FIFA 2008 News

Fifa Informer chatted with one of the most important communty sites for FIFA games., Juan Anders, WebMaster of the successful community site FIFA Mexico and FIFA America

Who is Juan Anders?
A Football fanatic who loves to play video games

Gamertag
Tukie

Tell us about FIFA México?
FIFA Mexico was actually not founded by me it was originally founded by 3 people Medina, Skeep and Footix. In 2004 they all went their separate ways and left FIFA Mexico. With that came a couple of year of just having a forum and the page almost disappearing. I took over and started motivating the talented people there and Thanks to all their help FIFA Mexico is back on it’s feet and getting better than ever

Favorite Football team?
Club America of Mexico City.

Favorite online team?
Same as above although I always get my butt kicked by people using better teams I’ve tried 5 star rated teams and still the same result so I stick to America.

Best FIFA moment?
When EA Sports Finally listened and added Mexican league teams to FIFA 2005.

Worst moment?
It’s going to sound odd but I think the best and the worst for me were both in FIFA 2005, This game it did include the Mexican league but it’s when the series hit rock bottom in terms of gameplay Thankfully FIFA ever since that seems to be putting a lot more effort into the gameplay and we the fans can now see a change.

What´s the future of FIFA-community sites?
I think FIFA community sites are starting to boom and this is mainly because there is always a need to regionalize the game and with all the support EA is starting to give us, the future does do look bright.

What needs to be added for FIFA 09, to make FIFA México even better?
There is no doubt that the Mexican league needs to improve adding relegation and other cups to manager mode will definetly give a much needed enhancement to the Mexican League in the game. This translates to more creations from our community as well as having Online tournament where we can also have relegation just like in real life.

In five years´ time what will FIFA México be?
We will try to always be the best that we can. If we do our best and continue to do so there is no limit to what FIFA Mexico will be in five years. But we have to take it one step at a time to get there.

Who will win UEFA Euro 2008?
It’s a tough call but I would like to see Portugal or Netherlands win!

David Grant, a Man-United fan, is a producer for Data Collection Group at Electronic Arts Canada. He has worked on several games like FIFA, Champions League, World Cup, EURO and the Rugby 06 and 07 titles from EA Sports.

David Grant

David Grant: I am originally from Australia where I grew up in the small town of Murwillumbah on the far north coast of NSW.

After a short stay in the US I moved to Canada and I joined Electronic Arts here in Canada as a Quality Assurance tester in 2005. The first game I worked on was FIFA 2006 and I have since worked on all successive FIFA titles as well as Champions League, World Cup, EURO and the Rugby 06 and 07 titles. I joined the Data Collection Group in November 2006 where I currently work as a producer.

The Data Collection Group is responsible for collecting data for all players and teams that is used for all of EA’s Football titles. We manage the integration of this data into the game as well as work with the artists and game teams to make sure the art assets are as close to real life as possible and to make sure the data is being used properly for the AI.

Can you please explain us briefly, what happens when a new league like A-League must be added to the game?

David Grant: When we add a new league to the game we firstly need to acquire the license for the league or for each team individually. Our Business Affairs and Licensing teams in the UK are responsible for contacting the league and teams and they then negotiate the terms of these agreements.
After we have confirmed that we will be adding a new league or new teams we then need to gather all of the data that is related to the league, teams and players. To do this we need to add people to our ever growing community which is currently at 100+ Data Editors and 300+ Data Reviewers.

Let me explain the Data Editor and Data Reviewer projects briefly. A Data Editor is a paid contract and the editor is responsible for a set number of teams. The Data Editor has set deadlines for the work that is required of them and they are responsible for making sure that all players are assigned to the correct teams and they also collect all data that we use in game for the teams and players that they are responsible for. Our Data Editors are some of the biggest football and FIFA fans out there and they are very dedicated to making the data as realistic as possible.

The Data Reviewer project is unpaid but is a great way for people to get some feedback for their favourite players and teams into the game. This Data Reviewer has no deadlines and is not responsible for collecting any data, it is just an opportunity for FIFA and football fans to help us to improve the data quality, so it is perfect for people that don’t have a lot of spare time to spend editing data but can occasionally provide some feedback on the players and teams that we have in game. When we need new Data Editors we will normally first check with our Data Reviewers for suitable candidates.

We are always trying to increase our community by adding people with great football knowledge from all around the world, so we have an website that use to identify these people. You can access this site here – http://www.eafootballtalentscout.com

Do you play FIFA 08 at home, or at EA … how do you see the gameplay of FIFA 08?

