NHL 2K6 Goes Even Further With Xbox 360 Enhancement and New Content

by Louis Bedigian

“We're able to add tons of little details that we were never able to include before that make the overall experience that much more immersive and exciting.”

"I think Jeff did a pretty good job already speaking to some of the challenges we've had developing the game,” began Ben Bishop, referring to the comments Jeff Thomas (VP of Sports Development at Visual Concepts) made regarding NBA 2K6. Jeff spoke about NBA 2K6 during a conference call last week. Now it was time for Ben, who is the Project Manager for NHL 2K6, to share new details on his Xbox 360 launch title.

“We certainly face a lot of the similar things as we were working on NHL 2K6, and the team worked pretty closely with the library group that Jeff talked about here at Visual Concepts as well as a lot of the engineers here who worked on NBA 2K6. So we were fortunate in that we were able to use a lot of same technology in NHL 2K6 so you will see some similar things like the lighting effects NBA 2K6 used. It's great having been able to have those two teams collaborate so closely.

"But specifically as far as the new version of NHL 2K6 for 360, I think that... I'm awfully surprised to hear a lot of these games getting rid of a lot of features, and that was never a question for us. We felt it was really important to include all the various features and modes that we had in Xbox and PlayStation 2. We don't want people to feel like, you know, if they were holding out and waiting for the 360 version, that they aren't getting something they could've had before on Xbox and PS2 that they aren't getting on the 360.

"Franchise Mode, Dream Team Mode, and all the things like that that you had in the current generation. That was a big priority for us.

"When you actually pop in the game you will see that the graphics is probably the biggest thing we worked on. One of the great things about working with a system like the Xbox 360 is having so much extra power in the hardware and so much extra memory to work with. We're able to add tons of little details that we were never able to include before that make the overall experience that much more immersive and exciting. And really fun. It really feels like you're there. [When] you play the game and you get the perspective of the fans in many cases.

"We've got working Jumbotrons now. We've got ice spray that'll stick to the player. So if you skate up and stop quickly and spray a guy with ice you'll see it stuck to him for a portion of the game. You'll see reflections in the ice, reflections in the glass that you've never been able to see before. You'll even see refractions. There's so much that we've never been able to do before that we're excited that we have the capability of addressing at this point.

"I think that Jeff made another good point: we're really just scratching the surface. There's so much that we didn't have time for this version that's sitting on the table for next year. There are so many new ideas and concepts that we couldn't even think about before. Now, [because of Xbox 360], we're starting to develop these and prepare for next year.

"Another thing I can mention: something else that's really cool with gameplay that we were able to add is a new feature called Crease Control. This was actually developed in conjunction with our cover athlete, Marty Turco. We brought him into the studios, he got to sit down with the team and we played earlier versions of the Xbox game that we were working on. He gave us feedback. We got to find out about the things he liked, what he didn't like, what was too hard and what didn't seem too realistic.

“At the same time we did that we got to talk to him about what it takes to be a goalie and what kinds of things you think about. And that's kind of where this whole Crease Control feature came from. He talked about positioning so positioning is a big facet in Crease Control. It's a totally new feature that we didn't have in previous versions of the game. It adds a whole new dimension to not just being able to play defense, but actually being able to be the goalie and stop a guy on the breakaway or get in the cage in a shootout and try to stop the other team on your own as opposed to relying on the CPU to do it for you.

Changing the Rules, Changing the Game

Hockey isn’t the same game we knew before the lockout. For better or worse, many changes have been made. Ben and his team responded accordingly.

"It's definitely had a big effect on us,” he says. “What's tough is that the rule changes came down right at the end of the development cycle for Xbox and PlayStation 2. We were working closely with the NHL and they were kind of keeping us best informed, but a lot of the decisions they were making were coming down to the last minute too, and they just had gotten some of this stuff sorted out close to when the season was about to start.

“We definitely got the first batch of new rules in Xbox and PlayStation 2, but I think we had a unique opportunity with 360 in that the game doesn't come out until a couple of months later so we got much more of an opportunity to refine and work on those rules a little bit more. It does certainly make a difference in the game. Scoring is up in real life in the NHL and I think that's the case in our game too.

