http://gamecube.gamezone.com/news/08_23_04_08_54AM.htm
Kickin’ It With FIFA Soccer 2005’s Dean Richards
by Louis Bedigian
“Expect as well to hear more accurate audio comments in career matches, about issues like new hires, players who recovered from injury, newly generated players, and much, much more!”
“Use your head!” parents say. It’s the most intelligent body part you have, depletes 20% of your energy, and is most important to your survival. Without it you’d be head-dead…(ahem)…brain-dead.
For soccer players, the head also functions as a great ball-hitting device.
Rather than get out there and risk damaging my corpus callosum, I’ll stay indoors, close all windows, and shut out any ounce of sunlight. There, that’s better! Now I am ready to play FIFA Soccer 2005.
Coming this fall with all the EA Sports extras you know and love and a whole lot more, FIFA Soccer 2005 looks to be the prettiest soccer game available. The detail is so high it’s crazy. And the huge list of game modes and gameplay features that Dean Richards gave to us – that’s even crazier!
FIFA Soccer 2004 introduced Off The Ball Control. In what ways has this system been enhanced for FIFA Soccer 2005?
Dean Richards (Production): The AI team enhanced the Off The Ball Control system by improving CPU and User player runs and focusing on the new passing system, making the lob and through ball passes more effective.
Are any new control features being added to the game?
DR: We have added a few gameplay controls to this year's game which adds to our gameplay depth and responsive controls. These are:
First Touch Control
New set of Freestyle Moves, includes Knock on and cancel knock on
New Tackle/Marking control
Low hard cross
Manual pass
Chip shot
Fake shot
Through lobs
Early cross
Fighting for the ball.
What can you tell us about the online features? Are they available to both PS2 and Xbox users?
DR: FIFA Online is available on PS2, Xbox and PC.
PS2 Online has seen major improvements over last year, all of them being carried into our Xbox Live feature:
Improved connectivity: the implementation of the demangler raises connection attempt success when users are behind routers
Improved Play Now: our quick search now uses a filter to find opponents (rank, disconnect %, connection type)
Quick Tournaments: no more wait time, play instantly
Improved Lobbies: access to created rooms can be filtered by password, rank, disconnect %
Improved cheating detection and punition
Voice Chat in the Interface in addition to game play
Career: collect online achievements and build your trophy case
What awesome realism.
The Career Mode gets deeper and deeper with each game in the series. Explain how it's evolved this time and why this is the best soccer game yet.
DR: Career Mode is a 15-season journey, with an economy based on manager prestige, staff upgrades and budget points. You start off choosing a low-level team available from 5 separate Regions and will receive offers from higher clubs as soon as your manager prestige grows. Our approach was to create a visually attractive 'pick up and play' mode that appeals to the casual gamer and has enough depth for the management-oriented gamer to go through the 15 seasons, vying for the hard-to-reach 5-star manager prestige level.
One of these visual innovations is our new Visual Sim which is a text simulation that allows you to intervene (actually enter into gameplay) if you are not satisfied with the way things are going for your team. Player's will grow and retire, and new players are generated to fill in their place. Expect as well to hear more accurate audio comments in career matches, about issues like new hires, players who recovered from injury, newly generated players, and much, much more!
These guys became soccer players after stumbling at Riverdance tryouts.
Many other game modes will be available in FIFA Soccer 2005 – what are they?
DR: Along with our regular Play Now flow we have the following:
Career Mode
Tournament Mode
Create Tournament
Practice Mode
New Create Player
Play Online - PS2, Xbox and PC
EA Sports™ Jukebox
My FIFA 2005 Store - Over 70 un-lockables!
My FIFA 2005 Trophy Room
Tell us about the new animation system, which reacts to every button press with authentic responsiveness.
DR: The new animation system allows the animators to adjust the speed, timing and blending of animations. This gives the animators more control over the look and feel of the game than ever before and in the end allows for more responsive controls to the user.
What did it take to create the new animation system? How much time was spent on it – how many artists / programmers were involved?
DR: It took a lot of manpower on both the animation and SE side to create the new animation system and because of that effort; it paid dividends for our animations seen in the game this year. The concept and prototyping phase for this year began with one animator, one programmer and at times grew as large as six programmers, six animators. We currently have over 6000 individual animation sequences in the game using this system.
Ahhhhh, more of EA’s famous lighting techniques in action.
FIFA Soccer 2005 goes way beyond other sports games, featuring more than 12,000 officially licensed players. How do you keep track of all them and ensure that each one has unique game statistics?
DR: We asked football minded people from all over the football world if they would be interested in sharing their unique football knowledge by adding the information of their favorite clubs and players into our database. From the masses of applications, the candidates who we felt boasted the best qualifications for the assignment came on board as "Managing Editors". Each Managing Editor would be assigned a League/Division to look after. Their role would be to put together a team of "Club Editors" (also contacted from the application forms) who would be assigned a group of teams to research.
To date, over 100 Managing Editors have joined us, with a further 200 Club Editors contributing to a database which now boasts over 27,000 players from over 1800 teams.
Now that the game is just a few months away from release, what are the last things you'll be doing in order to make sure the game is complete?
DR: Getting rid of bugs and polish, polish, polish.
We will also start pre-production planning for next year.
That’s ironic, ‘cause I’m already thinking about what next year’s game will be like
Thanks for your time Dean.
