It is true that Madden is the only game out there (besides Blitz:the League) that comes to mind when the words “football video game” are uttered. NaturalMotion is trying its luck into wrestling the title away from Madden with a different breed of football all together. Instead of a top-down perspective you see in Madden, Backbreaker will bring you closer to the action on the field by installing a third-person camera. When you smash into the quarterback on fourth down and one, it will feel like you set up the hit yourself instead of from far away.

Apparently, there are two different modes the player can toggle, agile and aggressive. If you want to gun through a hole made by the offense, you switch to aggressive and break through. When you need to juke or spin by a man to score a touchdown, being agile will help you evade him and score. There is also some talk about how fast a player can go that depends on how far you push the left stick.

Luckily, NaturalMotion is going to implement real life fatigue so you can’t cheat by sprinting all the time. Backbreaker promises to be easy to pick up and play, but also for veteran players to get even deeper into the game. If NaturalMotion can deliver, this game looks to take away what Madden has worked so hard to achieve. That is all the details for now; look for this game on shelves sometime this year on PS3 and the 360.

[See also: Backbreaker gallery]