Kotaku: Naturalmotion

My Horse is Nintenhorse In all but Name

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:00:00 EDT

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NaturalMotion, best known for its Euphoria engine (GTAIV, Red Dead Redemption) and its own titles like football game Backbreaker, has recently released something a little tamer. More »

Did Backbreaker Just Get an NFL License?

Owen Good — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:30:00 EDT

Backbreaker Just Get an NFL License?" alt="Click here to read Did Backbreaker Just Get an NFL License?" src="http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2011/09/small_torstennmnfl.jpg"/>

Torsten Reil, the co-founder and CEO of NaturalMotion, on Sunday tweeted this picture which he says is from an iPhone version of Backbreaker: Vengeance, a spinoff of last year's football game Backbreaker which challenged Madden NFL without any NFL branding. Reil's picture shows someone for the Seattle Seahawks leaping over an Arizona Cardinals defender, in a stadium carrying NFL branding on its signs. More »

Backbreaker's Team Checks In Again With Icebreaker

Owen Good — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 09:30:00 EDT

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In real life, I skate like a waddling five-year-old forever on the verge of crapping his pants. In Icebreaker, I'm light on my feet, spinning, deking, and sprinting away from the bowel-loosening checks coming my way. More »

Backbreaker Studio Hits the Ice With Icebreaker for the iPhone

Owen Good — Wed, 25 May 2011 23:20:38 EDT

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First spied in development seven months ago, Icebreaker will arrive on the iTunes App Store next week as a hockey-style complement to Backbreaker, the football title whose "Tackle Alley" minigame saw tremendous success as an iPhone port. More »

Backbreaker: Vengeance is Official; Releasing Only on Xbox 360

Owen Good — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:30:00 EDT

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Backbreaker: Vengeance, a variant on the original Backbreaker's wildly popular "Tackle Alley" mode, will be released for the Xbox 360 over Xbox Live this year by NaturalMotion and 505 Games. It's exclusive to the 360. More »

Our First Look At The New Backbreaker

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:40:00 EDT

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Backbreaker developer NaturalMotion offered fans of the series a sneak peek at the next installment in the unlicensed football video game, one that takes a different approach that EA Sports' dominant and NFL backed Madden game. What is it? The developer isn't talking just yet, but Backbreaker fans are kicking around theories in the game's official forums. More »

These Are Some Of The Guys Who Made Red Dead Look So Good

Luke Plunkett — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 02:30:00 EST

Half the visual appeal of Red Dead Redemption is in the landscapes. Those were done by Rockstar. But the other half is John Marston's swagger, or the way a bandit gets caught in his horse's stirrups. More »

Get Backbreaker On The iPhone Now

Owen Good — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 15:51:50 EDT

First Hoggy, now Backbreaker. NaturalMotion's iPhone/iPad port of its addictive "Tackle Alley" challenge is also free for today only on the iTunes App store in North America and the U.K. Thanks jayc4life! More »

Backbreaker's "Greathouse" Patch Is Now Available

Owen Good — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:34:27 EDT

Although it wasn't out by Wednesday it didn't take much longer. Backbreaker's game-remaking "Greathouse" patch is available over both PSN and Xbox Live. See here for a rundown of everything it fixes and adds. More »

Backbreaker's Officially Bigtime Now — It's Sold Out To KFC

Owen Good — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:30:00 EDT

A day after releasing news of its behemoth patch on Xbox 360, the folks who make Backbreaker say its free iPhone version has picked up a Kentucky Fried Chicken sponsorship. Runners will now celebrate with, what else, the Chicken Dance. More »

Backbreaker Gets A Makeover With Enormous Patch Due Soon

Owen Good — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:30:00 EDT

New plays, better AI, a suite of replay cameras and new "focus modes" are among features coming to the football title Backbreaker, possibly as soon as Wednesday, through one of the largest patches I've ever seen for a sports game. More »

'Major Patch' is on the Way for Backbreaker

Owen Good — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:00:00 EDT

Backbreaker the challenger to Madden NFL that got one very big thing right but a lot of little things wrong (or not at all), will get a "major patch" taking into account community suggestions, the studio said on Friday. More »

Backbreaker Review: The Challenger Crashes

Owen Good — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:20:00 EDT

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Twenty-five years ago saw the last game of the USFL - a league given no shot against the NFL's monopoly, but beloved to this day for the rebellious challenge it posed. Today, similarly pitted against the Madden monolith, comes Backbreaker. More »

Introducing Soccer Relegation to American Football — in a Video Game

Owen Good — Wed, 26 May 2010 21:30:00 EDT

Maybe the only way to make the Oakland Raiders' season interesting past the sixth week would be to force them - and every other wretched team - to play for the right to stay in the National Football League. More »

Backbreaker Demo Hits Xbox Live Tomorrow

Owen Good — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:30:00 EDT

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The demo for Backbreaker, the football alternative promising real-time physics in place of canned animations, will hit Xbox Live for gold subscribers tomorrow. PS3 owners will get the demo "soon." More »

Who Needs NFL Teams When You Can Make Your Own?

