Slam ‘N’ Jam and Dunk That Punk – NBA Ballers is Blasting Onto the Court

by Louis Bedigian

“From the outset we wanted to make sure that the single player experience in NBA Ballers supplied at least 30 hours worth of valuable gameplay for the average player.”

NBA Jam is out.  Not out of style, but out of the race for the best basketball game.  Where has the series gone?  To gaming Heaven, we hope not.  Surely it has to be revisited someday.

But until that day comes, Midway has a new b-ball game that’s set to shake things up: NBA Ballers.  It’s not an NBA Jam clone, nor is it an NBA Street-wannabe.  NBA Ballers is a unique, one-on-one basketball game that hopes to take stylish gameplay to a whole new level.

“From the outset we wanted to make sure that the single player experience in NBA Ballers supplied at least 30 hours worth of valuable gameplay for the average player,” said John Vignocchi, game designer for NBA Ballers.  “With that said there are well over 300 different matches in NBA Ballers, all with varying rules and objectives. In one match you might find yourself playing against TWO opponents, while in another only 3-pointers count towards a score. Mixing up the gameplay like this provides lots of fun and challenge and keeps things fresh as you go along.  Not only do we constantly change up the rules in between matches but we also "theme" the various challenge ladders. Certain ladders are comprised of only centers, while others feature speedy guards. These various challenge ladder themes mixed with the rules and objective matches make character selection key and bring a lot of depth to the overall game.”

Anxious to jam, we sat down with John Vignocchi and lead designer George Gomez to get the full story on Midway’s latest evolution in sports gaming.

Nearly every basketball game on the market is a sequel.  They all have some groundwork to base their game on, but you guys don't have that luxury.  How do you start a game of this stature from scratch?  Where do you begin?

George Gomez, Lead Designer: Well that's one of the reasons that it has taken so long to do this game. You start by trying to come up with an idea with substantial points of difference from what everyone else is doing. Then you need a game engine to allow you to build your game on, and then you can begin to develop and implement. It's not easy because the engine is being developed concurrently with the game. And the longer you work on the game the more ideas you get and the more the concept evolves and this requires more and more assets, etc.

John Vignocchi, Designer: [We begin with] an incredible team. The team that created NBA Ballers is an extremely talented group of individuals whom all come from different backgrounds both inside and outside of the gaming industry. If it were not for the patient programmers and artists whom all brought their own individual talents and expertise to the title, the design for NBA Ballers would have never come to life. Everyone that joined this team knew they were playing career Russian roulette but with all of their hard work and determination we created a truly innovative and great video game.

One-on-one hoops – that's a concept gamers haven't seen for quite some time.  Tell us why it's a cool alternative to the standard game of b-ball.

JV: Because it is different than what is currently out on the market. Every other company seems to be quick to jump on the "let's do what works" bandwagon and not bet big by being innovative with their design concepts. We wanted to stand out from the crowd so we chose to go with one on one game play and focus on the lifestyle of the players rather than the whole "street" angle that is so prevalent in the market right now. While one might think that the concept of one on one b-ball sounds limiting in nature, the creative and innovative steps that Midway took to make it work in NBA Ballers are truly ground breaking in the basketball video game genre.

Fake it to the left, fake it to the right.

Fake it, fake it, fake it all night.

NBA Ballers looked gorgeous when it was unveiled last year.  What improvements have been made since then to ensure that the game can compete with the other titles being released?

JV: Refinement, refinement and more refinement. From day one, the artists that created the incredible levels and players that you see in NBA Ballers were pushed really hard to create the best looking video game out there. Mark Turmell was constantly lighting a fire under their as**s and pushing them to their limits to get the best stuff in the game. In the end I believe the proof is in the pudding - Sure, anyone could try and make beautiful looking players with the poly budget that we had, but not everyone could make them look as realistic as the artists behind NBA Ballers did.

The players' faces look incredibly real!  Did any of them come to the office during the game's development, or were their faces created entirely from scanned images?

