Q&A: NBA Live’s online five-on-five

This has been a strong year for EA Sports. In addition to raking in piles of cash with entries in its juggernaut Madden NFL and NCAA Football franchises, games like NHL 08 and the recently released NBA Live 08 have met with both commercial success, as well as critical acclaim, which is something the NBA Live franchise has been struggling with for some time.

On top of that, after suffering criticism for its subpar online sports efforts for years, EA Sports finally seems to be jumping into the online pool with both feet. Both NHL 08 and NBA Live 08 support online leagues for the first time in both franchise’s history. Today, the publisher is announcing a free patch to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation versions of Live 08 that will allow online team play for up to 10 players on different consoles. That’s something that basketball fans have been hoping for since the advent of online play in console hoops games.

The new feature will allow online team play for up to 10 players, with artificial intelligence players filling in open positions. Naturally, voice chat will be available and isolated from the opposing team. Final details on the size of the patch and release details are still in the works, but EA representatives have said the patch should be available in mid-to-late November. To get more details on the new online team play feature, we spoke with Julien Carron, online producer with EA Canada.

If Its Games: Before we get into the news, let’s talk a bit about NBA Live 08. First, how did you feel about the final product and how has fan response been for the game so far?

Julien Carron: We are really proud of the work we did to get NBA Live 08 to where it is today. We went back to the drawing board and started with the fundamentals of five-on-five gameplay to get a solid foundation set for the franchise. We then layered on some new features that added complexity and authenticity to the game–and some additional innovations at dynasty and online for depth. Most importantly, we made a game that is fun to play. We are getting a great response from our fans and are turning heads of those not loyal to our franchise as well.

IIG: The series has obviously made a leap in quality this year. In your opinion, what’s the biggest improvement to this year’s game?

JC: The biggest improvement to our game has to be the solid fundamentals. Our game plays great–and that’s really the key.

IIG: What facet or feature did you want in Live 08 that didn’t make it in?

JC: Online team play is the only major feature [that] did not make it in time in the final game. We were very close but felt like it was not quite ready, and we did not want to disappoint our fans. So we made the decision to wait until it was ready.

IIG: Tell us about the online team play patch. Will players be able to lock in their positions in the menu before a game begins?

JC: Yes, in the online team play flow, one of the screens is dedicated to player lock for every player. Focusing on one player with or without the ball is in line with our vision of what online gaming will be in the near future.

IIG: For games that feature fewer than 10 players, will there be player switching or will you be locked into position? Also, have you had to do any AI tweaks to help AI opponents deal with human players?

JC: For player locking, the user will have the choice. If he decides to lock on a player, he’ll be locked regardless of the number of users on the team. If he decides not to lock to a position, he’ll be able to swap between non-locked players as long as there are not five users per team. Obviously, if there are five users on a team, each user will be locked to a player. We did not do many AI tweaks for year one, but we’re definitely focusing on this for NBA Live 09.

IIG: From your point of view, how does having 10 “real” players on the court change the dynamics of the game?

JC: From our point of view, it’s a revolutionary change. You are replacing artificial intelligence with human intelligence. This adds an element of unpredictability that creates emotion and excitement. This is why user versus user games are so addictive. And by multiplying this by 10, we are giving you a whole new experience.

IIG: Will you be able to play five-on-five games in online leagues?

JC: Unfortunately, this [is] unavailable for NBA Live 08, but this is something we are looking at going after in the future.

IIG: Was this always planned as an add-on after the game was in stores?

JC: No, as I explained earlier, it was in our plans to ship with the disc, but we felt it was not quite ready for our fans. We are, therefore, happy with our decision to take a bit more time and do it right.

IIG: It seems like EA Sports is finally making the big push in online play for sports, with the inclusion of online leagues and now the five-on-five patch. What’s next for Live’s online suite? We know you can’t give away the farm, but perhaps you can give us a hint of where things are heading?

JC: I am sure you can see from above what our goals are. It is our goal to create a dedicated online sports gaming community, and right now, we’re really at the tip of the iceberg. Playing full games using all human intelligence completely changes how you play. We now have teamwork, communication, and community at the forefront. We look forward to continuing down this path.

IIG: Thanks for your time, Julien.

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Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Hands-On

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn’s North American release date is now less than a month away, but this week marks the first opportunity that we’ve had to spend some time with an English-language version of the game. The differences between the North American game and the Japanese version that we played previously are minimal, but the addition of 16:9 support is certainly a bonus for those of us with the necessary hardware to play games in widescreen. Given that the Fire Emblem games are known for their strong character-driven narratives, playing the English-language version of Radiant Dawn has let us get a much better feel for the story than we had previously. We’ve also put to good use a number of new features that we didn’t know existed until now.

When you start a new game of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, you’ll be able to choose from three difficulty settings, though the hardest of them will be locked the first time you play. That might be disappointing for those of you who have beaten previous games in the long-running series, but having spent some time playing on the middle difficulty setting, we can report that it offers a reasonable challenge. If you’re a fan of the series, then you might recognize some of Radiant Dawn’s protagonists, such as the rogue Sothe, who is undoubtedly one of the most powerful characters in your party early on. You’ll also recognize the vast majority of Radiant Dawn’s gameplay features, although there are definitely a handful of older ones returning, and some all-new features in the mix.

Combat animations are brief, but they look good and don’t get old nearly as quickly as you might expect.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this particular turn-based strategy series, Fire Emblem distinguishes itself from the competition with a number of key features. Perhaps the most obvious of these is the fact that once a member of your party dies in the game, that’s it; they’re dead. If the character in question was story-critical then you’ll unceremoniously be presented with a “game over” screen. If his or her presence isn’t strictly necessary for the story to progress, then you have the option to just continue onward, which can be a difficult decision if you’ve invested a lot of time into that character’s development or simply happen to like his or her particular brand of damage-dealing. In previous Fire Emblem games, the idea of replaying entire levels in an attempt to save a character’s life could be a daunting prospect, but Radiant Dawn introduces a “battle save” option that lets you save your progress at any point during a battle. This has the side effect of making the game significantly easier if you choose to use it a lot, but it certainly beats having to play through the early stages of any given battle repeatedly.

Another feature of the Fire Emblem games that’s worthy of a mention is the fact that characters who are being attacked don’t simply stand there and take whatever they’ve got coming to them. Your party members and enemies alike will often manage to evade incoming attacks and, more often than not, will retaliate with powerful attacks of their own. It’s not a groundbreaking feature by any means, but it adds an extra layer of strategy to the proceedings because, by positioning one of your stronger characters in a spot where enemies are more likely to attack him or her than any of your other characters, you might be able to wipe out a significant portion of the enemy force when it’s not even your turn. With that said, your enemies in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn aren’t stupid, and they’ll seize any opportunity you give them to attack the weaker members of your party. Priests and archers are certainly favorite targets, though any class that’s relatively bad at defending itself will almost always be attacked ahead of your more traditional fighting classes.

The last distinguishing feature of the Fire Emblem games that we’ll mention on this occasion is the way that character development is handled. Every character is rated in eight attributes, such as health points, skill, magic, and luck. When a character levels up, some of those attributes will improve, but how many of them and which ones get the boost is completely random. Because of this, no two games of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn will ever be quite the same, and a character who is nigh-on unstoppable for you might be a waste of space in a friend’s party. You’ll have the opportunity to influence character progression somewhat by allocating “bonus experience points” in-between missions, but even then you won’t get to choose which attributes get boosted.

Enemies will invariably target weaker characters if you don’t instruct yo