait and see if they fix what I think are errors and then maybe buy it.
  
  
  Clunky and delayed controls, erratic camera and the procedure for cycling through receivers is enough for me to pass on BackBreaker. maybe they can adjust some of those things in BackBreaker 2 and give players more camera options and customization of controls but for now it is what it is, and what it isn't is a replacement for Madden. I'll gladly spend the extra $20 to get my football fix. You may disagree, and call me a brain washed Madden Fanboy or what have you, but I did go into the BackBreaker demo expecting to be blown away and simply wasn't. Is the game worth $40 yeah if you like it it's worth even $60, but I didn't enjoy it. I can honestly say that I have deleted the demo from my hard drive and never need to play the game again. That is until BackBreaker 2 comes around next year... hmm that sounds very similar to the Madden Nation mantra... maybe next year.

  • Posted May 23, 2010 8:34 am GMT
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