JV: We asked, but unfortunately most of the NBA players declined coming out to Midway's luxurious offices here in Chicago. To cope with this issue we were given access to a website that has mug shots of every player. Access to these photos comes as a part of our licensing deal with the NBA and every game company that has a license has access to the same material. No crazy "cyber skin" technology or secret proprietary tools were used to create the heads in NBA Ballers, just old fashioned hard work from talented artists.

Since Ballers does not follow the typical NBA season, how many games are there to play in the single-player modes?  How is the winner determined?

GG: There is an incredible amount of depth in this game because of the inherent differences in player styles and the fact that we change up the rules throughout the tournaments. Not to mention two completely different game modes. In Ballers TV Tournament your goal is to fight your way to the top of 19 challenge ladders or tournaments. At the top of each ladder you unlock and NBA athlete after you defeat him. The arrangement of opponents and the themes of each ladder are carefully designed to present you with an interesting and fun challenge. Basketball fans will recognize and understand why opponents are grouped together and how the special rules are selected relative to whom the opponent is.  The fiction is that it's a weekly TV show brought to you live once a week from the most outrageous cribs in the NBA.  Every week the winner advances to next week's episode and eventually we know who the best baller really is. If Gary Payton was matched up against Jason Kidd, one on one, on Saturday afternoon from the backyard court at Gary's house, tell me you wouldn't tune in.

In Rags To Riches the story is a little different. Imagine that you area really good street ball player and like every ball player you've dreamt of a shot at the big time.  The same TV network that puts on the weekly show that pits NBA player's against each other to figure out who is best, scouts you because they are looking for a reality TV show twist. What would happen if you took a great street player and put him up against the best? As you go up the tournament you pick all of the elements of your lifestyle. You earn new clothes, ice, ink, kicks, and a crew. You pick your beats; you pick out where your crib is, what it looks like, your pool, your rides, basically all of the elements of the life. And in the end you host the final tournament at your digs with all your stuff.  The mode is self contained, you have the opportunity to build the most powerful created player within this mode but you cant take him or the cool house and the prizes into the rest of the game or on-line until you win the entire tournament.

You won’t look ill if you don’t got skill.

Does NBA Ballers have a combo or style/performance system?  If so, please tell us about.

JV: NBA Ballers has a system that allows one to string up to ten moves together into a single combo. If the player scores at the end of the combo he is awarded the credits that comprised the string of moves, plus a bonus sum for pulling off the "X" move combo. Both offensive and defensive moves can comprise a combo, so even blocks and steals can become part of a player's combo. In order for the system to register the combo, the user must be quite dexterous with the controller as there is only a small window of time in-between each move that the system allows an additional move to be registered.

GG: The combo system is similar to a fighting game system. The more diverse moves that you effectively string together the more you move your "House" meter. Once the House meter is full you can pull off "Bring Down The House" which essentially gives you the win no matter what the score is but the meter "teeter totters". So it's a fight to maintain it and get it to where you can execute because your opponent's moves take away from it. It's a fight and that's the way we want it. Both players' moves also build a common jackpot of Baller Credits, which is the game currency, but only the guy who scores actually collects it. So thru out the game even this basic play mechanic plays a role to create tension and balance. I think that inventing interesting game rules is one of our core strengths because our old coin op influence exposed us to a lot of different types of game genres and there are a few of us that are still old school enough to remember those things.

It could be assumed that with NBA Ballers, which is a different kind of basketball game, there comes a different kind of control scheme.  Is that a correct assumption?

JV: Indeed. We wanted to make sure that the controls were easy enough so one could walk up to a kiosk at their local game store and get the hang of NBA Ballers, but we also wanted it to be deep enough so that the veteran players whom like to learn the intricacies of the control scheme, timing of animations, etc. would actually benefit from pouring countless hours into the game and mastering it. In the end we are quite pleased with the final result - Newbies can grab a hold of it and get a feel for the game, while the experienced players will be able to constantly punk their competition and win every time.

You can't jam if you can't slam.  What kind of stylish dunks or three-point shots are being planned for the game?