David Grant: I tend to play FIFA 08 mostly at work. I think the gameplay has improved a lot since last year with the biggest improvements on the 360 and PS3 versions of the game.

Our AI team has worked very hard to improve the quality of the gameplay for FIFA 08 and I think there is a very noticeable improvement on previous years.

You are of course a football fan, what is your favourite club?

David Grant: I have been a supporter of Manchester United since I started playing football as a young boy, mostly because of players like Peter Schmeichel, Roy Keane, Eric Cantona, Ryan Giggs and the baby faced assassin Ole-Gunnar Solskjær.
But I do enjoy watching football from all over the world to see the different styles of play and to look out for younger up and coming players.

There are many fans’ suggestions at FIFPlay.com about adding new leagues like Russian, Argentinean, and Chilean to FIFA 09; would it be possible to see those leagues in the next version of FIFA 09?

David Grant: For confidentiality reasons, I cannot release that information.

What features would you put in FIFA 09 if you were a producer for FIFA 2009?

David Grant: I would keep the focus mostly on gameplay and making players act as they do in real life. I would also like to see players change and grow as they do throughout the regular season so I would work on a feature that would allow that.
I would also eventually like to see the user be able to create their own assets that could be used in game and shared among other gamers.

Which band/music you think should be in EA Trax for FIFA 09?

David Grant: I like discovering new bands in different regions so it would be great if we could get a good range of artists from every country to put into the game.

Doskov is a character animator at Electronic Arts in Burnaby on the hit video game FIFA Soccer. The new version hit the stores last week and Doskov, who’s from Bulgaria originally, gets his inspiration from his workspace.

Soccer Rocks His World

My office space is a soccer fan’s paradise; it’s my paradise. Hanging on the walls are posters of all of my heroes, soccer legends of the past and stars of the present. If I’m ever feeling frustrated or down, all I have to do is look around at all of my soccer stuff, and I instantly remember that I have the sweetest job ever working on the world’s most popular videogame — FIFA 08. I love soccer and I love video games, and being able to do that for a living is awesome.

Ronaldinho in Action

I love the action figure of Ronaldinho that I have on my desk. It was a birthday present from my girlfriend, Kate, who is also a huge soccer fan. Ronaldinho is one of my favorite players and a hero of mine. The action figure reminds me how lucky I was to meet him in person.

Handy Boots

The boots are worn a bit, but they’ve served me really well over the last year. I’ve been using them to play at the turf field we have here at EA. We have a whole soccer league for all the employees to play on. It’s tons of fun. I even took these boots to Spain, and wore them when I was juggling the ball with Ronaldinho at the motion-capture shoot in Barcelona. I also used them when I was motion-captured for FIFA 08 myself. The boots had to be taped up with all those motion sensors, which made it a bit tricky to kick the ball, but you get used to it.

Drawing An Inspiration

The sketch of me playing soccer was drawn by one of my friends from the FIFA team, also an animator. I like having it up on my wall as it’s a reminder for me to keep playing soccer throughout my life. Even though I love watching soccer and being a fan, there’s nothing better than playing the sport itself. It reminds me to keep on playing the beautiful game.

Precious Scarves

The Bulgarian and the Korean scarves hanging above my desk are very precious to me. Naturally, Bulgaria is there as it’s my country of origin, and the Korean flag and scarf are there as my girlfriend is from Korea. She’s a huge soccer fan too, and was in Korea during World Cup 2002, cheering on her country from the stands. My girlfriend became really passionate about soccer after watching Korea do so well in 2002. Coincidentally, I actually met my girlfriend during World Cup 2006 last year, when we were both cheering for Italy. You’ve got to love the World Cup.

A Signed Ronaldinho Shirt

Ronaldinho is also one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Earlier this year we packed up our EA Canada motion-capture studio and transported it to Barcelona for a motion-capture session with him, Miroslav Klose (Werder Bremen), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Andreas Ivanschitz (Panathinaikos FC), for FIFA 08. I was lucky enough to be there in Barcelona helping to direct the shoot as we captured the players’ movements for our game. It was an incredible experience actually being there, kicking the ball around with one of my heroes.

Brad Porteous, FIFA 08 (Wii) Lead Producer/Designer

Welcome to the official FIFA Soccer 08 Wii blog! It’s been an exciting year, and designing FIFA 08 for the Nintendo Wii has been a lot of fun. We have really gone out of our way to add a lot of features specifically just for the Wii, and give Wii gamers a customized game experience.

In this week’s blog, I’ll be focusing on the controls. We’ve worked hard at creating a fun control scheme that will appeal to both the hardcore gamers and also those new to gaming in general.

EA Sports Family Play
When first starting the game, you will need to decide which control scheme you’d like to try, Family Play or Advanced. If you are a new gamer, Family Play would probably be the best choice. In this control scheme, just the Wii Remote is needed to play the game. The computer handles all player movement for you, which lets you focus on learning the core controls, such passing and shooting.

Passes are performed by pressing the A button, and shots are performed by swinging the Wii Remote up or down. Swing up if you want a high shot, and swing down if you want a low shot. The power of the shot is determined by the strength of the swing. There are plenty of other controls, but we will get to those in a bit.

If you get stuck in the middle of the game, and forget some of the controls, don’t worry. At any stoppage in play, a help image appears, illustrating the controls you need to know at that moment. If you’d like to practice the control, press the 1 button to try them out. The 1 button can be pressed at any time for help with controls.

All the Wii Remote controls you learn in Family Play work in Advanced mode, which makes it easy when you feel you want to switch. To switch, all you have to do is attach the Nunchuk and you will be playing in Advanced mode. It’s as easy as that!

Soccer Academy
Once you’ve made the switch to Advanced mode, you should probably enter Soccer Academy to see what new controls are available to you. The Soccer Academy is an interactive tutorial system, where you can practice the following on the training pitch:

The basics (i.e. shooting, passing, throw-ins, headers)

More advanced (i.e. Chip shots, long passes)
Set Pieces (i.e. free kicks, corner kicks, penalty shots)
Keeper Controls (i.e. saving, penalty shootout)
Tricks (i.e. 360s, dekes)
There are over 20 drills that can be played. After completing each of the above category of drills, a Time Challenge becomes unlocked. Time Challenges have a series of drills that you’ll need to finish quickly in order to get a Gold, Silver, or Bronze medal.

Controls
Below is a general breakdown of how the controls are set up:

Shooting
Line up your shot using the Control Stick, and then swing the Wii Remote up for a rising shot at the net, or swing it down for a lower, more accurate shot. You can add curve to the ball by tilting the Wii Remote. The more you tilt, the greater the curve. While this is great for some spectacular goals, you’ll need to make sure to adjust your aim to allow for the curve.

Passing
There are a variety of ways to pass the ball in FIFA 08. Pressing the A button performs a standard pass directly at the player’s feet. Holding it down longer and then releasing passes to the furthest player from you. Another way to pass the ball is with the B button, which does a through pass. Use this when you want to pass it in front of the player, so he can run onto it.

When you want to lob the ball to a player, or cross it into the box, hold down both the A and B buttons. The longer you hold them down, the farther the ball travels.

In FIFA 08 Wii, we also have directional passing. This allows you to continue running in one direction while passing in another. To do this, hold down the passing button of choice, and swing the Wii Remote in the direction you want the pass to go. Alternatively, the +ControlPad can also be used.

Holding down the C button while performing passes or shots provides additional controls, such as chip shots, or lobbed through passes.

Defending
When you are on defense, pressing A allows you to switch players. Holding down the B button will cause your player to perform a standing tackle. You can also try to poke the ball away with a sliding tackle, which is done by swinging the Wii Remote downwards.

Similar to how directional passing works when you are on offense, there is directional player switching when you are on defense. To do this, hold down the A button and swing the Wii Remote in the direction you want to select the player. For example, flick the Wii Remote to the right if you want the player on the right of the active player to be selected. The +ControlPad can also be used. This is for advanced users who want to select the exact player they want to fit their play style.

In addition to the player controls, there are also goalkeeper controls, which are performed with the – (Minus) button. These can be used to make a manual save, or charge your opponent when he is not expecting it.

Tricks
A variety of trick moves can be performed. I won’t get into all of them here, but they are advanced moves that can be pulled off by holding down the C button and swinging the Nunchuk or the Wii Remote in certain directions when the user has the ball.

Closing Comments
I think you’ll have a lot of fun in FIFA 08 Soccer trying out and mastering all the new controls. I haven’t listed out all of them out here, but I think you get the overall picture. Stay tuned for more details soon!

-Brad

Major sports video games are a bit like a carton of milk. The annual arrival of new players and revolving team rosters label each new game release with a strict “best before” date. And it’s a rare treat when game developers choose to change more than just the slightest of details beyond the names on the jerseys. For FIFA 08, EA Sports decided to gut their football/soccer franchise and rebuild it from the ground up in its aim to both outshine their competitors and tailor the game’s performance to the high standards of the newest game consoles.