“We've had to do some extra work to account for that and make the AI better aware of things like not having to worry the two-line pass. Now you'll see them making better outlet passes and not hanging out at the center line so they don't get that two-line pass. Things like shootouts which I mentioned, we added shootouts to the game for Xbox and PS2, but what was great with Xbox 360 is that we got to do a lot of extra work on breakaway AI. Now they [the players] are much more challenging when they're coming at you, not just at a shootout but also in a normal breakaway during a game."

Rosters Current, Rookies Aboard

"I think the rosters are current up to a week or two into the regular season. We spent quite a bit of time looking at the pre-season games. We spent some time looking at the guys playing in the AHL last year. A lot of the younger guys who were sent down to their minors when there wasn't a season last year. We looked at what those guys did there and we looked at what the guys did in Europe. So that actually played into the player ratings quite a bit. As the pre-season games started and the training camps and even with 360 version as the regular season started playing we got to take a look at what guys were doing... Essentially with some of these new rules, it's making some of the quicker, smaller guys more effective than they were in the past and we had to take that into account too.

"For Xbox and PlayStation 2 we weren't able to include any of the new rookies because the NHLPA has a rule that they've had to have played in a regular season game before they can be in [a video game]. So in the 360 version you get guys like Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, they're all in the game. They've got their unique heads. They've got player portraits so when they score a goal you'll get to see their real head, and that's something that we couldn't do, actually that's something not any of the hockey games can do in the Xbox version. When you pick up the 360 version it'll have all the rookies in the game for their respective teams and we'll continue to update the rosters via Xbox Live."

A View From the Top

"When you're playing in Crease Control, you're looking right over the goalie's shoulder. That view of the ice is a little bit different than the regular 3/4 view that is used during pretty much any hockey game you've played in the past. That's a wholly different view of the ice. When you're playing as the goalie if you want to go out and play offense you're probably going to want to switch out of that view. It's really more of something that'll be focused in the defensive zone when they're coming at you with the puck.

"The other thing that's great is that the Xbox 360 is geared toward high-definition and HDTV. When you've got that extra wide screen it really gives you more of the ability to see what's going on around you on the ice. You can see back and forth much farther than you could see before."

Q&A Powerplay

In what ways has the animation system been upgraded from last year's edition on the other consoles?

Ben Bishop: A lot of what the AI does won't be quite so jerky anymore. They'll have more time to think about their decisions. You'll see that the animations are smoother than they were before and they'll be much more refined. I think just having that extra couple of months and the extra power of the 360 really helped give it a smoother, fresher look than the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions.

The 360 version runs at 60fps (frames per second)?

BB: Yes, definitely. That was also a big priority for us. We wanted it to play as smooth as possible. We didn't want to have any bumps or hiccups, so we spent quite a bit of time trying to get that sorted out.

Why in video games is it so important to reach 60fps? Before the big achievement was 30fps, but doesn't film run at 24fps? Why is that acceptable in film but games need much more power to create that same level of fluidity?

BB: I can't say I know much about the film industry. But as far as games go, if you've got a game that runs at a lower frame rate, it's just... We've actually had problems where you'll be skating up the ice and if you perform a particular action at a point where the frame dropped you could lose the puck. We had problems early on as we were optimizing the 360 version. When the frame rate wasn't at that higher level you'd see things happen, like you'd be skating up the ice on a breakaway. As you were trying to deke the player would drop the puck because frames would've been lost. That's one of the big reasons why it was so important for us to get that frame rate optimized, running at a solid 60fps so you weren't losing things that could affect the gameplay.

Are you mapping all of the player faces onto the characters, or at least for some of the bigger hockey stars?

BB: Absolutely. Not just the bigger hockey players. For pretty much any player who's starting on any of the NHL teams on the active roster, I think they almost all have individual heads. We have multiple artists spending hours and hours just working on each individual head trying to get that look exactly right. That was a big priority for us because we wanted to have as many unique heads as we could.

Thanks to everyone at 2K Sports and Access PR for having a wonderful conference call.