JV: There are tons of different stylish dunks and shots that are in NBA Ballers. Every player has his own specific set of dunks, jukes and shots in addition to their inherent base attributes. This helps brings even more distinction to each of the competitors in NBA Ballers. On top of that we’ve got dunks and dribbles that are totally unique to individual players, like VC’s dunk contest winning elbow dip dunk and A.I.’s killer cross-over. Of course we’ve sprinkled in some of the classic Midway over-the-top moves that you know and love in the form of “Stunt Dunks” and “Act-A-Fool” moves. The Act-A-Fool moves are taken right out of the street ball mix tapes and serve as humiliation-like moves during game play. And the Stunt dunks? I’m not going to spoil it for you – It just has to be seen to be believed. You’ll scream when you pull it off for the first time... It just totally rules.

GG: The most spectacular moves in the game fall into 3 distinct categories. The basic juke moves are in the "Anklebreakers" category, which is controlled with the right analog stick. Then there are the "Act a Fool" moves, which include things like fancy street moves, and also the Clown'n Em category which consists of great trick moves that we show you in slow motion to really show them off. By the way these have counters just like a fighting game so that as a defender you can also stay in the game. In terms of dunks we have the usual variety but the most exciting are the "Stunt Dunks"(any 2 juice buttons and square), which are totally new and unlike anything you've seen before. Remember that in a one on one a player plays a different style and pace of game than in the team game.

It’s all about the dunk.

I love Blitz, Hitz, and NBA Jam, so I was pretty excited to hear that Midway was finally making another basketball game.  However, NBA Ballers seems to be vastly different from those games.  How does it fit in with Midway's previous sports titles?  Or is the intention to be completely different and not fit in with any particular group?

GG: Good question. Mark Turmell, the creator of Jam and Blitz, is heavily involved in the game. As you know, Mark is the Creative Director of Sports and having made all of those great genre-defining titles, his influence is significant and clearly felt. But this is 2004 and the world has evolved. This game has more realistic physics than any previous Midway sports title. In my mind if we created these hyper realistic looking players and then had them dunking waist high to the rim there would have been a bizarre disconnect. Mark and I struggled over things like flashy effects like particles on the ball and guys catching on flames, etc. In the end I think we both got our way. You can go into game options and turn off Special FX if you want less glitter and flash, which is how I will play it. But to get back to the specifics of your question, we are trying to carve out a new niche for our sports products. One that is firmly rooted in our history and lives firmly within our areas of expertise but it must also be different than what the competitors are doing. Because when we backed off a few years ago, they took Mark's Jam, Hangtime, Showtime style to the next level and created NBA Street. We must be different and yet compelling because we respect that product a lot.

JV: (Laughs.) We keep hearing this from the media. If you analyze the team that worked on NBA Ballers you'll notice that with the exception of two or three people, the entire team had never worked on a previous Midway basketball title. With that said, the team behind NBA Ballers features a lot of young and talented people whom were fans of Midway's previous efforts and had fresh ideas on how to revitalize the company's take on sports gaming. The talent involved with conceptualizing, visually designing and implementing the ideas behind NBA Ballers is what makes this game so much different from the company's past efforts. Of course game guru's like Mark Turmell and George Gomez help the team to retain the game play formulas that made our previous titles successful but the will and drive behind the team to try something new is how NBA Ballers came to fruition. Midway will continue to innovate in the years to come by taking your favorite franchises in bold new directions. I believe that NBA Ballers is the first example of where the "new" Midway is taking our sports franchises from now into the future.

Are all of the versions of the game going to be released simultaneously?

JV: Yep.

Which platform did the game begin on? PS2 led the way.

JV: PlayStation 2. It has the largest install base and was the version we really wanted to focus on when we began working on NBA Ballers.

Is the Game Boy Advance getting its own version?
 

JV: Hahahaha. If GBA does get its own version of NBA Ballers I want to create a mini-game that forces gamers to purchase $50 worth of extra cables so they can hook it up to their GameCube and unlock this cool mini-game where we trap their created players on an island with a lonely giraffe and some fruit. If they collect the fruit and bring it back to Marbury’s house they can earn additional credits by opening up a juice bar that also doubles as a way to make your player’s juice meter replenish at a faster rate. Oh wait we don’t have a GCN version… Oh well, there is always Ballers 2.

Well said.

Thanks for a great interview, guys!