It’s finally my time of the year to launch a new game for you to enjoy. This time last year it was Ultimate Team, for which incidentally we’ve just won two internal EA awards for the game concept. I hope you’ll all going to be getting the sequel when it launches very soon, I certainly can’t wait to start building a team again having seen what Paul Hossack’s team have been doing to the game.
I moved on from Ultimate Team and am proud to present to you the game of the summer, EA SPORTS 2010 FIFA World Cup. Come June 11th we’ll all be glued to our televisions trying to watch as many matches as possible, alienating our girlfriends and hoping that this year will be our year! Well England fans will be hoping, the Spanish will be quietly confident and the Brazilians will be expecting to win it; as usual.
Thursday at Stamford Bridge, I will have the privilege to show the game to media and watch people play it for the first time. For all of you who were not there, here’s your chance to see what we’ve been working on.
I’m sure there are some thinking why should they bother buying the game if they already have FIFA 10? In this first blog I will address this and attempt to dispel some myths. Let me explain.
The first inevitable myth around the game will be…. “Well it’s just FIFA 10, made to look a bit different.” It’s true that if you’ve played FIFA 10 and liked it then you’ll like this. Because we take all that is good about FIFA 10 and then make it better. After all when you have the best game, you build on it with each new release. But EA SPORTS 2010 FIFA World Cup goes much further and is special.
Firstly you’ll notice how good it looks. It looks really good. In a way we’re lucky in that we get to tell a story and we know it’s all building to the climatic ending in Soccer City on July 11. Since we know the ending and there is just one ending, we can put together a bunch of great visual features to support the run to the final. Take a look at the images and you’ll see things such as:
· A gorgeous new pitch – our pitch simply wasn’t good enough, so we’ve made it look superb.
· Lighting of the players & environment – clever changes to the lighting makes everything look more realistic.
· Camera flashes – you’ll see all the fans in the crowd using their cameras.
· Seat cards – fans hold up cards to form national flags and emblems in a show of patriotism.
· Fans – close up shots on supporters cheering on their team or despairing in anguish.
· Confetti – rains down from the sky in the team colours and stays on the pitch all game.
· Streamers – create a carnival atmosphere as they glide to the ground.
· Populated benches – characters sat on the benches rather than being empty.
· Broadcast graphics – the same captions you’ve seen in FIFA tournament broadcasts.
· Close up celebration camera – to really feel the goal scoring moment the camera zooms in close to the player as he responds to your celebration commands.
· New player & managers – more content for star heads and many of the team managers. Capello looks brilliant & Peter Crouch no longer looks like a naughty elf.
When you get hold of the game will you be able to truly appreciate the improvements in visuals that have been made.
Anyone still cynical will be thinking “ok it looks good, but I won’t get to play in a different way, will I….”
As this is the first blog in the series, I’m not going to talk about everything quite yet. However we have included a few innovations and also looked to provide depth in the game modes to keep you totally engaged and give you many challenges to tackle.
Talking of innovation, how does this sound? For the first time ever, we have managed to get the entire finals tournament online – and you’ll always be matched up against real competitors and never playing the AI! You’ll choose your team, and then play the three group matches, attempting to finish in the top two and then heading into the knockout phase where you’re four wins away from lifting the FIFA World Cup Trophy amidst a cacophony of confetti cannons and fireworks on a cool Johannesburg night. Without a doubt it’s the most exciting online mode we’ve put together and the perfect way to build up to a match on tv, or carry on the experience after a broadcast.
Consider how the group stage is a unique chance to think tactically too, as it’s all about getting into the top two teams. Assuming you arrive at the third group game still in contention, we’ll be providing score updates from the other game in your group that is being played at the same time and so your need to win, draw or even qualify with a defeat can change in an instant for both you and your opponent. That alone makes it the most intense slice of online football gaming we’ve ever delivered. And this is even before you even have to start to worry about knockout football with extra time and the dreaded penalty shootouts!
