Wednesday, July 15, 2009

New EA NHL 10 Blog Taling About The Game's Refinements

EA's latest Blog on the upcoming NHL10 talks about the games refinements. the blog focuses on that the major refinements were on the actual hockey, the little skills that makes hockey hockey. goalies especially were worked on after the goalies in last years NHL has several flaws which have been addressed.
A new feature in the game is Precision Passing, where the player has full control of direction and speed of the pass. New moves have been added to offense, whilst defensive AI has also been tweaked and improved.



Blog Post

Rammer
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What’s up everyone….Sean here to talk about some of the many gameplay refinements in NHL10. Before I get into it, I know you’re all dying to see some under produced, raw gameplay footage and I can tell you that we’ve got some clips to post. Litty has been capturing clips from the games that he’s been playing and we’re extremely excited to share them with you. I also want to thank everyone that has been following NHL10 on Twitter. We love hearing all the feedback and suggestions so keep it coming!
Now to the refinements…
One thing I really want to emphasize is that more than ever, this year we concentrated on making hockey. By that I mean that the focus was on all the little things that make hockey what it is from extreme displays of skill such as deking on your knees and shooting to bad bounces leading to goals.

The first thing I want to talk about is the goalies in NHL10. We literally had one programmer and one animator working on goalies all year around. We know that there were some holes in the goalie last year so my challenge to our guys was to make a perfect goalie. I wanted to ensure that our goalies had the ability to save anything shot at them. Once we had that, we could then start to give back goals in a controlled manner and ensure that we weren’t creating any ‘always goals’. I gotta give the guys credit, they added over 150 new goalie animations including saves from the butt, new kick saves, reach backs and swipe aways just to name a few which made the goalies extremely effective and much more dynamic. Once we had the goalies to a state that we liked, we brought in some of the top EASHL players in the Vancouver area to try and find holes. The first thing they did was try all the exploit goals from 09 which were unsuccessful but they did find a couple situations where the goalies could still be improved. We took that feedback and made the final tweaks. I should mention that I’m also extremely pleased with our additions for user controlled goalies which I’ll speak about at a later date. I will say that people who play goalie in the EASHL are going to be very happy with the improvements we’ve made. The guys in the office are having blast playing as goalie.

With better goalies, the play in the slot was a huge area of emphasis for us. I wanted the ability to one time loose pucks, especially on rebounds without throwing a check. We now have that and we’ve also captured a part of hockey that I’ve never felt in a video game before which is intentionally shooting for rebounds. Guys in the NHL do this all the time. They just shoot the puck off the goalie’s pads so that their teammate will have a chance at the rebound. You can do that this year in our game and I have to say that it’s really satisfying when you do it intentionally and score.

A new feature that we’ve added this year is what we’re calling ‘Precision Passing’. In a nutshell, Precision Passing allows you to have total control of the direction AND the speed of your pass. Your pass will go exactly where you’re left analog is aiming and the speed is controlled by how long you hold down the RT (or R2 for PS3). A quick tap will do a short pass and holding it down will lead to a harder pass. The key is that all passes are untargeted meaning that you can pass the puck into space and let your teammates skate onto the puck. You can also do things like banking passes off the boards to get around defenders or bank it to yourself.

On offense, we’ve added new moves that I’m pretty excited about. If you take down a star player on a breakaway, there’s a chance that he’ll end up on his knees with the ability to deke and shoot. We’ve also added bat-ins so if the puck is in the air, players will try to bat the puck into the net or the defensive team will try to bat it out of harm’s way. There is also a new fake shot that can be done by pressing R3. This is a great way to try to get the D-man to bite and go down or to freeze the goalie. One of my personal favorite ways to score right now is going leg kick to backhand high (like Crosby) but remember my paragraph about goalies above…well this move has also led to some unbelievable desperation saves which to are almost just as exciting to me.

Defensive AI was another big focus for us this year as we tried to make the defense more dynamic and less predictable. I think one of the first things you’ll notice when you play the demo (Yes, I said demo; No I don’t have a release date; But, I can guarantee that you’re going to be VERY surprised when you find out what’s in the demo) is that the D-men don’t always back right in on their goalie but rather try to stand you up more at the blue line or pinch you off earlier if you try to go wide. They also have better awareness of their positioning in the defensive zone so that you can’t dance them back and forth then go around them. The addition of boardplay has added a whole new dynamic to the defense as well as it gives the ai one more option against the boards. It allows them to contain players without over committing and getting beat.

That’s enough from me…check out the gameplay clips!
Enjoy.

New Screenshots From EA's Spore Hero Arena On The Nintendo DS

EA Have released some new screenshots for thier upcoming Nintendo DS game, Spore Hero Arena.





New Screenshots From EA's Spore Hero On The Nintendo Wii

EA Has released some new screenshots from thier upcoming Nintendo Wii game Spore Heroes.





New Zero Punctuation - Overlord 2

This weeks new Zero Punctuation is on Overlord 2. a strange similarity to Fable 2 is discovered and a dislike for the minions. on the plus side, he likes Steam.





GI Joe Producer Discusses Making the GI Joe DS Game

EA Have released a developer blog from the games associate producer. in the blog, he talks about how they made the game for the Nintendo DS. The main point is that they couldn't do a port of the console games, but a whole new game designed for the Nintendo DS Itself.
They talk how they started with stylus controls, but soon had to change to a traditional D-Pad.
the characters are unique and varied, and they talk about how they tried to get gameplay to fit different Joes/Cobras.
The game features thee different multiplayer modes, whilst the single player game has 21 missions.



