At a glance...

Backbreaker: Vengeance review

Sports games have never really appealed to me. I'm not talking about the party version of golf that comes as part of Wii Sports, I'm referring to the year-on-year releases of major sports franchises, such Tiger Woods PGA Tour, FIFA and the NBA series to name a few. My attention span usually wavers by the time I get to playing a second match at whatever sport the game is trying to get me to play. It's never about the match for me, it's about those split-second decisions, the tension-filled moments and the frame-by-frame replays. Whilst I love those types of experience, I can never put up with the rest of the game, management et al, for it to seem worthwhile. What I need is a game that captures all these moments and throws the rest away.

Enter stage left, Backbreaker: Vengeance, a downloadable title focused around the dashes and crashes of American football. From the moment you start up the game and the aggressive, bass-heavy mix starts, you know this is a game that's not going to care about statistics or menu-driven team management. Gone are the lengthy matches and monotonous commentary; this is about getting straight down to business and focuses on the brutal moments just before the touchdown when you're neck and neck against the linebackers, racing done the field, unsure about whether you're going to make it.

The core gameplay of Vengeance revolves around that thirty second run towards a touchdown line and it presents a series of challenges based around just that, set over three different modes. The first, Tackle Alley, pits you as the quarterback, aka the guy with the ball, tasked with reaching the goal line. This mode will be familiar to previous Backbreaker fans, as this mode was featured as an extra in the core 2010 Backbreaker release. Vengeance mode pits you against the quarterback and you have to take him down before he can score a touchdown. Finally, Supremacy mode is a crazy mix of the two, where five of you compete to reach the goal line and the loser then becomes the tackler. Vengeance turns the excitement up a notch by setting these gameplay modes as a series of wave-based challenges. Each of the seventy challenges across the three modes consist of five waves of increasing difficultly. It's not just about reaching the end goal, but about achieving the best score possible too. To this end, each wave has a bronze, silver and gold rating for you to hit.

Now when we say that Backbreaker: Vengeance is based around American Football, that's not to say that this is a straight race to the goal line, as the game sports an almost "Total Wipeout"-style twist on the sport. Waves are filled with multiple high score areas, hurdles to jump, linebackers to avoid and obstacles to dodge out of the way. It isn't just a case of getting to the end; successfully weaving your way through these obstacles in a smooth, and more importantly, quick manner is key ranking up your multiplier and getting those high scores. You have a number of moves at your disposal to help you get out of the way of charging players and there's a certain sense of satisfaction as you leap over the head of a linebacker as he dives into the turf underneath you. Amusingly there's also a Showboat action that lets you show off to the crowd as you strut down the pitch. A move made to taunt the AI players no doubt, it's an easy way to increase your score, but can leave you vulnerable to the oncoming linebackers. This is all made possible through the use of the Euphoria engine that utilises some clever algorithms to fully simulate each player making each crash and dive unique, setting it apart from pre-generated animations. This is the same technology that's in Grand Theft Auto IV and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and it's fantastic to see it put to use in this sort of game.

The game is clearly geared towards to some multiplayer action and luckily you can can test your skills head to head against opponents online This isn't just geared to purely playing against live opponents, though. If you are connected online whilst playing solo, the game automatically chooses an opponent from the leader board for you to complete against. Not only do you have the bronze, silver and gold targets to worry about, but you now have the scores set by players from around the world too. This can seem a bit intimidating at first, particularly when you're still learning the ropes, but with a bit of practice you'll be earning those massive scores in no time.

Backbreaker: Vengeance is a high-adrenaline sports game that takes the good bits of American Football and discards all the rest. If you're looking for a sports sim then this is definitely not the game for you, but if you enjoy the outrageous tackles and pile ups that frequent contact sports then Backbreacker: Vengeance is right up your alley.

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