To promote the game’s makeover, EA enlisted Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam to show the world the new footballing possibilities FIFA 08 could offer. The result is an integrated campaign challenging some of the world’s best footballers to match the skills EA makes available to any couchbound Johnny Kickabout. The core of the campaign stems from website CanYouFIFA08.com and three web films that show ordinary kids challenging the likes of Ronaldinho, Wayne Rooney, Sergio Ramos, Franck Ribery and Miroslav Klose to repeat their in-game feats of soccer skill. Additionally, each online film is embedded with several behind-the-scenes extras showing the pros on-set, goofing off or performing in little one-off skits. The TV spots simply serve as teasers to the web films, directing viewers to the site. The website also offers users a bizarre juggling game that replaces the expected soccer ball with the heads of its soccer stars. A bit morbid perhaps, but addictive fun nonetheless. For the print campaign, each featured pro player poses with his video game counterpart to further depict the game’s open challenge to real world players.

We spoke with Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam copywriter Mikey Farr (a born and bred Leeds United fan, for the record) about building the campaign, working with the all-star cast of footballing talent and more.

Mikey Farr

With so many sports games, each releasing a new one every year, what were your goals for this campaign?
This was a big one because with the release of the PS3 and Xbox 360, games are all going sort of next generation. So the main competitors (for EA) being ISS (International Superstar Soccer) and Pro Evolution, have been ahead for a while. So what EA did with FIFA this year is go back to the drawing board and rewrite the whole game engine, the whole AI, the way everything works so it was a great opportunity to say we’ve reached the next level (in football gaming). So we really wanted to say is that first, there actually has been a big change in the FIFA game and second, now that there has been this big change why not give it a try? So that’s why the tag is “Can You FIFA 08?” to sort of challenge people to have a go at it.

How did the theme of the web films come about?
Well, I’m a massive football gamer and have played FIFA since about ‘95 or ‘96. So I went over to Vancouver to have a go at the demos and got my hands on an early stage of the game. As soon as I laid my hands on it I found it really difficult. It brought in skills I’d normally use on the football field, an actual knowledge of the game was required, where and how to position your body, how to move in relation to the football. So in the process of playing the game I realized to be good at it you’ve got to one, know a lot about football and two, be really, really skillful. From that came the genesis of the idea that if you can master this game you’re almost taking football to a new level and challenge the real footballers to match the game instead of the other way around. Normally it’s about sports games, and football games in particular, trying to match the real thing but this was an interesting take to flip that on its head and see if the football stars can match the game.

How did you decide which players to feature?
Well, you’re going after two audiences, the gamer and the football fan. Football fans are pretty tribal so it was important to acknowledge that. An Italian fan’s not particularly going to want to watch Rooney, and a German fan will want to see a German player, and so on. So we just picked the most skillful players from various markets that EA had sponsored.

There was a good mix of expected and unexpected choices. One of the latter being France and Bayern Munich star Franck Ribery.
Yeah that was a good one. He was great. I think it might have been his first ad. It was really refreshing to work with him. That was one thing about working with these football players, they’re not actors but we really feel the director got some really good performances out of them. We all really enjoyed it and part of that was making sure they were involved in the whole process and having fun. For Ronaldinho, we literally had a party. It was at a samba club, we had a band playing and midway through the shoot he just grabbed a tambourine, jumped on stage and started singing with the band. When those magical moments happen the good nature of the whole occasion tends to come through in the spot.
We tried to keep the spots true to the players in question. Ronaldinho’s was filmed in his home city and we got in touch with his old samba school and teacher. So we went to this run down place and shot it and all the people involved in the samba school were so happy to see him and I think he enjoyed going back home to do it. With Rooney, we did it at a driving range just outside Manchester. For Klose and Ribery, obviously one’s French and one’s German, so we just went a bit old school and went to Prague. The set designers did a great job on that one.

How were the various scenarios – tailor shop, golfing range and BBQ – chosen?
Well, we tried to make them as normal and everyday as possible. For example, Rooney’s a really keen golfer. Though he’s got a very weird grip, it’s some kind of 16th century grip, very strange. I’d never seen football played on a golf course either, so that was an easy choice. For the tailor, we thought it would be interesting to see a star footballer in a vulnerable position, in this case it’s in his shorts getting measured for a suit. So I thought it an interesting juxtaposition of this big star not surrounded by bodyguards or anything, getting challenged by these uppity kids. They were all about the attitude of these kids being so confident in their skills that they would sort of invade these stars’ private lives.

