IRISH004
Posts: 3641
Joined: 1/6/2004
From: Winnipeg Canada
Status: online
|
 Gary Paterson (EA SPORTS Vancouver, FIFA09 Next Gen) Interview
-What’s news with the gameplay in FIFA09?
Where to start, there is so many new things in FIFA09. You may have read about the 250 improvements that we have made, some of them are small, some of them are much bigger but in effect every major feature of FIFA gameplay has been improved in some fashion. I guess the biggest changes can be grouped into 3 areas; Responsiveness, Physical Play and Intelligence,
- Responsiveness
Clearly an important concept for FIFA, responsiveness was one area that we and the community identified as needing some improvement in 08 so we devoted a lot of time to working on this. We spent time improving Dribble responsiveness to make sure that the time between pad direction change and players touching the ball was reduced, also adjusting how long the turns were so that you could transition out to another turn or into a pass. On passing and shooting we worked on time to touch but also on adding stretch and slide passes/shots to make sure that when you press the button the player will make every effort to get to the ball. The trapping system was also re-written to give the player more freedom and control of the ball, ensuring that you can move to or away from the ball also making controlling the ball and time between control and your next action (pass, shot, turn) faster.
- Physical Play
We spent a lot of time working on collisions, jostling and shielding this year and I am really happy with the way it turned out. We wanted to ensure that gamers could feel the strength and weight of the players and I think we succeeded in this. Jostling in particular feels really good, the visuals, the feeling and the outcome are all much better than before. Similarly with collisions, we added lots of new animations so that you could really feel the size and direction of the impact, the results can often be dramatic and very satisfying. Add to this the re-worked shielding and new in-air jostling system that allows you to battle for the ball while it is in the air and then allows your players to collide mid air, using attributers and positioning to determine the winner and I think we have a really strong physical play package this year.
- Intelligence
In FIFA you only control one player so it is important that the intelligence of the other 20 players on the field is strong. With this in mind we have spent a lot of time on player positioning and also on the GK. In positioning we added lots of new behaviours to the AI to ensure that they make the correct runs whether it be supporting the ball carrier sideways or backwards or making overlapping, curved or crossing zone runs. And to counter this we added defensive behaviours like covering, man-marking, double marking, swapping markers, position swapping etc… With the GK our aim was to ‘humanise’ him, by that I mean remove occasions where he was super-human and also occasions where he was a little stupid. Again we added lots of new AI that made the GK analyse the situation better, thus he makes decisions on whether to do anticipation saves, reflex saves, preparation saves, catches, parries or simply watch the ball as it sails over or wide of the goal. Finally, we have worked on the AI of the referee, making his decisions more realistic and consistent.
- And much more
Almost every aspect of FIFA gameplay has been altered or tweaked in some fashion, things that I can think of that I have yet to mention include:
1. Swerve Passes – good players will swerve some through balls to avoid the defender
2. Net Physics – has been tweaked to give a more satisfying bulge and recoil more realistically
3. Ball Physics – Has been tweaked to give more realistic in air behaviour, plus the addition of rain and snow effects
4. Through passes – Have been improved to assist the user and create some spectacular plays
5. Combo dribble turns – skilled players can perfrom very quick, fluid combinations of turns
6. Skill Moves – more responsive also new moves have been added
7. Outside of the foot shots
8. 100s of new Animations
9. Lay-off free-kicks
10. Custom Team Tactics
11. Slide Tackling – improved targeting logic to make them more useful
12. Jockey Pressing – a new feature which allows you to contain a possessor instead of diving into a tackle
13. Player Reactions – players will react to the plays, applauding or criticizing or pointing for passes
14. Referees – refs and linesmen are actually part of the game
15. etc…
Overall, we concentrated on all of the fundamentals of the game and rising their quality, we did not want to add any fancy new features until we were happy that the fundamentals were very, very solid. I think you will agree when playing that this was the correct decision.
|
Printable Version
FIFA Demo - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread