Backyard Sports: Backyard Football 10

The next American Xbox completion to come through is Backyard Sports: Backyard Football 10 and the first thing I learned when playing this game was that I had not maintained anything I learned about American Football from when I played Madden 08 a few years ago.

Thankfully though, Backyard Sports: Backyard Football 10 is a much quicker completion than Madden as it doesn’t require you to complete 10 years’ worth of the franchise.

The game itself is simple enough to anyone that knows American Football and it quickly came back to me – make the plays, cross your fingers and hope they come off. Someone who understands American Football will tell me I’m wrong though as I’m sure there is some way of getting the plays to consistently go your way.

In terms of the gameplay, it’s a much more dumbed down version of American Football… but the rooster does feature Tom Brady, which I found surprising as all the characters are just referred to by their first names when you are playing.

In terms of looks, it’s intentionally cartoony that appears to be the staple of the series. Sounds wise, the commentary sucks ass. I get that it’s not taking itself seriously but to the level of poo-poo humour is a step too far. Some of the things Chuck comes out with had me cringing. I only played the game for 45 minutes, but this still managed to grate on me.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 10 Achievements

After playing for a bit and getting to grips with the game’s limitations and the way it plays and realising how shit I was at it, I looked up the easiest way to get the achievements and the answer was… local multiplayer using two controllers.

There are achievements for tackling, running and throwing and… that’s it. The only tricky thing – for me anyway – was getting it all done in a single game. All the achievements are tied to individual players, so you have to use the same player to throw touchdowns and distance for 300 yards. You have to run for two hundred yards and make 8 tackles with the same player – 3 of which need to be made on the quarter back.

Obviously by using two controllers you can control the plays of your opponent which makes setting up attacking plays easy. You just need to move all player two’s players out of your way and go nuts. The defensive ones are more important as you can select the same play over and over again and repeat sacking the quarter back.

Downloadable Content – N/A

I can see how Backyard Sports: Backyard Football 10 could be considered a charming sports game, but the commentary alone makes it obnoxious. It’s my own fault for playing a game I don’t understand for easy score. It is an easy and quick completion but outside of that, it’s hard to think of nice things to say about it.