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| Tornado, Feudin' and Ninja Season Arrives this
Week |
| September 28, 2009 at 5:46 pm |
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 ships out this week. Insert funny
ninja caption here.
How is it already 5:46 on Monday? We have some great
games coming out this week, but we're out of time to think of something
witty to say about them. So just check out the list below, and you'll have to
think of your own obscure Richard Dawson joke for
Family Feud 2010 Edition, or a
funny Disney reference for
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, or something about ninjas
being better than pirates for Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2,
or a joke about mixing up
fire safety with severe-weather safety and stopping, dropping and rolling for
Tornado Outbreak. We're sure you can come up with something. Remember, nothing
compares to your own imagination. The magic is you!
Monday, September 28
Midnight Club Los Angeles: Complete Edition for Xbox 360 and PS3.
Tuesday, September 29
Family Feud 2010 Edition for Wii, DS
and PC.
Deca Sports 2 for Wii.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 for Xbox 360.
Battle of Giants: Dragons for DS.
Imagine: Salon Stylist for DS.
Undead Knights for PSP.
Animal Kingdom: Wildlife Expedition for Wii.
My Sims Agents for Wii and DS.
Fallen Earth: Welcome to Apocalypse for PC.
BCFX: The Doug Williams Edition for Xbox 360.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for DS.
Tornado Outbreak for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.
The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road for DS.
Beaterator for PSP.
Wednesday, September 30
Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga for Wii.
Thursday, October 1
Dreamer: Top Model for DS.
Gran Turismo for PSP.
PSPgo.
Friday, October 2
Risen for PC.
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| Exclusive Interview with NBA LIVE 10's Mike Wang
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| September 23, 2009 at 3:36 pm |
Lead Gameplay Designer Mike Wang told us about the
hard work that goes into ensuring that your NBA LIVE 10 experince is the most
realistic yet.
Editor's Note: We recently submitted some questions to Mike Wang, Lead Gameplay Designer for
NBA LIVE 10,
and he was such a good sport about it that he answered every one of them, even
the silly ones. Check out our exclusive Q&A session with him
below.
How do you go about mimicking the playing styles and movements of
the players? We picture every NBA player dropping by your offices and donning a mocap suit in front
of a green screen, like when Andy Serkis played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, but that can't be
how it's done, right?
That's exactly how it's done, sans the green screen. We've had the privilege of having a number of NBA
players come through the studio throughout the years; so we have a pretty extensive animation library of
player-specific moves. For the guys who haven't been in yet, we bring in local talent, guys who've played
D-League or overseas, or ex-college players to do their best to mimic those NBA athletes.
Would Gollum make a good NBA player? He's small, but he's quick. If
you told him the ball was "The Precious," would he lead in rebounds? Or would he just get one rebound
and run away?
I think Gollum would struggle. He is quick and would probably be a decent ballhandler with those long
arms and giant hands. But his size would be a problem defensively, and he'd probably get tossed from
most games for biting people.
Andy Serkis also did the motion capture for King Kong. How would Shaq fare against Kong?
They're about evenly matched; so I could see this one going either way. In the end, I think it'd come down to free throws; so I'd have to give the edge to Kong.
How up-to-date are the stats that are brought into the game?
Thanks to our partnership with Synergy Sports Technology, our stats and tendencies are always made fresh daily through our Dynamic DNA feature.
Gone are the days of having outdated information on players the day you pick up the game.
Do you run into NBA players who comment on whether or not they think you captured their personalities and movements?
All the time. Playing NBA LIVE with different NBA players is one of the most enjoyable aspects of my job.
Everyone I've met so far has been really happy with how they're represented in LIVE. It's great to see their
personalities come through when they play, too. Baron Davis used his virtual self to throw dime after dime.
Danny Granger took just about every shot with his guy when he played the game at the launch party last year.
Dwight Howard was beasting with himself in the post. Rudy Gay and Andre Iguodala were slashing to the hole like crazy.