Kickin’ It With FIFA Soccer 2005’s Dean Richards
by Louis Bedigian
“Expect as well to hear more accurate audio comments in career matches, about issues like new hires, players who recovered from injury, newly generated players, and much, much more!”
“Use your head!” parents say. It’s the most intelligent body part you have, depletes 20% of your energy, and is most important to your survival. Without it you’d be head-dead…(ahem)…brain-dead.
For soccer players, the head also functions as a great ball-hitting device.
Rather than get out there and risk damaging my corpus callosum, I’ll stay indoors, close all windows, and shut out any ounce of sunlight. There, that’s better! Now I am ready to play FIFA Soccer 2005.
Coming this fall with all the EA Sports extras you know and love and a whole lot more, FIFA Soccer 2005 looks to be the prettiest soccer game available. The detail is so high it’s crazy. And the huge list of game modes and gameplay features that Dean Richards gave to us – that’s even crazier!
FIFA Soccer 2004 introduced Off The Ball Control. In what ways has this system been enhanced for FIFA Soccer 2005?
Dean Richards (Production): The AI team enhanced the Off The Ball Control system by improving CPU and User player runs and focusing on the new passing system, making the lob and through ball passes more effective.
Are any new control features being added to the game?
DR: We have added a few gameplay controls to this year's game which adds to our gameplay depth and responsive controls. These are:
First Touch Control
New set of Freestyle Moves, includes Knock on and cancel knock on
New Tackle/Marking control
Low hard cross
Manual pass
Chip shot
Fake shot
Through lobs
Early cross
Fighting for the ball.
What can you tell us about the online features? Are they available to both PS2 and Xbox users?
DR: FIFA Online is available on PS2, Xbox and PC.
PS2 Online has seen major improvements over last year, all of them being carried into our Xbox Live feature:
Improved connectivity: the implementation of the demangler raises connection attempt success when users are behind routers
Improved Play Now: our quick search now uses a filter to find opponents (rank, disconnect %, connection type)
Quick Tournaments: no more wait time, play instantly
Improved Lobbies: access to created rooms can be filtered by password, rank, disconnect %
Improved cheating detection and punition
Voice Chat in the Interface in addition to game play
Career: collect online achievements and build your trophy case
What awesome realism.
The Career Mode gets deeper and deeper with each game in the series. Explain how it's evolved this time and why this is the best soccer game yet.
DR: Career Mode is a 15-season journey, with an economy based on manager prestige, staff upgrades and budget points. You start off choosing a low-level team available from 5 separate Regions and will receive offers from higher clubs as soon as your manager prestige grows. Our approach was to create a visually attractive 'pick up and play' mode that appeals to the casual gamer and has enough depth for the management-oriented gamer to go through the 15 seasons, vying for the hard-to-reach 5-star manager prestige level.
One of these visual innovations is our new Visual Sim which is a text simulation that allows you to intervene (actually enter into gameplay) if you are not satisfied with the way things are going for your team. Player's will grow and retire, and new players are generated to fill in their place. Expect as well to hear more accurate audio comments in career matches, about issues like new hires, players who recovered from injury, newly generated players, and much, much more!
These guys became soccer players after stumbling at Riverdance tryouts.
Many other game modes will be available in FIFA Soccer 2005 – what are they?
DR: Along with our regular Play Now flow we have the following:
Career Mode
Tournament Mode
Create Tournament
Practice Mode
New Create Player
Play Online - PS2, Xbox and PC
EA Sports™ Jukebox
My FIFA 2005 Store - Over 70 un-lockables!
My FIFA 2005 Trophy Room
Tell us about the new animation system, which reacts to every button press with authentic responsiveness.
DR: The new animation system allows the animators to adjust the speed, timing and blending of animations. This gives the animators more control over the look and feel of the game than ever before and in the end allows for more responsive controls to the user.
What did it take to create the new animation system? How much time was spent on it – how many artists / programmers were involved?
DR: It took a lot of manpower on both the animation and SE side to create the new animation system and because of that effort; it paid dividends for our animations seen in the game this year. The concept and prototyping phase for this year began with one animator, one programmer and at times grew as large as six programmers, six animators. We currently have over 6000 individual animation sequences in the game using this system.
Ahhhhh, more of EA’s famous lighting techniques in action.
FIFA Soccer 2005 goes way beyond other sports games, featuring more than 12,000 officially licensed players. How do you keep track of all them and ensure that each one has unique game statistics?
DR: We asked football minded people from all over the football world if they would be interested in sharing their unique football knowledge by adding the information of their favorite clubs and players into our database. From the masses of applications, the candidates who we felt boasted the best qualifications for the assignment came on board as "Managing Editors". Each Managing Editor would be assigned a League/Division to look after. Their role would be to put together a team of "Club Editors" (also contacted from the application forms) who would be assigned a group of teams to research.
To date, over 100 Managing Editors have joined us, with a further 200 Club Editors contributing to a database which now boasts over 27,000 players from over 1800 teams.
Now that the game is just a few months away from release, what are the last things you'll be doing in order to make sure the game is complete?
DR: Getting rid of bugs and polish, polish, polish.
We will also start pre-production planning for next year.That’s ironic, ‘cause I’m already thinking about what next year’s game will be like
Thanks for your time Dean.
oh yea!!!