The online tournament is also linked to Battle of Nations where every win you have counts towards the country you support so we can find out which country has the best football gamers. You’ll get more points for winning matches with weaker teams, so if you think you’re good try to win the Online FIFA World Cup with a terrible team and if you win matches you’ll get a bunch of points towards proving your nation’s gamers are better than everyone else’s. Recent evidence from UEFA Euro 2008 and last year’s FIFA Interactive World Cup suggests that the French are the best. Can that be true? I remain to be convinced, so I encourage you to get behind your nation and play to win. Each time you load the game our commentators will update you on the latest standings so you know if you need to head into battle!
In other news we’ve got all of the 199 teams in the game who took part in the qualifying for the tournament. Some other FIFA member nations have been a bit naughty or didn’t enter the tournament so they were not eligible to be included. But regardless 199 teams is a crazy amount of teams and helps us get really deep with the tournament mode. Naturally in the offline 2010 FIFA World Cup mode you are able to pick any of these 199 and play through the qualifying tournament from each confederation to experience what it was like to qualify for the likes of Cameroon, New Zealand, Honduras, Chile, Slovenia or North Korea. We’ve even gone to the trouble of creating an amazing 3D globe where you have total freedom to navigate the world using the right stick to select teams for Kick Off matches, look at who is currently connected to the game from each country and catch up on the latest news from each nation via a visual feed from our friends at FIFA.com. As someone on the team remarked, “we should license this to every school in the world, I know so much more about countries now!” Personally I think he should travel a bit more, but it does make the mundane task of picking teams a lot more fun.
At this point I can’t get too carried away, so I can’t say any more about innovation and depth at the moment. Next time for sure.
Back to those who may have been unconvinced. At this point you’re probably thinking “Ok, so it looks great, and admittedly I like the sound of playing the whole 2010 FIFA World Cup online, but it’s just using FIFA 10 gameplay, so no way…”
It’s not FIFA 10 gameplay. It’s World Cup gameplay, with many enhancements to the fundamentals of gameplay from that you are currently playing with. I’ll make the assumption that if you’re reading this you’re a serious football gamer, so let’s concentrate on just some of the many significant improvements.
In case you didn’t know, the gameplay team make all of our gameplay, regardless of whether it’s FIFA 10, 2010 FIFA World Cup or future football games. So as soon as FIFA 10 was over we sat down and worked out how we could improve what we had. It was very amusing to read so many reviews wondering how we could improve on FIFA 10 as the hardcore players know there is always room to improve and we are totally dedicated to making our games better and better and better.
So here are a few of the improvements you’ll get in World Cup.
Responsiveness:
· New chest traps that allow you do chest the ball in the direction you want to go rather than having to take mid air touches after a chest to change direction.
· The ability to let a ball drop over your shoulder and move off in the direction of ball travel. Great for preserving momentum with lofted through balls.
· Improved the problem of trapping the ball too far and being ‘stunned’ then taking too long to go and dribble the ball.
· Defensively players will now clear an aerial ball rather than do a chest trap first when you are asking for a clearance.
+ many more
Goalkeeper:
· Improved the ‘narrowing down the angle’ logic so the keeper doesn’t come out so soon and so far, making him vulnerable to the chip shot.
· Ability to change his save direction if there is a deflection.
· Added variety to punching which results in punches sometimes not clearing the ball out of danger.
+ many more
CPU Teams:
· Added more skill moves for the CPU to use depending on a player’s flair attribute or trait.
· Better understanding of game context and situation, resulting in more intelligent changes of tactics/mentality.
· Manager now looks at who he has as subs and will attempt to give star players on the bench some playing time (i.e. Fabregas for Spain; Pato for Brazil). Previously he would rely solely on match rating and fatigue, leading to unrealistic substitutions or the same one over and over again.
