Today sports fans everywhere can pick up the newly named NCAA Basketball 09, from EA Sports, for the Xbox 360. We sat down with gameplay producer Connor Dougan to discuss the new title, some of it's features, and what to expect from the only college basketball video game in 2009. Check out the full interview below and stay tuned for our detailed review later this month.
What caused the name change from March Madness to NCAA Basketball 09?
As we all know college basketball is about so much more than the actual NCAA tournament. There’s so much more to the game, from preseason tournaments to conference play. We felt that our name didn’t reflect the sport as much as it should. It also was a good opportunity to align ourselves with NCAA football.
Now that NCAA Basketball 09 is the only college hoops game in town, what does it have to offer that College Hoops didn't or even March Madness? We looked at the opportunity this year to make a strong and lasting impression with college basketball fans because it was the first year for us on the EA SPORTS basketball engine. For the first time we are using a common basketball engine with the NBA LIVE and this has enabled us to bring over some of the features from LIVE and give them a college basketball spin, and because we ship later than LIVE we have used the additional development time to polish the features. This is in addition to creating new features exclusively for NCAA Basketball 09. What will make our game stand out this year is our new feature Game Tempo Control that features authentic styles of play, our new partnership with the National Association of Basketball Coaches that enabled us to put Division I coaches in the game for the first time, providing real time feedback on your performance, and our partnership with Blue Ribbon College Yearbook has enables us to create authentic team scouting reports and player attributes directly from the experts. A couple of other features I think will be well-received by the community is Rival Challenge, which will instantly match-make online games against your team’s rivals, the ability to save and upload video to EA Sports World and a robust file sharing feature set allowing the community to share rosters and game settings. With all these features together and the way we have captured the atmosphere and excitement of college basketball, we really feel like NCAA Basketball 09 is going to be a game consumers will enjoy playing.
How does the head coach feedback work in the game?
The coach feedback system is designed to give you advice in real time based on various factors such as: time and score, fatigue, how you’re playing based on our team style and your coaching points of emphasis. For example, we monitor player fatigue and if it drops below a certain point your coach will let you know that it’s time to make some subs. If the user’s team is an Up Tempo team and he isn’t playing at the right pace, then your coach will let you know about it. Additionally, if you need to press late in the game or need to go for a quick 2 for 1 then your coach will suggest that strategy. I should also mention that we have coaching points of emphasis that the user can select pre-game. You can select from numerous points of emphasis based on your Team’s Tempo. So If I’m a Halfcourt team I may choose “stop dribble penetration” as one of my points of emphasis. The coach will let me know how I’m doing.
Is everything editable on the players and coaches. Can we edit; names, class, height, weight, etc?
Everything is editable on players. With coaches you can change names, body type, clothing and likeness. We just don’t have a number that you can edit for weight and height.
Can you create a Tourney Bracket and allow the user to setup a NCAA Tourney with the Classic/All Time Teams?
Yes, we will have a tournament bracket that features Classic teams. We will be revealing the teams and bracket soon.
What are some online features?
This year we have an online feature we are calling Rival Challenge for instant match-making. You’ll see a map of the U.S. showing in real-time rivals of your team who are currently online which will enable instant match-making without the need to log in to online lobbies. It also build a sense of community as you will now know who’s online with you and it makes match making so much easier. The map also shows users playing with Top 25 teams, conference foes and your own team. Another feature is Online Everywhere Rival Icon that appears in the front end whenever you are online and a rival logs in. This enables you to quickly set up an online match. We’ve also done a lot of online optimization to ensure that our online play is lag free so you’ll see tremendous improvement there.
Will you be able to adjust the same slider set that is in NBA Live 09?
Yes definitely.