What were the footballers like to work with? What was their reaction to the various ideas?
It was interesting, actually. Every single one of them was excited and I think they really enjoyed it. I think it’s a pretty popular game as far as the players are concerned. We got some footage of Ribery and Klose playing after the shoot and it got quite competitive. Ribery won, I think.

What were some of the biggest challenges of the job?
The hardest part and what took the most time on-set was getting (the footballers’) reactions (to the video game). We didn’t want a lot of dialogue or anything that needed to be translated and to do that well you need to have a lot of different reactions and opportunities to give a whole range of expressions. So we ended playing everything from snowboard wipeouts to amazing surfing shots to things off YouTube, just get reactions from them as they watched the screen. But while the reaction shots took a while, when it came to the footballing, they were obviously amazing. As soon as we put a football in their hands, everything changed. We got all the footballing parts in just a few takes. Like with Rooney, striking the ball 20 or 30 yards into that small basket was a feat to see, we were all cheering.

(Another challenge) was while we wanted to shoot the big film spots, we also wanted to cram in as much of the little, magical bits as well. After all, though we’re advertising FIFA 08, we also have to entertain people so doing all that extra content was part of that. Getting Ronaldinho to juggle a football while BBQing isn’t a challenge in itself but if you can imagine doing it on the middle of a set with cameras and DPs running around and then we grab the star to just quickly do this little extra thing, it could be a bit chaotic but it all went really smoothly.

By Adam Doree & Alex Wollenschlaeger

Up until earlier this month, nearly a full year after it was released, FIFA 07 was consistently one of the 30 best games at retail in the UK. This is even more remarkable when you consider that EA’s new instalment, FIFA 08, is out later this week.

The FIFA series has come a long way in the past decade or so. Sports games in general get a lot of flack for being largely the same game year after year. EA is taking criticism like this to heart and it’s demonstrating its ambitions by injecting plenty of new features into the latest iteration of its football franchise. The first thing you’ll notice as you start to scratch beyond the surface of FIFA 08 is that you have a lot more control over the ball. Whereas in previous FIFA games the player and the ball were considered to be one object, the ball is now separate. This is one of the key advances in recent years, following on from the work that the developer’s at EA football studio in Canada have put into the new gameplay engine over the last three years. Untethering the player from the ball sounds like a trivial thing to do, but it allows for all sorts of pitch magic of the kind that makes the top players so engrossing to watch. And as Joe Booth, the senior producer on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, tells us, it’s opened up the game to some powerful play.

Pulling off the skill moves is a matter of learning how to finesse the analog sticks. Do it right and you’ll be able to roll the ball, do step-overs, fake your opponents and more. It’s not something you’ll master immediately, but then that’s sort of the point. The top players who dazzle us every week spent years honing their skills, and you’ll get more out of FIFA if you put some of the same sort of effort in too. “The idea is, these are advanced controls, and to be able to do them well in gameplay takes a lot of time to learn the context of when it’s feasible,” Booth says. Any player in the game is capable of doing skill moves but for the best, EA has come up with signatures moves. These are more advanced tricks that are so recognizable as to be part of particular players’ styles. Think of Barcelona superstar striker Ronaldinho and his rainbow flick.

The best part of all these special moves is that the technology behind them allows you to string them together however you want. Previous games have been hampered by the need for animations to complete, which means you’re confined in how you can act on the field. That was then. In FIFA 08 you’ll be able to break into animations already running and quickly jut off in another direction. “This starts to become very powerful as you string these things together,” Booth says.

This gameplay system opens up the game to some seriously fancy footwork, so EA has included a video capture system that lets you show off your skills to the world. Just like in EA’s new skateboarding game, Skate, you’ll be able to record your best clips and upload them, YouTube-style, onto EA’s site and share them with your friends.

That social element is an important part of EA’s plans going ahead. The company has a goal of introducing 11-vs-11 online games by the end of the decade. The first steps will be available in FIFA 08 in the form of a new 5-vs-5 mode that PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners will be able to download around six to eight weeks after launch.

If the goal is to get you playing online with your friends, getting the most out of the experience means that you need to make sure you know how to play the various positions on the field. And that’s where Be A Pro mode comes in. In this new mode you’ll be able to play entire matches from the perspective of just one player.



“The thing that was important to us was that we create gameplay away from the ball,” Booth says. You’ll get rewards in the form of points for playing each position properly, giving you a virtual pat on the back for sticking in the right areas on the pitch, dribbling well and passing accurately, and generally playing each position as it’s meant to be played. “It’s about learning each position and what’s important to that position,” he adds. Though the ideal is to get to the point where you’ll be able to play a match with nothing but human opponents, that goal is still a way off, and so computer-controlled AI teammates and opponents are an essential part of the experience.

