This review was originally published 06/21/2010 on Game Observer (now defunct as of 05/13/2014). It has been republished (and updated) here for archival purposes.

Less like a game of pro football, and more like a pick-up game with 100 people who don’t know what they’re doing.

I’ve been waiting for Backbreaker for years, following every dev diary, watching every trailer, drooling over every new tidbit of information, all the while, fully expecting that it is going to unseat Madden by revolutionizing the football video game world and force EA to relinquish its NFL-exclusivity deal. And while Backbreaker delivers in terms of its revolutionary new game engine, it fumbles the game of football.

Back-broken gameplay

The Euphoria Engine is the driving force being this game, calculating and rendering every action and every collision on the field using its simulation of physics and human motion. Momentum is well-respected, and the game is full of "you’ll never see that again!" moments that will make your jaw drop. The action is in your face and intense, and when things get exciting, you might find yourself bouncing up and down at the edge of your seat like you did last year when Drew Brees was engineering the Saints’ come-from-behind victory in the Super Bowl. You may even jump up and cheer after breaking a long touchdown run or blindsiding a QB for an 8 yard sack. And you’ll be loving the game.

I was really impressed with the demo for Madden NFL 13. So impressed that I went ahead and bought the game new. I am now suffering from severe buyer's remorse. The demo looked and felt really good. The AI seemed surprisingly competitive (even at the default, Veteran, difficulty). Heck, even the commentary was good!

Then I bought the actual game and had access to Instant Replays and all the teams, and I realized that this year’s Madden was just the same game as last years', but with a few extra coats of paint and polish.

Table of Contents

• Real-time physics doesn’t solve underlying problems
  • Every player now matters
  • Having physics is meaningless if the AI is allowed to break the rules
  • Physics is not universally applied, anyway
• New AI-systems are hit-or-miss
  • Passing game sees some improvement, but only incrementally
  • Running game is broken
  • Special teams still broken, too. Go figure
  • Catch-up logic makes the game feel too "arcade"
• Updated career mode is rough around the edges, but may soon set a standard for sports games
  • Practice doesn’t make perfect
  • Hello scouting, good bye draft classes
• A new style
  • Nantz and Simms are a huge improvement over Collinsworth and anybody
• A whole console generation, wasted

I’m a big fan of the new Civilization board game (as well as the computer game). I stated in my review that if an expansion ever came out, that I would pick it up immediately. Well, last fall, Fantasy Flight Games released Fame and Fortune, and I didn’t waste any time picking it up. Unfortunately, we have a lot of board games that we play, so I’ve only gotten to have a handful of Civ games with the expansion. This is one of the reasons that I’ve waited so long to write a review; I was hoping to get a few more games under my belt before settling on a final opinioin. But since I recently reviewed the Gods & Kings expansion for the PC game, I thought I'd go ahead and throw my opinions on the board game expansion out there too.

Table of Contents

• New Content
• Base Game Upgrades
  • More incentive to explore
  • Sacrificing figures to buff your cities is a mixed bag
  • Capitals that actually grow
• Two new features that change the game
  • Great People have great power!
  • Investing in your empire weakens your "economy"
• The new civs are fun, but watch out for those Greeks and Spaniards!
• Overall game balance and fun
  • More players = more fun?
• Miscellanious thoughts
• A successful expansion to a successful board game adaptation

It seems pretty apparent that EA doesn’t give a damn about releasing the best product possible. They just want to milk it for all the money it’s worth. If they really cared about making NCAA Football ‘13 the best game it could be, then they would have delayed it a few weeks in order to install the same, potentially revolutionary, physics engine that is being implemented in this year’s Madden. The game releases six weeks prior to the start of the college football season anyway, so it wouldn’t have hurt to delay it a month. It still would have made it onto store shelves before the kickoff of the season. Heck, most teams haven’t even finalized their depth charts yet, and some are still revealing new uniforms and stadiums!

Table of Contents

• Reverting back to a broken foundation
• Passing is the focus of this year’s game
  • Psychic DBs seem to be gone … for now
  • My receiver never saw it coming
  • Issues that were unaddressed
• Controls have been obfuscated to accommodate a feature that isn’t even used in most game modes!
• New career modes and augments to Dynasty
  • Recruiting loses some mystery; remains the highlight of the game
  • Trying to capture that NFL 2K5 awesomeness, and not quite making it
• Maybe next year we’ll get the college football game we’ve been waiting for? Probably not.

I noted in my original review of Civilization V that I expected an espionage system of some sort to be added in an expansion. I also stated, in a February edition of the Civilization Polycast webcast that I expected an expansion to be announced soon. I was right on both accounts!

I’ve spent a lot of time with Gods & Kings in the few months since its release, but I’m disappointed to say that it hasn’t quite lived up to my expectations.

The expansion isn’t a complete let-down though. It does include some significant enhancements to the core experience.

Table of Contents

• The changes I can't live without
  • Rebalanced combat and better tactical AI makes wars more fun
  • More dynamic, but still not life-like City States
• In Sid we trust!
• In her majesty’s mostly-useless service
  • Surveying rival cities and stealing techs
  • Rigging elections
  • Counter-espionage and overall boredom
• Lack of overall player engagement cripples the appeal of the late-game
• Other changes are hit-or-miss
  • Diplomacy still not improved much at all
• Gods & Kings adds some nice wrinkles to the gameplay, but nothing really game-changing