Details on NBA Live 08 Dynasty mode

IGN has posted an interview with NBA Live 08 producer Brian Ullrich that discussed the Dynasty mode for this year. I have recapped some of the main points below as well as added a video at the end.

Push system: Have full control over what you want to deal with and what you don't in Dynasty mode. You can fully customize the experience to take part in what you like and leave what you don't to your staff by setting filters. Pop ups and alerts will make you aware of important details that may need to be addressed.

Sim intervention: Now have the ability to jump into a game that is being simulated at any point. Once you enter you have to complete the game. Simming has normal, fast, and super fast speeds. You can set alerts to let you know when you may want to enter a game. For example if it is a close game late or if one of your players is nearing a statistical milestone.

Dynasty central: replaces the old "calendar" menu arrangement with a much easier to navigate setup which has the important areas easy to access.

Team direction: There are three different team classifications. Rebuilding, Up and Coming, and Contending. The teams will make decisions based on what they are considered. A contending team may be more willing to trade for or sign an aging veteran as opposed to a rebuilding team that may be looking to dump salary and pick up younger talent.

CPU trading: The CPU will initiate trade offers throughout the season. There is an immediate reception to the trades, no waiting around days for a response. Trades now include multi-player and package deals. A salary cap checker will let you know if a trade scenario is even possible.

The mid-level exception has been added.

Free agency persuasion mini-game has been added. You pitch free agents on what you think would be most important to them and it affects the chances of signing them. 

You can read the full interview here. Continue through to view the video. 

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First details on NBA 2K8

Gamespot has posted an article regarding some of the new additions for NBA 2K8. Up until now the only thing that had been revealed was the addition of "Blacktop mode" which includes a dunk contest and 3-point shootout.

When playing NBA 2K8, you might notice a small icon underneath a player's feet, one that looks suspiciously like cell phone reception bars. No, NBA 2K8 won't have LeBron asking if you can hear him now; instead, the cell icon represents your player's shot tendencies in the game and throughout different areas of the court. Deriving data from actual NBA games, the team at 2K has devised a system that will illustrate when a player is close to his hot spots on the floor, as well as whether that player is on a hot streak or not. When a player gets close to a hot spot on the floor, the cell phone bars increase; if he moves away from it, the bars will deplete. Hot or cold streaks are noted by the color of the bars in the icon. If you're lighting up J's from all over the floor, you can be sure your cell icon will be bright red before too long.

This sounds very similar in nature to NBA Live 08's Hot Spots. I was able to experience Hot Spots first hand and did a full writeup of my impressions of the feature which you can read here. 

So now we have 2K8 with their own version of it. However this preview didn't really go into what we would need to know about it to compare the two. Live has 14 sections with player specific ratings based on the NBA data. So is it a ratings system for 2K or just a boost in hot zones? How many sections are they using? What constitutes a hot streak? Do they change throughout a game or during the course of a season?

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NHL 08 player ratings and achievements

IGN has released the full list of player ratings for NHL 08. It includes every team as well as the free agent pool. You can check them out by going here.

Also the Xbox 360 achievements list was recently revealed. There are 26 achievements making up the 1000 points and you can find the list here.  

First week sales analysis for Madden 08

VG Chartz has posted up the the latest sales numbers which includes the full first week of Madden 08.

Combined with all the platforms it was released on Madden 08 sold approximately 1.8 million copies. That would be drop from last year's 2 million and just about in line with what Madden 06 did. However that decrease in the overall number was expected considering the heavier shift from one console generation to the next.

Because of the higher prices of the games on the 360 and PS3 and the new sales at traditional launch time from the Wii and PS3, those losses are just about offset. According to my calculations, Madden 08 will have accounted for gross sales close to 100 million in the first week compared to 110 million for Madden 07. Continue on to see the numbers for the specific consoles.