There’s been a lot of work done in this part of the game, work that has resulted in AI players being more self-aware, keeping track of their positions on the field and how closely they’re sticking to the overall strategies you choose. One way the team did this was to make the AI players more spatially aware, so that not only do they know where on the pitch they’re supposed to be, but they can also read situations and come up with the best way to block you, say by moving into an open space to cut off your run on the goal. All of this understandably takes a lot of horsepower. Booth says the current gameplay engine in use in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions uses around 35 times as much processing power than the version on the PlayStation 2 and other older machines. Allowing for the emergent behaviour of AI players meant that the team had to optimize the engine for the Cell processor in the PS3 and the processor in the Xbox 360. This was essential because these new chips have such different ways of handling data and instructions compared to their predecessors.

With so much going into the AI and the engine itself, you’d think that something had to give. That something is not the graphics, which EA is refining further, making it one of the best-looking of the new crop of games. Mostly that’s because the team has become more proficient at using the hardware over the few years they’ve been working with it and have come to understand how to take last year’s engine to the next level. “I didn’t want them using all the cycles from gameplay or the memory, I wanted that for animations or AI,” Booth says.

For all the things FIFA does do right, there are still many areas of the game that EA is looking to improve. For instance, there’s no rumble support in the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 versions. Booth says this is near the top of the list of the things the team is looking to add, but because of the limitations that come with creating high-end entertainment, there’s simply not the resources to get to everything.

“That’s the thing that people often misunderstand about FIFA and football games is that if we haven’t done something, it’s not that we haven’t thought of it, it’s because we have to make priorities,” he says. That, he adds, is one reason why the team hasn’t yet added on-field referees into the game and why there’s no support for the tilt-sensing features of the Sixaxis controller on the PS3.

“Our bottleneck there is having people that are very, very smart engineers who really understand football and really understand this complex engine and the hardware,” says Booth. “Those people are our core assets and we need to make sure they’re focussing on the right things.”

For all their differences, the PS3 and the Xbox 360 owners will end up with games that are very similar in look and feel. One aspect where FIFA differs from most of the other EA games out this year is that the PS3 and not just the Xbox 360 will have gameplay at 60 frames-per-second, giving the action a smoother look and feel. Getting this in place so that both versions feel right was the “main goal”, Booth says.



Other systems will necessarily have slightly different experiences thanks to the differences in their hardware. The PC version, for instance, is based on the PS2 game this year. Booth says that’s because, “our gameplay uses so much processing power, there aren’t PCs out there that can run it.” He adds that while games such as first-person shooters can scale their graphics to accomodate leaner hardware, the gameplay requirements make that impossible for FIFA 08. That’s not to say, though, that different is necessarily worse. Consider the Wii game, which though drastically different in look to the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, brings other features that those don’t offer. The biggest draw here is Family Play, a feature that will let anyone in the family join you for a game. In the Wii version, the nunchuck controls all movement related to players’ bodies, explains Tim Tschirner, the producer of the Wii game, while the Wii remote is used for kicking and passing. Experienced players will be able to control all aspects of the pitch action, while those who still feel the need training wheels can simply enable Family Play by removing the nunchuck attachment and controlling just the essential ball work.

Tim Tschirner, producer on FIFA 08 for Wii

The best part is that not only can people using full controls play along with those using the more accessible ones, they’ll also be able to swap on the fly, allowing players to choose as they buld up confidence. “This is now the first version of FIFA that I can actually play with my dad,” Tschirner says with a chuckle. Behind the scenes, though, the Wii version is still as grown-up as the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. It has the same 30 leagues, the same 575 teams, and the same 15,000 players that make this year’s edition bigger by 20 per cent than any FIFA game before.



The Wii version also comes with minigames you can play with your friends in Footy Party mode. These are small challenges designed as multiplayer experiences. Minigames include a table football game, where you use the Wii remote and nunchuch as handles, ball juggling and shooting challenges.

“We wanted to make sure that we still provide a very authentic FIFA gameplay experiencem,” says Tschirner. “At the same time we wanted to make sure we really take advantage of the very unique controls.”

http://games.kikizo.com/news/200709/118_p3.asp

Joe Booth – Lead Producer

Hi Everyone,

Joe Booth here to introduce the next topic in our Producer Blog, Player Ratings. Creating and maintaining our FIFA 08 database is an enormous undertaking that requires coordinating researchers all over the world and organizing their information. This year FIFA 08 will has 30 leagues, more than 570 teams and more than 15,000 players – this represents more leagues, teams and players than all other EA SPORTS games combined. In addition, a lot of player transfers happen during the first transfer window which is right when we are finalising our game so our database researchers work round the clock during this period to make sure we capture every move. Last year in FIFA 07 we provided two downloadable database updates: one in September and another one in February, following the closure of the transfer windows. This was the first time EA SPORTS has been able to update the content of one of its sports titles in the middle of the season and this new approach has enabled us to make a more realistic playing game. To give you some numbers: between September 2006 and February 2007, there were 75,000 player database updates and more than 4,300 transfers in the database.

