EA Sports Producer Tour Report

We visit the sports giant to find out what to expect from the new Madden, Tiger Woods, NBA Live and NHL games out this autumn.

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NBA Live 08

NBA Live producer Julien Carron is well aware that last year's game wasn't exactly what fans of the series wanted. Looking back on the game, he freely admits that the team got lost in trying to do too much, by adding too many things that players didn't even notice and fiddling too much with the formula. NBA Live 08 is the EA Canada team's letter of apology to fans, a showing of refocus on gameplay above all.

Because of the speed of play of a typical NBA game, one of the most important changes might be the interruptible animations. In past games, players have had animations that had to complete, meaning you were powerless for fractions of a second at a time. Not good if there's a giant forward coming right at you. The team has spent a lot of time working on making the whole game flow more smoothly. You can dribble (in various styles) and quickly mix things up, to keep your opponents (AI or human) on their toes. Most importantly, the various moves all flow smoothly into one another, eliminating some of that stacato jerkiness that plagued previous iterations.

When it comes time to take a shot, NBA Live's new shooting system comes into effect. In past games, players were ranked in their skills in five different zones that made up the shooting area. That's now been bumped to 14. Using data straight from the NBA, EA has profiled every player in the game, nailing down which parts of the court they shoot well from and which parts they're bad from. Don't worry, you don't have to keep all those stats in your head. Using one of the shoulder buttons you can quickly throw up a coloured grid that is overlayed on the court in real-time, giving you an instant visual cue as to the shooting strengths and weaknesses of the player you're controlling.

The shot-taking mechanics have been simplified somewhat. There used to be three animations, depending on whether you released early, late or just at the right time. Now there's just one. More important is the change in ball physics, which allows for more realistic arching shots and dribbling. All of this helps EA hit the sweet spot, which Carron says is for you to be able to play the game with your brain rather than with your fingers.

But there's still room for flair on the court. The developers have zeroed in on around 40 of the top players in the NBA and given them so-called Go To moves. These are idiosyncratic moves real-life players show on the court, whether that's how they take jump shots or how they dribble. Pulling them off is a no-brainer. Carron showed me how to take a stylized jump shot for one of the players simply by pressing on one of the stick while taking a shot. There's room for more, too, as the signature moves that were in previous games is back again.

It all looks great too. Just like Madden 08, the game runs at 60 frames per second on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Another trick borrowed from the NFL game is actual muscular deformation. This lets you see every sinew in the players' arms, adding to their more realistic look. They don't act like zombies either. They'll keep their eyes on the ball, and spur each other on as they run to the hoop.

The Wii version uses the same Family mode setup as mentioned for Madden 08. This allows you to play with just the Wii remote, letting you control passing and shots but otherwise leaving the movement of players on the court to the AI. Once you've got the hang of that, you can simply plug in the nunchuck and palm more control over matters. The players and the stadiums are, as you would expect, poor in comparison with those in the bigger brothers, but at least the court looks nice, since it's taken straight from the high-level iterations.

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