New Fifa 2004

[peiraias]

twra to pote tha erthei ayto akoma den to xserw alla xserw otoi einai otoi kalytero yparxei.perisoteres plirofwries edw:http://www.ea.com

 

 

 

 

<br>

Go Inside the Game With the

FIFA Soccer 2004 Associate Producer

<br>

 

When you're working on developing and enhancing one of the best-selling games throughout the entire world -- yes, not just the United States, but the whole world -- well, sometimes it can be tricky adding new features to a title that has already set the standard in the genre.

In the case of FIFA Soccer 2004, which is the latest in the long-standing line of EA SPORTS™ FIFA games, the challenge for the development team was to improve a game that already featured the most robust collection of real players, leagues, stadiums and complete soccer atmosphere available on any console. Leave it to Associate Producer Pierre Hintze and his talented team, then, to implement revolutionary features like Off the Ball™ Control and a comprehensive Career Mode.

 

We sat down with Hintze for a preview of the upcoming game that will bring all aspects of the soccer experience -- from fluid on-field play to important long-term franchise decisions -- to soccer gamers everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

EA SPORTS: Off the Ball Control figures to revolutionize soccer gaming. What can you tell us about that?

 

Pierre Hintze: Off the Ball Control is a suite of controls that allow you to control the player off the ball. Remote Receiver Control lets you select one of the attackers -- or a midfielder -- and run him into space; you then release the button and the ball gets played through to him. Also, during corners and free kicks, you become the guy in the box, jostling for space and trying to fight for that perfect goal.

 

99 percent of soccer is played away from the ball, and we thought that FIFA Soccer 2004 deserved that treatment.

 

EA SPORTS: Career Mode finally comes to the FIFA franchise. How deep will it be, and what can players do with it?

 

Pierre Hintze: We’re trying to provide the user with all major managerial tools a modern-day Top Division Manager has to his disposal. We’ll enable him to set training schedules, fulfill board objectives and continue to build up enough prestige to successfully lure new talent to his club.

 

The key will be the user’s ability to translate his understanding of the sport/team into success/prestige increase to maintain the positive momentum for his club. Consistent failure will result in getting fired and pretty much reflects what most of the coaches experience during their careers.

 

EA SPORTS: Last year we saw off-the-foot dribbling. What new gameplay, physics and graphical enhancements will we see this year?

 

Pierre Hintze: We continued exactly where we left off last year. The dribbling responsiveness and an improved pass/shot model are only a few of the features we considered to expand upon this year. We also pushed hard to integrate Attributes into our gameplay and a new type of player/user interaction, but I don’t want to elaborate too much on what both features are.

 

EA SPORTS: Will it be easy to change strategies and tactics on the fly during the game?

 

Pierre Hintze: We hope so, considering we re-introduced the good old trusted In-Game Manager. The user will be able to choose now from a number of offensive/defensive strategies on the fly, without having to go to the Pause Menu.

 

EA SPORTS: Any new additional leagues or players? What about custom tournament capability - any changes there?

 

Pierre Hintze: Absolutely, but I don’t won’t to bore you with numbers here. Let’s just say: “With FIFA, we aim to be the most comprehensive soccer product out there”. We will have more leagues, teams and players than any other title, by a wide margin.

 

EA SPORTS: Any new stadiums in the game? What about team-specific crowd interaction and chants?

 

Pierre Hintze: Yes, we definitely added quite a number of new stadiums and dramatically improved all the major European venues.

 

Team specific crowds are one of the new visual additions, which co-inside with fixture specific attendance displays and 3D crowd sequences. The crowd sound features will surpass the already very impressive atmosphere of last year’s game. Our sound team went absolutely all-out and spent months in Europe to record team specific chants with fans of all the major teams. The results are absolutely breathtaking. I stood up many times when the Liverpool fans start our “You’ll Never Walk Alone…” in the game.

 

EA SPORTS: FIFA goes online this year for the PlayStation®2. What sort of modes will be available online, and what other capabilities will that function provide?

