That may not have been what developer NaturalMotion went through while pitching Backbreaker to publisher 505 Games — the name doesn't even suggest football — but even when the dreaded Madden comparison was made, it was successfully dodged with "This is an alternative to Madden." The idea is that the developer approached football with a completely clean slate and no aspirations of doing what Madden does only somehow better.

Instead, NaturalMotion is using the Euphoria engine (of Grand Theft Auto IV fame) to craft a more game-y feel for the classic American sport. All the animations are real time as opposed to canned and the perspective from which the developer showed me the game was something like a third person action/adventure camera angle. Like GTA IV, only with football.

Backbreaker was in pre-alpha, so I wasn't able to see much. I watched an 11x11 Exhibition match in a Day Mode stadium (the game will have both night and raining modes for stadiums as well). A bug prevented us from switching views or switching between players, so I watched two or three plays from the perspective of a quarterback and a linebacker. Immediately, it felt like a more intimate experience from what I remember of Madden's overhead God view — although I confess I lack Owen Good's extensive knowledge of the series, so I'm not sure if there's a comparable camera angle in Madden NFL 10. Either way, I can definitely say that the football players move differently than I expect from my sports games. It's almost like they're less-realistic to look at, but when they tackle somebody, the response of the character model is more realistic.

Stuck in this perspective, I worried that it would be hard to see where the ball was — that is the challenge of sports in real life that they don't come with glowing icons. To tackle this problem (pun intended), the game makes the player who has the ball glow red. I like this because it doesn't make it too easy to find the ball, but it does cut back on the chances of me tackling the wrong guy.

When Backbreaker is finished, NaturalMotion plans to have all kinds of views in place during games, including a jumbo-tron view mode to review tackles or spectacular plays. At launch, they also plan to have 32 teams (and the ability to make your own) with 16 stadiums in day, night and raining modes. (Note that these teams and stadiums are only modeled after real life teams and stadiums — Madden sort of has the market cornered on that kind of realism.) Backbreaker will also have mini-games like something called Tackle Alley that I didn't get to see, and two difficulties for both the casual and hardcore players and online functionality for all. A press release sent out last night also says that the game will have two variants for on the field play: evasive mode and aggressive mode. I assume it has to do with offense and defense, but all the release says is "in evasive mode, players are more agile ... though they are more likely to fumble when tackled" and "in aggressive mode, players can stiff arm and fight through linemen, run faster and fend off big hits and tackles."

Hm. Sounds like it might be more fun to be aggressive. B-E Aggressive (sorry, had to do it!).

Backbreaker is looking at an April 2010 release for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

“We’re deeply impressed by NVIDIA’s commitment to push physics to new levels of fidelity and performance, and their investment in development and support infrastructure across all platforms,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “NVIDIA’s PhysX technology provides a robust, high-fidelity foundation for our advanced character animation algorithms and tools. Through our close collaboration, we will help game developers bring fully interactive and believable characters to a wide range of games.”

It's two great tastes that taste real together! Hit the jump for more details on the partnership between physics powerhouses.

NaturalMotion and NVIDIA Bring a New Level of Realism to Games

Companies Team Up to Integrate Animation, AI and Physics Technologies

SANTA CLARA, CA and OXFORD, U.K. - June 11, 2008 NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, and NaturalMotion Ltd., the developers behind the highly acclaimed euphoria motion synthesis technology, today announced that the companies have teamed up to offer game developers and publishers easy-to-use, highly integrated solutions for adding animation and physics in next-generation games.

Starting with the upcoming release of NaturalMotion’s morpheme animation engine, NVIDIA’s PhysX technology will provide rigid body dynamics functionality across its product portfolio, supporting both console (PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii) and PC platforms. In addition, PC titles will benefit from GeForce GPU acceleration for both PhysX and future versions of morpheme, bringing additional motion fidelity to the PC game experience.

“We’re deeply impressed by NVIDIA’s commitment to push physics to new levels of fidelity and performance, and their investment in development and support infrastructure across all platforms,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “NVIDIA’s PhysX technology provides a robust, high-fidelity foundation for our advanced character animation algorithms and tools. Through our close collaboration, we will help game developers bring fully interactive and believable characters to a wide range of games.”

“The introduction of NaturalMotion’s AI and Adaptive Behaviors is the next big breakthrough in gaming,” said Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA. “This technology takes us into a new level of immersion as characters roll, jump, duck and react to the players’ actions and the environments around them. We are delighted to be working with NaturalMotion to bring this new level of character animation to the world.”
For more information, visit www.naturalmotion.com.

The university's technology transfer company then teamed up with Natural Motion, the company the two students, Torsten Reil and Colm Massey, created to build and sell the engine. As such Oxford retains a share in anything Euphoria and Natural Motion should earn down the road. Such as ... Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Oxford's student newspaper (shout out to student media!) has the story. It couldn't get word on exactly how much the university will reap. But considering this is a breakthrough character modeling engine that eliminates the need for pre-made animations, I bet it didn't come cheaply.

Time was, video games were written on old mainframes during after-hours downtime. Now they're coming out of fully approved research and backed by funding from a world class university. Remember that one next time someone complains that this is a frivolous pursuit of ours.

Oxford to Profit from GTA IV [Cherwell, Oxford's student newspaper]

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.

Imagine a swaying rope bridge. With euphoria in action, characters visibly attempt to balance themselves, their feet stumbling, their arms flailing, and their hands reaching for security as the unpredictable movements of the bridge threaten to send them plummeting to their doom. Perhaps they all survive. Perhaps they all fall. The use of euphoria means the action isn't scripted - it's simulated - so you'll never be able to predict exactly what will happen, no matter how many times you've experienced a certain scenario.

Note that apparently euphoria is properly spelled in lowercase italics. When speaking the name out loud, LucasArts requests that you lean forward approximately twenty degrees.