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Brent View Drop Down
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    Posted: 07-23-2008 at 12:58pm
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/37365.html


http://www.easports.com/nbalive09/news.jsp?cat=blogs&newsId=pb723

NBA LIVE 09 Producer Blog -- Gameplay

Hey everyone, this is Matt here to give you an overview on what we're doing with gameplay this year. Like Brian mentioned in his previous blog, gameplay is our top priority and we've spent the majority of our effort here. There's been a ton of details about gameplay already posted on the message boards by community guys, so I'll try my best not to regurgitate everything that?s already been said. I'm just going to hop right in on what our focus has been this year and let you know where we're at.

Game Within The Game

First and foremost, we wanted to make sure our game was fun...on both ends of the court. At the beginning of the year we came up with the philosophy of having a "game within the game". Every offensive action needed to have a defensive counter so that you can finally be pro-active on defense and try to dictate the action. There needed to be a constant battle back and forth so that you stay immersed in the game. Nothing is more frustrating than making a bucket on one end, and not being able to stop your man on the other end no matter what you tried. As simple as it sounds, we had to start grouping things together to ensure we had balance: Shots with Blocks, Passes with Interceptions, Freestyle with Defensive Hops, Rebounds with Box-Outs, etc. If we found that one side was too strong compared to the other we had to strengthen the other side. So, we re-wrote blocks to help balance out the power of shots and dunks. We added a bunch of interception animations to help defend passes. We added new defensive counters to stop spins and drop-steps in the post. And most notably we added in our lockdown defense to help stop freestyle and first steps. As the game has evolved this year we've seen a fun offensive-minded game turn into a fun basketball game. People are enjoying playing defense because we've given you ways to be successful. It feels so good working hard on the defensive side of the court and forcing a shot clock violation because the offense can't get a clean look.

Adding In Highlights

All new dunks. All new blocks. All new signature jumpers. Players landing on the floor. Players colliding with each other in the air. Defenders bodying up ball-carriers and forcing turnovers. We definitely wanted to create a bunch of highlight moments and we've added in thousands of animations to help us accomplish that. This has allowed us to be as authentic as possible. The NBA is home to the most freakish athletes in the world, so we need to make sure that our game highlights these players abilities properly.

Authenticity

Of course we have signature animations like shots, dunks, and celebrations. But, we've also spent a ton of time making each player have a more distinct brain on the court and teams play like their real life counterparts. This is a pretty big area for us this year and could easily take up its own blog so we'll write about it later. I'm sure Jeff will talk about it in greater depth with his write-up so I don't want to steal his thunder. Rest assured that this will be the most detailed and authentic NBA Live ever in terms of our A.I.

New Features



Jeff will be getting into more detail on this later and how it all works, but I will tell you that this is my favorite feature this year. Since I'm a Nash fan (it's the Canadian in me) I play with the Suns a lot and constantly run ball screens with Amare. Depending on how the D is playing me I can try to pick them apart with slips, rolls or pops, or even the occasional alley-oop. It's my bread and butter right now.

Lockdown Defense:

Going back to the whole 'fun' aspect we want defense to be fun. We also want to make sure great on-ball defenders in the NBA like Bowen and Artest are huge assets to have in Live. The better the defender the easier it will be for them to lock their man down. I hate using clichés, but everyone knows defense wins championships. This year you?ll be able to win games due to your ability to play tough D by getting up into your man and try to force him away from the basket, force him into a tough shot, force him to pass the ball, or even be able to steal the ball or take a charge. Jeff will get into this more when he writes his blog.

Signature Play Calling:

Teams not only have authentic sets, but they have multiple options that highlight the stars on the court. So, if I'm running with the Lakers and have them set up in their Triangle, I can choose to run it through Kobe, Odom or Pau. If those guys are off the court you'll have to run it through other guys like Vujacic or Bynum. Based on who's on the floor we change up the plays so that you always focus on the top players on the court and utilize their strengths. We'll give you the option of selecting from 8 plays to run for your team by holding down the Left Bumper to bring up your play calling menu. Or, you can quickly push the 'Y' button to run the best play for your team at that time. It?s basically an 'Ask Madden' type feature that lets you play authentically without having to think too much about what you should be running.

Quickstrike Ankle Breakers:

Going back to the whole game within the game philosophy, we wanted to give quicktrike a game purpose and also allow the defense to stop it. The purpose on offense is that now you?ll be able to set a man up, try to leave him flat footed and drive by him. Defensively you can now jump in front of a guy trying to dribble by you and prevent him from getting to the rim. So, we?ve added the concept of dribble moves with these big hesitation poses at the end of them. This pose is basically your set-up move. Once you are in that pose your defender needs to get ready to react. You can explode left or right to try and get to the rim. Defensively, if you are able to jump in front of him on his first step you get a body on him and force him away from the hoop. If you guess wrong you get your ankles broken. Most of the time you'll stumble and have an opportunity to recover. But, other times you might end up on the ground a la Antonio Daniels versus A.I.

Fundamentals

And, we obviously continue our major focus on the fundamentals of the game: Dunks, rebounds, passes, shots, locomotion, team offense and defense, ball-carrier logic, etc. This is definitely the biggest area of our focus in gameplay and consumes most of our time. In addition to the new features we've put in, which are for the most part "fundamentals" features, we've overhauled dunks, blocks, defensive A.I., plays, ball-carrier logic, passing, rebounds, shots, and more. We've pumped in new animations and have created a more fluid and organic game. With all the work we've done this year my favorite thing about Live is that it really allows you to utilize your team's strengths and play any style of you'd like. The guy who sits next to me is killing with the Celtics now because he plays in inside-outside game where he dumps the ball to KG in the post and kicks it out to Allen or Pierce for threes. I already said I stick with the Pick & Roll game with the Suns. The guy on the other side of me plays Kobe-ball with the Lakers and just Iso's out of the Triangle all day long. One of the NCAA producers just posts up non-stop with his teams. All in all, there?s so much to do in our game this year that you can play any way you like to try and win...and it's fun.

Finally, just wanted to thank the guys that have been up here recently to give us feedback on the build. We had the two finalists from the NBA Live Challenge in for a couple of days to play the game non-stop about a month ago. And, most recently, brought in eight guys from the Community to ask questions, play the game and tell us what they thought. We've been able to address a lot of the things that were brought up from a gameplay standpoint, like rebounds and passes, and it was nice getting honest and constructive impressions of the game.

Upcoming Fight Night Champion, MLB 2K11, Top Spin 4
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