 

Pierre Hintze: The online feature will hopefully turn out to be another killer feature for FIFA this year, considering we’ll be the first major soccer title that allows users to play across borders and stands head and shoulders above our nearest competitor with regards to feature quantity and quality. (I look forward to seeing the matches between Germans, English and Dutch fans...)

 

The variety of online gameplay is vast. Users will be able to play straight up matches against one another, which can be played as ranked or un-ranked matches. They will also be able to create straight knockout tournaments, which can be resolved within a reasonable amount of playing time and both features will feed into a leaderboard system, which reflects the user’s online gameplay history.

 

There will also be a web-based component, which allows any console owner with a PC to create Round Robin tournaments and Online Leagues. These features will be visible on the PlayStation 2 and any PlayStation 2 FIFA user can join them, providing they are not protected by a password. The password feature will be very important for special event tournaments, which will be sponsored and have prizes for the winners.

 

The PlayStation 2 will also have a number of community tools, which allow users to chat and challenge each other via a messenger interface. This interface will also provide the user with the ability to create buddy lists with his favorite opponents/friends, which he can track across other EA SPORTS Online products.

 

EA SPORTS: Do you get feedback from gamers and real soccer players, and how do you incorporate that into the game?

 

Pierre Hintze: We do, especially via our fan-site soccergaming.com, which has proven to be a strong supporter of FIFA over the years. The guys there are a very good sounding board for us and we have a close relationship with guys like Matt Holmes.

 

We also continued last year’s approach to seek council of current and past professional players and coaches. This year’s adviser was the very experienced German Coach Erich Rutemoeller. He helped us tremendously to get an insight into the mind of a professional coach and his experience with the German National Team, and a number of Bundesliga Teams helped our Strategy & Tactics group a great deal.

 

EA SPORTS: Will we see the same sort of Club Championship feature, where the big clubs are highlighted and given more depth?

 

Pierre Hintze: Partially. We decided to continue our focus on the major clubs but we merged the Club Championship Tournament together with out custom tournament feature. We felt that this would help us to bring this area of the game a bit more to the foreground, considering it’ll allow the user to re-create pretty much any major soccer tournament of the world.

 

EA SPORTS: Anything else you want to add about FIFA 2004?

 

Pierre Hintze: We are very excited about this year’s progress because we feel we continued where we left off last year and FIFA will be again in a position to contest for the title of “#1 Soccer Game” this year. We intend to create another very important milestone in the history of the FIFA Franchise and the soccer video game genre.

 

 

[/img]

[Jastonas]

a title that has already set the standard in the genre.

 

exei set standards? auth h ekfrash 8a htan swsth an yphrxe k kana allo podosfairaki sta pc... giati opws blepoume stis alles consoles kaneis den to paizei:) e tous palio mlkksdlfmsdfiopejr sthn ea...

[Litost]

Εάν -όπως βγήκε είδηση- το Δεκέμβριο κυκλοφορήσει το Winning Eleven 7/ Pro Evolution Soccer 3 για PC, κάντε μία σεμνή τελετή στο moufa fifa και στείλτε στεφάνι στην ΕΑ. Ετσι κι αλλιώς όταν θέλω να παίξω ποδοσφαιράκι στο PC χίλιες φορές καλύτερο είναι το Pinball Dreams.

[privateer]

An einai san thn teleutaia prospa8eia ths Konami Fifa kai pali Fifa tote!

[KYRIAKOS_GKLEZAKOS]

Παιδια καμια σχεση το ΙSS με το ISS pro!Το απλο ΙSS ειναι το ιδιο χαλια και στο PC και στο PS2!Παντως εγω ειχα ακουσει οτι το ISS3 pro θα κυκλοφορουσε για PS2 τον Νοεμβριο.Αμα βγει τελικα και για PC bye bye FIFA...