Developer Blog #3: Making a cool G.I. JOE DS game

By Nick Pavlich, Associate Producer at EA

Recruits listen up; it’s time to brief you on your mission at hand.

It only takes five letters to bring back a collage of memories from yesteryear, those letters: G.I. JOE. When General Hawk commanded me to produce the best G.I. JOE DS video game COBRA has ever seen I was nervous, excited, and ecstatic. To achieve such a tall order were going to need to make a unique version for the DS rather than slamming the console game down into 64mb. This allows us to play to the strengths of the DS. Everything was built to maximize the DS hardware from the 3D top-down view, to the wireless multiplayer.

Now back to the mission at hand…I suited up and started to collect critical intelligence: what characters should we have? What vehicles? What play sets? The only thing I was sure of was this mission was going to be action packed! I needed the very best team to help take on this monumental task, one that was grizzled and war trained in the arcade genre, it was time to bring in the big guns (sorry Heavy Duty!), Backbone Entertainment!

(Heavy Duty devastating COBRA.)

The great thing about Backbone is they have a long history in making great arcade games everything from Commandos, to most recently Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. These guys have more knowledge on the subject than Breaker does on COBRA. Right out of the gates we concentrated on the control scheme. We started with prototyping stylus controls, we had something that worked well for just shooting but our game was going to require much more than just shooting. We were going to need fast reflexes, different types of attack and melee. We wanted to pack it full of different ways to dismantle COBRA: Katana Blades, Cross Bows, Machine guns, Accelerator Suits, not to mention Vehicles! Cramming all these varied types of game play into a few simple swipes with a stylus was not going to happen. Instead we opted for the more traditional arcade controls; move on the DPAD with action on the buttons. We took the controls out on the practice range and kept tweaking them until they were smooth. Now it was time to suit up and tackle the other ¾ of the equation, what makes a G.I. JOE DS game great?

G.I. JOE is about a few fundamental things: unique characters, venomous vehicles, expansive play sets and hordes of COBRAS. In replicating each component we used the same philosophy we did with the controls: “it needs to be fun first.” For the characters it was important to represent as many varied types of G.I. JOE’s as possible. On one hand we have Snake Eyes: quick, stealthy, deadly with a Katana, on the other end of the spectrum we have Heavy Duty, slower but packing in the firepower with a chain gun firing about one zillion rounds a second. Now throw in Scarlett who has a crossbow, Shipwreck who has a parrot, Duke who is your elite combat solider and you have a ton of different options to dismantle COBRA with. We’ve packed in six unique G.I. JOE’s that all feel very different from one another. Each G.I. JOE is more suited to one situation over another. Same goes for the vehicles, we have your slower more powerful tanks like the MOBAT, quicker more nimble vehicles like the Armored Panther, and even COBRA vehicles such as the Hiss Tank.

Next up Play-sets. When selecting play-sets we wanted to bring to life all the scenarios you dreamed up using the toy figures in real life. For example a vast Desert Base (most likely you used a sand box?), to the Arctic Tundra (in my case this was approximated by an ice box. Sorry mom for spoiling all the food in the freezer during the summer of 86’, although the fight against COBRA was epic!) to a menacing COBRA Fortress (perhaps a couple of couch cushions?). The DS game has 21 missions spanning the jungle, desert, arctic, COBRA labs, fortresses, boss battles, interiors and exteriors. Now what are you going to do in each of those spaces? You’ll be carrying out infiltration rescue missions, adventuring through the desert taking down COBRA one bunker at a time, not to mention facing off against some deadly bosses. All these different types of missions keep the action fresh and unique even hours into the game.

I’ve saved the best for last and the reason you’re probably here….

COOOOOBBBRRRA! We really wanted to give the player the ability to not only play against COBRA but to play AS COBRA. In the single player game you get to play as five different COBRA characters including Destro, Cobra Commander, and Storm Shadow as they try to siege the G.I. JOE Pit. The action doesn’t end there! You can play up to four players in G.I. JOE vs. COBRA multiplayer. We really wanted to allow you to play up the G.I. JOE vs. COBRA fantasy. We have three unique multi-player game modes: Team Battle, Warhead, and Defend the Base. In Team Battle, taking an opponent down will earn you a point and the team with the highest score wins. In Warhead teams battle over escorting an armed Warhead to the opposing team’s base and then have to detonate it. Lastly in Defend the Base mode, teams take turns attempting to destroy the opposing team’s base.

G.I. JOE The Rise of Cobra is packed full of G.I. JOE goodness, there’s a lot of stuff hidden in that little piece of plastic. I think General Hawk would consider this mission a resounding success, and I hope you do too!

So, you want to be a member of G.I. JOE? You don’t ask to be in G.I. JOE, you’re asked. Here’s the deal – this August, the first person to send me a screenshot showing they achieved 100% complete in the DS game will get some cool swag from the G.I. JOE coffers, send pictures to: GIJOEDS@gmail.com BRING IT!

Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes details in the coming weeks.

Nick Pavlich is the Associate Producer working on G.I. JOE The Rise of Cobra video game releasing August 2009 alongside the live-action movie from Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment, in association with Hasbro. Launching on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS and PSP, G.I. JOE The Rise of Cobra is an accessible third person action-arcade shooter that allows players to recreate and relive the greatest moments from the film, cartoon series and action toy line.

Playstation 3 Screenshots for GI Joe

EA Have released some screenshots for GI Joe on the Playstation 3.



EA Has Revealed Unlockables in Upcoming GI Joe Game

EA Has released some screenshots showing some of the unlockables in their upcoming GI Joe Movie Tie-in game. they include Public Service announcements, Concept Art,and Information About Characters.