Michael Müller-Möhring – Football Data Manager
 

The FIFA 08 database team is based in Vancouver, Canada where the FIFA franchise is developed for EA SPORTS but we have a community of database researchers stationed all over the world. The majority of the data is entered by these experts living in these countries. Our database researchers watch live football games to evaluate and rate the skills and abilities of each player. They also rely on television, internet, magazines and newspapers for information. As a team we then review all of the player ratings to make sure player attributes are as authentic and realistic as possible. Every team and league in FIFA 08 is represented by at least one football expert working for EA SPORTS. Currently there are approximately 500 editors from Sweden, Argentina, Germany, Turkey, Czech Republic, Mexico, Switzerland, Scotland, South Africa, etc. working on collecting accurate data. We have about 20 researchers scouting and evaluating players just from the Spanish leagues. Our community of database researchers is constantly expanding and the database team is always looking for knowledgeable football supporters who would like to join our community. Anyone can apply by going to this website: http://www.eafootballtalentscout.com.The data gets updated on a 24/7 basis throughout the year. Our editors are dedicated football supporters and they follow their teams and leagues every single day. We use an online database that they log in to and update the team and player data. This enables us to have constantly updated information and evaluations that reflect the real world. So when we notice that a player is performing better or worse than originally evaluated the database is edited to reflect the changing status of that player.

The same goes for the appearance of the players: if David Beckham gets a new look from his hairdresser, our editors go into the database and select his new hair style right away. All these changes happen frequently so the community of database researchers are always busy adjusting and tuning the ratings and rankings.

The database team works closely together with the producers, engineers and technical artists from the FIFA 08 game team. Together we decide which attributes and traits are added to the database, which attributes and traits are used by the AI of the game to determine decisions of the player or the CPU, which new data fields would be useful to support the manager mode part of the game and make it better in general. We also work with the artists to create new hair styles and other assets the community can assign to the players later on.

The data plays an integral role in creating a dynamic and authentic gameplay experience. The data drives all of the decisions that are calculated by the game code. FIFA 08 features AI with a 35-point decision engine which enables players to process 1,000 potential options and reactions every second in real time — more than 60,000 options every minute, They combine this new level of intelligence with a dynamic ‘Threat Map’ system to capture the excitement and realism of football.

The database drives these types of decisions. This includes things like how successful the gamer or the CPU opponent is when shooting, passing, tackling, or heading the ball, how a player reacts in a challenge or after losing a ball, what the goalkeeper does during a one-on-one situation, etc. The database describes the playing style, behaviour and characteristics of each player and distinguishes him from all the others. For example, the database tells the game engine that Steven Gerrard has a very powerful shot from long distance when in a good position. Also, Cristiano Ronaldo will rely on his speed and dribbling to get past the defender and attempt to score from inside the penalty box.

The database sets the customized formation of each team and determines the role of every single player, his exact position on the pitch, the defensive effort and the attacking movement. Furthermore, the playing style of the team is driven from the attack and defense tactics and the build-up play options that are edited in the database.

We currently use 35 attributes, 70 traits and more than 65 additional data fields to describe the characteristics and the abilities of every single player. For the teams it is between 60 and 90, depending on the size of the team. We are constantly evolving our database and game engine to provide our fans with the most realistic playing football experience in the world and I would expect that the way we evaluate players will continue to be refined in the future.

One of the most important aspects of creating an authentic football gameplay experience is to create players that look, move and play like their real-life counterparts. That’s why the database and the overall ability or rating of each player is so important. We use 35 attributes to calculate the overall ability of a player and every position has its own formula. Each attribute is weighted and its importance is based on the player’s position. For example, attributes like “Marking”, “Tackling” and “Heading” are more important to the overall make up of a centre back than a winger.

In most cases this calculation is a mix of physical attributes (Strength, Speed, Stamina, Agility etc.), mental attributes (Positioning, Vision, Tactical Awareness etc.) and the skill attributes (Crossing, Dribbling, Short Passing, Tackling etc.).

