It’s time to tackle football like never before. Backbreaker is taking sports video games to a place where the action is never the same and every hit looks and feels as realistic as a Sunday afternoon. Utilizing NaturalMotion’s revolutionary euphoria motion synthesis engine, the same groundbreaking technology featured in Grand Theft Auto IV and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, you’ll never see the same tackle again. Ever.

"Backbreaker is more than just another sports title; it's an entirely new experience. Using full real-time simulations of the athletes' motor nervous systems and bodies enabled us to produce a fantastic, realistic sports experience that captures the riveting excitement of the American favorite past time," said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. "By utilizing PhysX as part of our euphoria engine in this title, players in Backbreaker will never make the same tackle twice, giving them an intensely unique experience every time they play the game."

euphoria is a novel run-time technology for synthesizing interactive animations on next-generation hardware platforms. It is designed to replace canned animation data in a selective and non-disruptive way, and is capable of creating unique game moments during game play. At the heart of euphoria are real-time behaviors, which are AI motion controllers that adaptively drive the character's muscles in response to sensory input. euphoria behaviors are not based on animation data. Unlike canned-data approaches, euphoria behaviors are fully procedural and are capable of creating new experiences for the player.

"Backbreaker is a fantastic example of the future of PhysX technology and gaming, itself. With AGEIA PhysX and the euphoria engine, game developers are able to seamlessly create characters that move, react and interact naturally in any situation," said Manju Hegde, CEO of AGEIA. "Backbreaker exploits PhysX to feature powerful physics-based gameplay with pervasive interactivity and realism. The on-the-field football action with different tackles every time provides a pure, realistic football experience that will truly change the shape of gaming."

For the first time in a sports game, this mix of technology, biology and tenacious attitude is turning the gridiron of past, full of canned animations and repetitious gameplay, into a dangerous form of self expression. Every unique tackle in the world of Backbreaker is an artistic exercise in hard hits and athletic skill. It’s time to show your friends just how painful art can be.

Key Features

• Technology – Through a combination of biology and robotics research, euphoria uses the CPU power of next-generation consoles to simulate the nervous system, muscles, and biomechanics of the football players in real-time. This is the first time this technology is being employed for a sports game.
• Replayability – While conventional football games can only load a finite number of animations from a disc, Backbreaker’s real-time technology will never allow the gameplay to become stale.
• Attitude – Forget about prim and proper, Backbreaker presents a fast-paced, gritty gameplay experience that’s more Burnout than Madden.
• Pedigree – With clients such as Rockstar Games and LucasArts, NaturalMotion’s euphoria technology is used by some of the most respected companies in the industry.

RELEASE DATE: 2008