You get about half the guys playing the game like they play in real life and then the other half play the game
like they wished their coaches would allow them to.
Do you cringe every time a player gets a new tattoo in the off-season?
Our art team is really on top of that stuff. It's become a bit ridiculous how detailed the visuals have become in LIVE. You can even see the chest tats on Bron peeking through the jersey.
What percentage of a consoles processing power is devoted to rendering players' neck tattoos?
There are a lot of neck tattoos. We always reserve at least 15-20% of our rendering engine power to accommodate everyone accurately.
Because NBA LIVE 10 reflects the strengths and weaknesses of actual players, does it help a gamer's performance if he or she is familiar with the real NBA?
More so this year than ever before. When we see people pick up LIVE 10 for the first time, just about
everybody struggles the first couple of games adapting to the new controls and style of gameplay — especially
if they try to play LIVE like they have in the past. Playing fundamental basketball is so important in this year's
game, you can't expect to just run around with one player and crossover your way to the basket for the dunk on every
possession like you could before. LIVE 10 really rewards sound basketball strategy and using your players' real-life
strengths to succeed. But yeah, we've had several guys in our focus groups who aren't that familiar with NBA video
games, but who were big basketball heads, jump right into LIVE 10 and find success early on. That's one thing I'm
really proud of with this year's game. With LIVE 10, you have to think and play basketball — not video game basketball.
Can you tell us a little bit about the size-up moves and hustle plays?
The size-up moves came from a trend I was noticing when watching guys go 1-on-1 in the mocap studio.
Guys don't always try to beat their defender with the first step. Sometimes they "set them up" with a
few in-place dribble moves to get them off balance or to get them back on their heels so they can attack
off the bounce or pull up for a jumper. This is exactly what the size-up move is intended to do. As for hustle plays,
it's something that's been lacking in LIVE for a while now. Whenever the ball got knocked loose in previous
ersions, guys would jog over to it nonchalantly to pick it up or just watch it roll out of bounds. In LIVE 10, they'll
hit the floor and wrestle it away from each other, tip it to teammates, or attempt to save the ball out of bounds.
It really adds a lot more excitement and energy to the game and really helps improve the flow.
Even in watching real basketball games, people get on the edge of their seat whenever they see a hustle play
develop because they know those broken 50/50 plays usually end up in big breakaway dunks. Now the same thing happens in LIVE.
The game description says NBA LIVE 10 uses “authentic team-specific playbooks from every NBA team?” How do you get your hands on those plays? Do you break into teams' offices at night? Our office is close to Dallas, and we're pretty stealthy, if you need any help with that.
NBA LIVE 10 is the FIRST NBA game to offer real, authentic team playbooks, and it's an aspect of our game that
we're really excited about. Our sources at the NBA who helped us out with the playbooks wished to remain
anonymous for obvious reasons. But no, we didn't have to break any laws to get them. Of course, if you want to
get the official Mavs playbook for us we'll trade you for a free copy of the game.
Is it true that the Clippers playbook was written on the back of a Del Taco napkin?
The original one was… yes.
How many hours does your development team spend trying to recreate the perfection that is Adam Morison's mustache?
We devoted a team of artists to Adam Morrison's player model this year, as some guys just need that kind of attention. It took about two months to properly model the 'stache
and then another month tuning the textures and lighting. It was definitely a lot of work, but we feel that the game wouldn't have been complete without the most
accurate representation possible with today's technology. That being said, there's always room for improvement. As we prepare for NBA LIVE 11, we already have dedicated
central team resources creating a new mustache and body hair engine that all EA sports games will be able to take advantage of in the future.
It should also give us the much requested armpit hair feature as well as individually modeled nose and ear hair, which in my opinion, is clearly the future of sports games.
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| Have we Mentioned that Too Many Games to Mention are Coming? |
| September 18, 2009 at 4:25 pm |
Did we mention Halo 3: ODST drops this week?
So many games are shipping out this week that we don't even have
the space to mention them.
