NCAA March Madness 08
If you lined up 10 college basketball games, how exactly would you tell them apart? Would it be motion capture work or slick TV re-creation? Would you notice players decked out in custom clothes, or would the excited verbiage of the announcers grab your attention first? Well EA is betting that it knows what exactly the players want.
Two major distinguishing factors separate NCAA March Madness 08 from the rest, according to Novell Thomas, associate producer at EA. “Last year we laid the foundation. This year, our focus is on the inside game and individual player customization,” he explained. “For the last two years the best college teams had excellent inside games, so we’re working from the inside out, just like they do. We’re creating a realistic and legit inside game.”
Utilizing the big man as the team focus, EA Vancouver’s dynamic post control feature will refresh college gamers with new moves, animation, and strategy. As quick as the words come from his mouth, Thomas shows me the new post moves. Passing the ball to a tall skinny sophomore with a t-shirt under his jersey and a large afro, he demonstrates how the center can catch, face the opponent, lean down, and pivot while the palmed ball swings to and fro beneath his knees; how he can lean in, fake left, pivot, and shoot utilizing spin moves; or quickly jump up and under the opponent and the basket for a dunk. The motion capture work, as always, is clean and near realistic, and animations are short, smooth, and blend into one another.
“There are at least 15 to 20 new shot animations across the board, from inside shots to outside shots,” explains Thomas. “Our game encourages gamers to play realistically. We followed teams like Ohio State and their inside game.”
EA plans to distinguish player moves by their physical attributes and play styles. Every player will perform distinct moves based on their personal characteristics. If an athlete has great footwork and hands, he’ll slip past opponents with sleek gliding moves. If strong and powerful, he’ll lean in, hook or slam in dunks à la young Shaquille O’Neal. A few of the moves consist of jump hooks, sky hooks, drop steps, and power dribbles. EA also worked on a new tutorial that introduces these new offensive and defensive moves–from fronting opponents to using body weight to force opponents out of their drives. EA still has a month before the game ships and in that time, one of the elements it’s working on is player ratings. “The ratings aren’t tuned yet, but we still have a month to finish it,” Thomas admits. NCAA March Madness 08 ships to stores December 18.
As part of that tuning process, EA will ramp up the framerate for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions to 60, and keep it there. Smart gamers will take advantage of their momentum using “Team Intensity Control,” riding blocked shots, steals, and multiple shots and the momentum they generate with the crowd to increase their probabilities–all of which affect each player based on their distinct characteristics. Thomas was straight forward about the PS2 version. “It’s called the Gold edition, and it’s not like these next-gen versions at all. The PS2 version has updated rosters and stats; that’s it.”
