Casual Fridays: Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley

10/30/2009 12:15 PM | 5 Comments | Page 1 of 1

Welcome to another installment of Casual Fridays. John Teti is busy petting his new cats today, so I'm filling in for him. And I've decided that today's game SHALL BE A SPORTS GAME.

Is that a cricket I hear? Ha, ha! Now that 92 percent of you are gone, we can proceed.

Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley for the iPhone has two names. Which means that the developers probably made a long list of names, most of which were terrible, but then decided that "Backbreaker Football" and "Tackle Alley" were of such high quality that they would actually go ahead and use both.

No backs are actually broken in this simple yet addictive football simulation.

Here is how it works. Step one: Buy the game. It's cheap. It was 99 cents when I bought it. Step two: Pick a fake football team. Obviously, the developers didn't want to spring for the NFL license, so all of these teams are fake. Just pick one. Go with the one that has colors that don't hurt your eyes. That was my strategy. Step three: Put your name on the back of your jersey. This is actually very cool. Because you will spend 100 percent of the game looking at your player's back.

Now it's time for the game to start! The game does a slow, gratuitous pan around a football stadium. I have no idea why this is part of the game, but there it is. Sloooww, paaaannnn. Zzzz.

Suddenly, you're down on the field, looking at your player's back. The object of the game is to get to the end zone while avoiding tacklers. You do this by tilting the iPhone left and right to "steer" your player. The game features touch-screen controls that allow you to juke left and right, and spin left and right. There is also a turbo button, and best of all, there is a showboat button.

Crispy Gamer Pro Tip: Do not showboat until you are about to go into the end zone for a score. If you showboat too early, you will be tackled from behind and you will bring much shame on your house, as they say.

Early levels only feature a couple of tacklers here and there, but things ramp up quickly and get far more interesting and hectic. Even if you don't like sports, or sports videogames, you should try this. I missed my subway stop this week because I was tilt/running through tacklers. And that, folks, is the highest honor that can be bestowed on an iPhone game.

[Editor's note: Post a comment below for a chance to win a Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley download code!]