Well, Halo 3: ODST is coming
Tuesday. We have to mention that one. And if we're mentioning Halo 3: ODST, we should probably mention that you can attend
a midnight opening at one of these stores to pick up your copy at precisely 12:01 a.m. Tuesday morning.
We should also mention that the visually stunning world of the Massively
Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game Aion begins shipping Monday. Yes, we
realize that MMORPG would have been much shorter, but it's bad form to use an
abbreviation on first reference, which reminds us that we probably should
have mentioned earlier that ODST stands for "Orbital Drop Shock Trooper." But we really don't have the space to mention anything else.
Maybe we can squeeze in a short mention of Katamari Forever for PS3, but that's
it. Oh, because autumn officially begins this week, and most hunting seasons are in autumn, we can work in a quick mention of
Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2010.
It really wouldn't be fair to mention hunting without mentioning fishing. So
we'll use a little more space to mention Rapala We Fish. You know, we should
probably go ahead and mention all of the games coming out next week. By the way,
we should mention that the word "mention" and its various forms appear here
21
times. We just thought that was worth mentioning. You could make a game out of
finding them all, which reminds us to mention that Where's Waldo? is also
shipping this week. Check out those, not to mention many others, in the list
below.
Monday, September 21
Aion for PC.
Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection for Xbox 360 and PS3.
Just in Time Translation for DS.
Fabulous Finds for DS.
Tuesday, September 22
(Street Dated) Halo 3: ODST for Xbox 360.
Wacky World of Sports for Wii.
The Price is Right 2010 Edition for Wii, DS and PC.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 for PSP.
Hidden Mysteries Titanic for Wii and DS.
Family Party: 30 Great Games Outdoor Fun for Wii.
Spyborgs for Wii.
Rapala We Fish for Wii.
Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2010 for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.
Scooby Doo: First Frights for Wii, DS and PS2.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up for Wii, DS and PS2.
Order of War for PC.
Animal Kingdom: Wildlife Expedition for Wii.
Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion for DS.
Where's Waldo? for Wii, DS and PC.
Fallen Earth: Welcome to Apocalypse for PC.
Katamari Forever for PS3.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona for PS2.
Wednesday, September 23
Squeeballs Party for DS.
Hardy Boys: The Hidden Theft for Wii.
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| Here Comes the Game, Doot 'n Doo Doo,
and We Say, "It's All Right" |
| September 4, 2009 at 4:25 pm |
Game, game, game, here it comes, on
Wednesday.
Little darlin', it feels like years since it
was announced, but here comes the game — The Beatles: Rock Band
hits stores Wednesday, September 9. We just can't resist making those
song-lyric puns. We also can't resist the opportunity to write, "Doot
'n Doo Doo" in a headline. The Beatles always pushed the
envelope, both musically and visually. So it's fitting that their
legacy would continue in video-game form. If you're a fan of The
Beatles, you owe it to yourself to experience them like this. If
you're not a fan, this game could convert you. Of course, it's not the only
game arriving next week. Check out the others below.
Monday, September 7
War Leaders: Clash of Nations for
PC.
Tuesday, September 8
Mini Ninjas
for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS and PC.
Imagine: Detective for DS.
Go Play City Sports for Wii.
Dirt 2 for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS and PSP.
Capcom Platinum Hits Triple Pack for Xbox 360.
Time of Shadows for PC.
Qubed for Xbox 360.
Little Big Planet Game Of The Year for PS3.
IL 2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey for DS and PSP.
Little Big Planet Game Of The Year for PS3.
Ant Nation for DS.
Trine for PC.
Darkest of Days for Xbox 360 and PC.
Fallen Earth: Welcome to Apocalypse for PC.
Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days for PSP.
Wednesday, September 9
(Street Dated) The Beatles: Rock Band for Xbox 360, PS3.
Friday, September 11
My Virtual Tutor Reading:
pre K - K for DS.
My Virtual Tutor Reading:
K - 1st for DS.
My Virtual Tutor Reading: 1st - 2nd for DS.
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