Mike Fahey — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:00:00 EDT

NaturalMotion's Backbreaker might not have the official NFL license like Madden does, but who needs that when you've got the tools to make the football team of your dreams at your fingertips? I'm going to call mine the Atnalta Falchions! More »

Backbreaker Delayed; Now Going Head-to-Head With UFC

Owen Good — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:40:00 EST

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Major retailers and multiple sites have all listed Backbreaker with a release date of May 25, one week later than originally planned. If so, the real news here is the football newcomer is going straight up against UFC Undisputed 2010. More »

Backbreaker Scores A Proper Trailer

Mike Fahey — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:20:00 EST

505 Games and NaturalMotion's Backbreaker finally gets a proper trailer, complete with pulsing soundtrack and overdramatic voiceover. More »

Backbreaker Going For Broke

AJ Glasser — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:40:00 EST

I can't imagine how scary it is for a developer to pitch a football video game when their name isn't EA Sports. I imagine a room full of people going dead silent before someone says, "You mean like Madden?" More »

NaturalMotion Teams With Nvidia

Mike Fahey — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Game developers and publishers should have no trouble at all creating realistic worlds and populating them with realistic people as NaturalMotion and NVIDIA announce a partnership that pairs the former's morpheme animation engine with the latter's PhysX technology in one powerful force of realistically moving goodness. More »

Oxford U. to Profit from GTA IV

ogood — Sun, 04 May 2008 13:00:00 EDT

Some portion of the £200M that Grand Theft Auto IV is projected to earn will find its way into the treasury of the U.K.'s world-renowned Oxford University. That's because the game's Euphoria engine was developed by two Oxford students using research at Oxford's zoology department. More »

Backbreaker Is Looking As Painful As Ever (In A Good Way)

Mark Wilson — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:30:00 EDT

While I'm not the biggest sports fan, I'm always on the lookout for a new football game that will pull me back into the genre that I once enjoyed. Natural Motion (the company behind the lauded Euphoria engine from GTA IV and The Force Unleashed) is getting a lot of press for its dynamic, body-crashing AI in its upcoming football game, Backbreaker. And while all that looks fantastic in this new clip, I hope that the Flash compression hasn't ruined the beauty of the gigantic, hyperreal stadium in the background. God bless bloom lighting. More »

Talking Up GTAIV's Drunkening Technology

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:20:00 EST

We're all big fans of NaturalMotion's Euphoria animation system. Replacing canned animation with real-time model "simulation" is a huge step for games, both in terms of graphics but even more importantly in terms of gameplay, since with Euphoria no two attacks or moves will ever end the same way. The tech will feature in stuff like SW Force: Unleashed, Indiana Jones and Backbreaker, but we'll get our first real good look at it when GTAIV hits in April. And nowhere will it be better displayed than when star Niko...gets his drink on and has to stumble his way home, drunk off his tits.

There is a drinking mini-game in very detailed form where you can get drunk and he can actually then stumble around and you have to get home. But all of that is fully simulated. So, it is not based on animation any more. It is actually all synthesized on the CPU. Which means that it has a completely different outcome every time you play.

Realism schmlerism. Real-life drinking always has the same outcome. Least for me it does. Tears, hangover, fry-up breakfast. Wash, rinse, repeat. Simulate that, NaturalMotion. More »

Backbreaker's Generic Beauty

Mike Fahey — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:20:02 EDT

Will being one of the best-looking, best-animated football games on the market help Naturalmotion's Backbreaker triumph over the Madden juggernaut when it is released next-year? Highly doubtful, I know. The core of the football gaming crowd is NFL fans, and without an NFL license it probably won't drum up big sales no matter how awesome it looks in motion. Now if the Madden folks could just get their hands on this engine...hmmm. More »

LucasArts Promises Euphoria

kotaku.com — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:40:00 EDT

Speaking of dumb names for things, we received a press release announcing that the upcoming Indiana Jones game for the Xbox 360 will include technology called euphoria, a "behavioral-simulation engine" from NaturalMotion Ltd. More »