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Free downloadable update will allow for 10 players in online FIFA 08 games

Now normally I couldn’t care less about FIFA news but this is pretty big and ultimately is a sign of where other sports games will be headed. While it was talked about a while back how the goal was to get to a point in a few years where there would be 11 vs 11 in an online game, it seems they’ve achieved nearly half of that already. Within 6-8 weeks following the release of FIFA 08, a free downloadable update will become available that will make it possible to have 5 vs 5 (10 consoles) in a mode being called “Be a Pro: Online Team Play”. This will be available with the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game.

“Be a Pro” mode is similar to Madden’s Superstar or NCAA Football’s Campus Legend, where you control an individual player for the entire game instead of controlling the team.

Be A Pro: Online Team Play is the evolution of a new play mode featured in FIFA Soccer 08 called Be A Pro that locks you into the role of a single, fixed player the entire game and challenges you to master the same disciplines as a real soccer player—from positioning and tackling to reading the field and passing. Users receive real time feedback and analysis on the fly and a unique camera angle keeps both player and action in focus, zooming in when you’re on attack. Now in Be A Pro: Online Team Play, up to five friends on different consoles will be able to select and take control of their own individual players on the same team, supported by AI teammates, to play against up to five rivals of another team. Alternatively, online users can select to play with free roaming players, and teams can have a combination of both.

FIFA will not only have this new addition to online play but it will also include online leagues and interactive leagues.

There was a couple other FIFA announcements made. Both the 360 and PS3 versions of the game will run at 60fps. Also it sounds as if it will utilize EA Sports World as they stated videos from the game will be uploadable to the internet.

Considering the history of poor performance from EA Sports titles online, there certainly will be concern whether or not the experience will be fully realized. If they haven’t been able to get consistently lag-free games in one-on-one environments, will they be able to do so with 10 different players taking part? It’ll be interesting to see. At least they appear to be increasing the online options and putting more focus into that area. Those will be expanding to the other titles in the near future so that is there to look forward to. The one I’d like to see the most in the future is a similar mode to this “Be a Pro” in NBA Live where you would control your one player in a five-on-five online game.

Natural Motion’s Backbreaker

Today brought the announcement of a new football game coming to the 360 and PS3 titled Backbreaker.

Made by NaturalMotion using their Euphoria engine, the focus is on tackling. Every tackle will be unique.

Of course, with such an emphasis placed on tackling, one might wonder if Backbreaker's gameplay will be closer to simulation, ala Madden, or perhaps an arcade style similar to NFL Blitz. Issuing a sly smile, Torsten shrugged and said, "It's probably not right to go with either arcade or simulation labeling at this point. It's going to be quite close to real football; there's nothing too crazy going on, let's put it that way. But we're not going all the way in terms of simulation, like Madden does."

Rather than compete with Madden, Torsten feels that Backbreaker will comfortably settle into existence as a fun niche title. "People we've shown the title to so far are very excited. They've seen the footage, they get the game; it's not a competitor to Madden, because Madden has the NFL license, and it's a great game. A lot of people buy it; a lot of people love it. What we're thinking instead is, Backbreaker's the sort of game where, if you play Madden, and you like it, you'll also like Backbreaker. We don't think there's going to be anyone who buys Backbreaker instead of Madden, but we hope there will be lots of people who buy both."

I believe there is a place in the market for the arcade-sim mixed games. The BIGS and NFL Street/Tour being good examples. Those have become more appealing to me over the years. Madden, NCAA, and even All-Pro Football already offer the simulation experiences. And APF has shown that another football game is going to have to be unique to be successful.

Continue on to read more details on the game and my thoughts on them, as well as to check out the first trailer and links to screenshots and the full IGN preview.

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Producer blog talks FIBA in NBA Live 08

A new producer blog has been posted that goes over the details of the recent announcement that EA had obtained the FIBA license for the NBA Live games begining with 08.

Among the topics discussed are the rosters which they are only allowed to use players who have participated in a FIBA World Championship league sponsored event such as the qualifying tournament which will take place next month. This is why Kobe Bryant will not be on the initial USA team roster. However it is stated that players will be added in via roster update after they officially have the rights to them and there will likely be one ready to go for release of the game.