When it comes to rating the players, we of course need to set some guidelines for the community: a player from Premiership who is known to be “very good” in heading should have a higher rating than a player from the third division of Norway who is known as a “very good” header in his league.

These guidelines are very important to make sure that all editors from the different countries (and with different football philosophies) are on the same page when it comes to the final ratings of the players and the teams – this is where the multinational database team in Canada comes in. The database producers are constantly monitoring and managing the updates and changes made by the community and we act as a filter to make sure that players are accurately evaluated. We also can react immediately to correct a player rating if we spot an overrated or underrated player.

Hopefully this gives you some insight into how we develop our player ratings and its impact on the game.

Thanks,

Michael

When it comes to mobile footie action, 2007 marks a titanic three-way clash between Gameloft’s Real Football 2008, Konami’s exciting new entrant Pro Evolution 2008 and EA’s FIFA 08. So having heard the pre-match views of Gameloft’s Nicolas Rodeghiero and Konami’s Axel de Rougé, it was only fair to get FIFA 08 producer Adrian Blunt’s take on EA’s refreshed game.

Adrian Blunt

Pocket Gamer: First things first: How many clubs are in the game?

Adrian Blunt: There are five European leagues available – the Premiership, Serie A, Ligue 1 Orange, Bundesliga and La Liga as well as a collection of international teams from around the world. In total there are over 100 authentic licensed teams that players can choose from.

We also have access to the same database that the FIFA 08 console game uses, which gives us an incredible amount of information about player statistics and abilities as well as team information. We’ve managed to transfer player statistics to FIFA 08 mobile so each player is an individual.

What modes should we expect?

Gamers get the option to play through a half season in one of the leagues with a team of their choice. We felt the game had to make sense on the mobile platform while still feeling like a bona fide FIFA game, so we decided a full season of 38+ games might be too much.

As well as Season mode, gamers can take their chosen team through the Club Challenge mode, tackling a series of gripping scenarios culminating in a match to win the title. Or if they simply fancy a quick match, they can pick any two teams from any of the leagues for a one-off friendly, and there’s a tutorial that will help you get started quickly.

Can you explain the enhanced Season mode?

If a player is injured in a match it will carry over into the next match and maybe even into future matches. If a player accumulates yellow cards or gets a straight red, then he will be suspended. Fatigue will also carry over into the next match, so your entire squad becomes important to you. On top of that, the commentator will recognise how well you are doing throughout the season and know when those crunch matches or local derbys come up.

More generally, how does the game differ from FIFA 07?

In addition to game commentary from Andy Gray and the Club Challenge mode, we’ve spent a lot of time ensuring every player has individual statistics. You’ll find Wayne Rooney has a great shooting attribute and Ronaldinho has great speed and passing ability. We’ve also included what we call in-form players. Randomly before each match, up to three players will be marked as in-form, which means they will have heightened abilities for that match only. Defenders are less likely to get booked for slide tackles, passes from midfielders are less likely to get intercepted or go astray and strikers will have increased shooting accuracy. We have added a visual effect to these players, too, to highlight their skills.

We’ve added a sprint key for an extra burst of speed but users should be careful not to overuse this feature as we have added fatigue as well. Use it too much and you may need to look to your substitute’s bench late in the game. Players will now do an automatic standing block tackle as well as a sliding tackle. And we have added the offside rule for the first time.

You also added a landscape mode haven’t you?

Yes, with an increasing number of handsets that cater for a landscape mode, it felt natural to integrate this capability into the game, meaning you can turn your phone on its side and play with a widescreen. In conjunction, we’ve added more pitch textures and improved the stadium and crowd as well as allowing the user to customise the position of the radar.

Finally, how does the game experience differ across different handsets?

We work hard to provide similar experiences no matter what handset it’s played on, but there are natural limits within some handsets we have to try to work around without losing any of the FIFA 08 experience.

On lower-end handsets users can only choose from international teams in a tournament or friendly match and don’t have access to the Club Challenge or Season mode. You’ll also find the in-form system primarily on higher end handsets. On some of the mid-end handsets we’ve had to reduce or remove small details like varying pitch textures, sound effects and music – but overall, I don’t think people will be disappointed with their FIFA 08 experience no matter which handset they own

FIFA 08 mobile is released on September 27th.

Source: http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Mobile/FIFA+08/news.asp?c=4257

Paul Hossack, FIFA 08 (PS2) CG Line Producer
Hi, guys. I’m looking forward to the imminent launch of FIFA 08, and wanted to tell you more about our new game mode this year “Be A Pro: Co-op Season”, how it came about, and some tips for playing it.

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