+ many more
Positioning:
· Teammates will now take more factors into account when looking into space inside the box when they are making a run for a cross to be delivered. I can verify how exciting this is having seen the way that Emile Heskey bulldozed his way onto the end of a cross in Andorra the other day.
· Improved marking for when the CB pushes up to the ball possessor when he shouldn’t, leaving the team vulnerable to an easy through ball and 1-1 with the GK.
+ many more
Shooting:
· Improved the realism of where players strike the ball to give more off centre strikes leading to more swerve and variety in ball trajectory.
· Changed the chip shot to make it more challenging and also to improve the feel of it – more backspin, better trajectory.
+ many more
Passing
· Added personality to crosses to allow better players to put in more driven crosses into the box.
· Added chest and shoulder passes.
· Lowered the amount of power you can get on backwards crosses and backwards lofted through balls, forcing you to roughly have to face the way you want to pass it to for these types of kicks to succeed.
+ many more
Set Pieces
· Ability to trigger a teammate run on a quick free kick.
· Lowered the likelihood of the CPU scoring from FKs, they were too good.
+ many more
Then are also brand new features for gameplay. I am allowed to mention that each team will play differently at home or away if under CPU control. For example Northern Ireland are great at Windsor Park, so they are way harder to beat there than they are on their travels. That makes qualifying for the World Cup Finals feel much more realistic as you can beat the smaller nations at home quite easily, but away from home you may have an unexpected battle on your hands.
Then there is altitude. Some of the venues in South Africa are above 1500m, that’s high and if you are not used to it then it hurts to play at that height. This is why England are going to train in Austria in the Alps before they fly to South Africa. So for games high up teams who are not used to the conditions will find their stamina isn’t as good as it would be near to sea level. Then in South America you have Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador. They are really high up, especially Bolivia where La Paz is over 4000m. One of the most memorable results from qualifying was when Argentina got totally spanked 6-1 in La Paz. They just couldn’t handle the altitude in terms of stamina and also the balls flies a bit faster and straighter since there is less air resistance. All this is in the game!
So now to that undecided FIFA 10 player. You’ve seen that World Cup looks better than any football game you’ve seen. You know that you can play it in a way you never have before. Most importantly you know that we’re making a big effort to ensure it will play better than any other football game you’ve owned.
Over the course of a few more blogs, I’ll tell you about more features and give you even more reason to want to run down to the shop at the end of April and get hold of the game of the summer.
Until next time, thanks for reading.
Simon Humber, Line Producer,
FIFA World Cup 2010
2010 FIFA World Cup – Producer Blog #1
Simon Humber
Line Producer
EA SPORTS 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa
Simon Humber is line producer of EA SPORTS 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, an event title that EA SPORTS has developed every four years since 1998.
In his role as line producer, Humber is responsible for the strategic and creative direction of the game, determining the gameplay innovations and setting the quality targets from pre-production right through to final product quality. Humber also manages the development team made up of talented software engineers, animators, artists, designers and directors, all of whom are passionate football fans.
A native of Shanklin, Isle of Wight, Humber grew up a passionate supporter of Portsmouth, fondly recalls when the Pompey faithful were rewarded with promotion to the Premiership and hopes this season they can avoid relegation and financial meltdown. His favourite times were watching the incredible partnership between Paul Walsh and Guy Whittingham back in the early 90s.
A graduate of Kingston University with a Bachelor of Science degree (Honours) in Business Information Technology, Humber joined EA in 2004 to finalize development of Total Club Manager 2005 (PS2/Xbox) and has worked on many EA SPORTS football games since, including FIFA Manager 2006 (PC), FIFA 07 (Xbox 360) UEFA EURO 2008 (PS3/X360) and FIFA 09: Ultimate Team (PS3/X360). Prior to joining EA Humber worked in London for Kuju Entertainment and Virgin Interactive Entertainment.
Humber has been a life-long gamer and enjoys FIFA Ultimate Team and GTA. He lives in Vancouver with his partner and two-year-old son.