Now I know that some of you may be thinking that overall, the feature may seem a little bit light. The reason for this is because the deal for the FIBA license was not signed until late April of this year. At the time the deal was signed, we contemplated waiting until NBA LIVE 09 to unveil the full feature, but instead we decided to implement a first look feature to give everyone a little taste of what is to come in the future now that we have acquired this license.

This is something that was discussed at the Community Event in June. They had to decide whether to add it in this year if it meant not being fully realized due to the lack of time they had. Ultimately they determined that having the eight teams with authentic players in a single elimination tournament would be worth it and be a big bonus for fans of the game. This is the reasoning for the limited amount of teams, lack of trapezoidal lane or international stadiums. However it offers some unique elements that wouldn't have been available otherwise such as bringing the international players into Dynasty mode.

You can check out the full blog posting here. 

The Michael Vick era of Madden soon to come to an end

With Michael Vick admitting guilt to federal dogfighting and conspiracy charges, there is no question that EA will look to remove him from Madden 08 completely. Both the NFL and EA will not want to be associated with him by having him in their game any longer.

Examples of (somewhat) similar situations from this year include Pacman Jones not being in the game at all due to his year long suspension and Odell Thurman being removed from the game in the first roster update as his suspension was extended another year. 

With Vick guaranteed not to play this year he will surely be removed from the game with the next roster update. In all likelihood that update will be released in the week leading up to the start of the regular season. In the previous roster update, Vick was dropped down the depth chart but remained in the game and retained his original ratings. 

With significant prison time ahead, followed by a suspension(s) tacked on by the NFL, and considering the stigma around him after all of that passes, it seems very unlikely he'll ever play in the NFL again. Time is running short for those who have reaped the rewards of the ultra-mobile QB in Madden over the past several years. The Brushback dubbed the video game version of Michael Vick "The 2005 Sportsman of the Year" and he really was that impactful in the games.  The next couple weeks will probably be the last chance to ever play with him (outside of saving the old roster file and playing with it offline). The landscape of Madden has changed so drastically, so quickly. But there is always someone else who will be turned to when one goes down, and in this case it is likely Vince Young who becomes the new go-to Madden QB.  

The response to Madden 08

Something I have been fascinated with over the last week has been the reaction to Madden 08 on various forums. Despite getting high reviews there seems to be more negativity than ever.

Now, negativity is nothing new around release time. Especially for EA Sports games that seem to attract a crowd that just loves to bash them for any given reason (real or not). So that in itself isn't new. However it seems as if more people than ever are demanding drastic changes.

The interesting thing is that like never before EA was open and communicative about the game and they did far more to address what the hardcore community wanted than ever. The gameplay was the main focus, and it clearly paid off in that area. It also offers a deeper experience with more variety than any sports game to date with the offline modes.

There certainly are numerous issues with the game. I know personally I wouldn't have given the game a score as high as most of the media sites have. The online is deficient at best, fumbles and injuries happen too often, the kicking game is ridiculously overpowered, and Superstar mode isn't as good as NCAA Football 08's Campus Legend.

In some sense there are many people who go into release expecting to dislike the game, or specifically look forward to bashing it. Nothing is going to change their minds, even if it were to arguably be the best sports game ever. There will always be that crowd that revels in attacking a particular game. Those are the vocal ones. The millions of people out there enjoying the game don't have the same motivations.

The concern would be that EA follows this response and alters their strategy due to it. When they worked hard to appease the hardcore fans of the game, and they look at the forums where there is such overwhelming whining and complaining, will they believe that represents the true feelings of the community? I sure hope not because that certainly isn't the case.

Top 10 games of the NBA season

I have written a guest blog for the EA Sports NBA Live 08 website detailing the 10 games of the upcoming NBA season that I am anticipating the most.

5) 12/17 Phoenix Suns @ San Antonio Spurs

We get the rematch of the real NBA Finals. Only this time there will be no suspensions for leaving the bench, Steve Nash's nose will hopefully be healed by tip-off, and there will be no Tim Donaghy. I'm obligated to add that Tony Parker married Eva Longoria over the off-season.

You can check out the full list by visiting here.