[Litost]

Για να ξεκαθαρίσουμε λίγο τα πράγματα:

 

Η Konami κυκλοφορεί δύο σειρές ποδοσφαιρικών παιχνιδιών που αναπτύσσονται από δύο διαφορετικές προγραμματιστικές ομάδες.

 

1) ΙSS - Είναι η χάλια σειρά που ανήκει στην ομάδα KCEO. Τίποτα το αξιόλογο, αρκετά arcade και βαρετό.

 

2) Winning Eleven (Ιαπωνικός τίτλος) ή Pro Evolution Soccer (Eυρωπαικός τίτλος). Ανήκει στην ομάδα KCET και είναι ότι πλησιέστερο στο πραγματικό ποδόσφαιρο. Το Νο 3 της σειράς για PS2 κυκλοφορεί τέλη Οκτωβρίου. Το ιαπωνικό, το οποίο κυκλοφορεί πρώτο, έχει βγεί ήδη.

 

Η σύγχυση βασικά έχει δημιουργηθεί γιατί την εποχή του PS1, το WE/PES κυκλοφορούσε στην Ευρώπη σαν ISS.

[peiraias]

parte mia mikri geysi apo to fifa 2004.

 

http://www.fifa2004.ea.com/gallery.aspx?locale=en

[peiraias]

kai gia video apo to fifa 2004 edw

 

http://www.fifa2004.ea.com/video.aspx?locale=en

[peiraias]

otoi theloume tha exei to new fifa

 

http://www.fifa2004.ea.com/talent.aspx?locale=en

[peiraias]

ronaldinho-del piero-henry.ola tha einai edw parte mia mikri geysi.

 

http://www.fifa2004.ea.com/talent_detail.aspx?id=1&locale=en

[Nefos]

egw exw mperdeutei me ta ISS....posa paizoun ...?

egw pira to ISS 3 gia ps2 kai einai anwtero nomizw apo fifa 2003..

allo to ISS allo to ISS pro?

[peiraias]

Egw file mou dystixws exw pc kai paizw mono to fifa.apo ti diavasa to fifa2004 tha einai ka manager ektos apo play

[Karelia]

Ελληνικές Ομάδες θα έχει ή πάλι όχι;

[Jastonas]

pali oxi nomizw;)

[Marcos_Aurilius]

Γιατί να έχει? Το παίρνει κανείς μας αυθεντικό ή προωθει οργανωμένα το πρωτάθλημά μας η ΕΠΟ (ή όποια άλλη αρχή είναι αρμόδια για αυτό)?

Όσο για την gallery του Fifa2004 στο link που έδωσε ο φίλος peiraias, η μόνη πραγματική in-game φωτογραφία (με την έννοια του τι θα βλέπεις την περισσότερη ώρα και όχι στα cut scenes και στα replays) είναι η 6η απ'το τέλος. Και τι διαπιστώνω? Ότι μάλλον δεν θα δούμε κάτι ιδιαίτερο από οπτικής απόψεως καθως και ότι έφτασε 2003+ για να ενσωματώσουν μια κάμερα που στο ISSPro και στο Virtual Striker (το θυμάστε στα arcades???) υπήρχε εδώ και πολλά χρόνια.

Μια ακόμα παρατήρηση. Το off-the-ball play υπήρχε έστω και σε περιορισμένη έκταση (δεν ξέρω πόσο θα αναπτυχθει στο Fifa2004) τουλάχιστον απο εποχής ISSPro στο PSX, όταν δίνοντας πάσα δεν αφηναμε το πλήκτρο και μπορούσαμε να κινηθούμε χωρίς την μπάλα μέχρι να αφήσουμε το πλήκτρο και να την ξαναδεχτούμε πίσω.

Για να μην κατηγορηθω, έχω παίξει όλα τα Fifa και θεωρώ το 2003 εξαιρετικό (χωρίς όμως να ξεπερνα τα ISS). Με αυτά που διάβασα στο post του Hal πιο κάτω - περασε στο ντούκου, γιατί? - ετοιμάζομαι κι εγώ για την σεμνή τελετη!