WAA - Backyard Football '10

Backyard Football '10 is a pitiful attempt at a video game. It's supposed to be a sports game aimed at kids, so it has a bunch of "wacky" features, like being able to play at a carnival, or super moves that allow the ball carrier to spin around in circles. But remove the lame trappings and it's just a grossly dumbed-down version of football that pales in comparison to other established titles.

Backyard Football isn't really worth a full review itself, but I will highlight one particularly excruciating aspect of the game before I get to the WAA. The announcers in Backyard Football are supposed to be kids, and they spout "funny" lines (note: quotes are NOT accidental) as you play. It's not just that their comments are PAINFULLY unfunny. The real issue is that it doesn't even sound like something that young kids would find amusing. It's as if a bunch of corporate suits sat around in a board room and brainstormed about what children would find funny. Granted, some kids might laugh at these failed attempts at humor...the dumb ones anyway. But most kids will recognize this stuff for the tripe that it is.

Don't buy Backyard Football for your kids unless you hate them.

Here are the awards:

The "One With Combat"Award: "Hands"
Much like last week, there are no difficult Achievements in Backyard Football '10. "Hands" is particularly easy, as you just need 100 yards receiving with any player. Considering that the computer doesn't bother to play any defense, that shouldn't be tough.

The "Mile High Club" Award: "Tackler"
This is as close to a difficult Achievement as I could find. You need 8 tackles with one player, which just involves a lot of chasing your opponent around while on defense.

The "Seriously..." Award: N/A
None of these Achievements come close to qualifying as a grind. In fact, you can do all of them in a single game.

The "Little Rocket Man" Award: "Sacker"
Make a mad dash for the QB and bring him (or her) down!

The Scientist Gone Gamer Award: N/A
All the Achievements share the same logo, which is a pretty good indication of how sloppy this effort was. At least it's a decent icon.


Achievement Set Rating - 2
I gave this one a marginally higher score than last week's game (College Basketball 2K6) because there are 10 Achievements instead of 5. Beyond that, it's the same easy tasks and crappy icons. Note to self: do a more interesting game next week...

Achievement Difficulty Rating - 1
Set the halves to 15 minutes and you can do all of these in one game. 1000 points in less than an hour? Too easy!