This is Part 1 of our Welcome Back, Football! interview. Check back on Monday for Part 2, Madden 13!
We’re in the middle of the heat of summer and all across the nation, training camp is kicking into full gear. Yes folks, we’ve nearly come full circle once again, and football is in the air!
Ok, so I may be jumping the gun a bit as we’re still months away from preseason, but in the world of digital gridiron goodness, the video game football season is nearly upon us! As we eagerly await the arrival of the annual NCAA Football and Madden games, why not pass the time with some developer interviews?
This year, Gaming Examiner sits down with producer Ben Haumiller to discuss what’s new with NCAA Football 13.
Gaming Examiner – A lot of the new features in NCAA Football 13 this year are also mimicked in Madden 13 (which is the case most years). This makes perfect sense, given the relationship that the two games have with each other. What measures are being taken to insure that the two game integrate seamlessly this year? It’s never really been an issue, but draft classes are sometimes a little out of whack, etc.
Ben Haumiller – There is a lot of sharing that’s done between the Madden NFL and NCAA Football teams, but graphics and gameplay are the two main areas where you see that collaboration in action. Graphics features like HDR & progressive lighting are developed in tandem by the teams so that we can share the cost to develop the feature and both games get the benefit. For gameplay we have a centralized gameplay group that create all things gameplay for both franchises. Features like the Total Control Passing system and Read and React Defensive AI are created and implemented for both games, while features like playbooks are created specifically for the schools in NCAA Football and the teams in Madden NFL to represent the offenses and defenses they run in real life. The goal is to create the best possible gameplay experience and tune that experience so that both games feel true to their respective real-life counterparts.
GE – I’ve always been curious; when new features are introduced for both games, which game are they developed for specifically? NCAA releases first chronologically, but Madden seems to be the bigger draw. Is it the sort of scenario where a feature is conceived for Madden and then implemented into NCAA, or vice versa?
BH – From a gameplay perspective, since there is one team creating the experience for both games, features are developed under a “one football†mentality. That means that they are created for both games rather than creating features specifically for one game over the other. This year we had an interesting case with the new Infinity engine which delivers real time physics for the first time. At E3 Madden NFL 13 announced the Infinity engine as an exclusive for this year. The decision to withhold the Infinity engine from NCAA Football 13 was made during development. Due to Madden NFL’s additional seven weeks of development time the decision was made to hold off on implementing the engine for NCAA Football 13 so that when the engine shipped in Madden NFL 13 it would be in a much more polished state. The last thing we wanted to do was ship a game with a physics engine that wasn’t in a state that we were happy with, so the decision was made to hold off on adding the Infinity engine for this year’s game.
GE – A lot of work has been put in the presentation of the game this year. A lot more focus on specific celebrations, trophies, traditions, etc. are being added to the game. What other school specific features can you disclose, and are there any other new things we can expect to the presentation aspect?
BH – The sights and sounds that you experience on a Saturday in the fall are what makes college football so unique and every year we try to add more and more of those traditions and cheers that make each school special. This year we added new traditions like Reveille at Texas A&M and The Boilermaker Special, which is the mascot train of Purdue. We’ve also added new post game celebrations for rivalry trophies and bowl games, so if you just won the Rose Bowl, or if you just lead Michigan to a win over Minnesota you are going to see your team celebrate on the field with their hardware. As for the sounds of college football, we visited 24 different schools to capture crowd audio from those games which are used as the cheers and chants in our game. So when you hear chants like Boomer Sooner and Woo Pig Sooie in the game, those are actual Oklahoma and Arkansas fans cheering their hearts out.
GE – Brad Nessler and Kirk Herbstreit are back in the commentating booth this year. Rather than pre-scripted commentary, you have mentioned that much of their dialogue was adlibbed, with the duo given situations and making up commentary on the spot. Do you hope that this will provide a more organic feel to the overall presentation? Will past events from, say, old rivalries be mentioned?
BH – When it comes to commentary, it’s all about the performance of the talent, and to get the best performance you need Brad and Kirk to be themselves. In the past we scripted out lines for them to read, however we could never quite capture their unique voice. We weren’t sure how the guys would respond to the new approach, but after they started diving into the material they really got into the new style and had a great time coming up with lines after the scene set for them. We would do our best to put them in the moment by pumping in crowd noise and fight songs into their headphones and gave them the situation we wanted them to talk about, and then just let them be themselves. The result was a much more natural delivery that we are very excited about. We focused this year on replacing a lot of the lines that were played in our most common situations to help freshen up the sound in the game, and in the future we will continue to expand the conversations to cover a much larger context of events both in the game as well as what’s going on around the country.
GE – College football has recently seen an explosion with multiple uniforms for individual schools (Oregon, I’m looking at you). How closely are you working with Nike to make sure that all uniform variants are being represented in game?
BH – Oregon was just the starting point, Oklahoma State wore a different combination every game last season, Maryland shocked the world on Labor Day night with their Pride uniforms, and even a school as tradition-rich as Notre Dame got in on the action with three different helmets; it was an absolutely crazy year when it comes to uniforms. Since there don’t appear to be any signs of this phenomenon slowing down anytime soon, we’ve done a lot of work both with the schools as well as the apparel companies to find out everything that’s planned on being created for the coming year which gives us the ability to create as many of these new uniforms/helmets as possible to ship with the game. Because some uniforms don’t get finalized until it’s too late for us, and because some uniforms are being held under wraps until we get closer to their debuts on the field there are a number of uniforms that we’re still trying to determine the best way to deliver.
GE – Madden 13 has a new Connected Careers mode where Franchise, Superstar, Online franchise are all melded into one super-career mode. It appears that NCAA 13 will maintain the individual aspects of Dynasty and Road to Glory. What led to the decision to keeps these game modes individualized, as opposed to integrated like in Madden?
BH – For NCAA Football our strength has always been our career modes (Dynasty, Online Dynasty, and Road to Glory), these are the game modes that our fans play non-stop, and we are always looking to add additional depth to those modes with each new title. The Madden NFL franchise felt that the time was right for a reboot of their career mode experience which was the genesis of the Connected Careers mode.
GE – Speaking of Dynasty Mode, will there be any changes? Any tweaks to recruiting and scouting? If so, can you tell us a bit more about these changes? What about to the presentation in Dynasty?
BH – There are a lot of great new additions to Dynasty Mode in NCAA Football 13. Starting off with recruiting, you can now scout prospects to find out their actual ratings and OVR before you’ve ever brought them on campus. This lets you find those gems in the recruiting class and avoid the busts before they arrive for the fall. Recruiting pitches are now dynamic and some pitches can change as often as each week. We did a lot of work this year to not only make these pitches dynamic, but show you why each rating is graded the way it is, and most importantly what you can do to improve those grades. As for presentation in Dynasty, the addition of the ESPN Bottom Line and Studio Updates hosted by Rece Davis bring a whole new aspect to the gameday experience. While playing your game, you will get all of those Upset Alerts, Priority Score Alerts, and Studio Updates that reveal the stories that are going on around you across the country as the day progresses.
GE – I am absolutely thrilled to see the addition of Heisman Challenge to this year’s game. As someone who loves football history (both college and pro), this mode is a gridiron fanatic’s dream come true. What can you tell us about this new feature? How was it working with all these past college football legends?
BH – We are very excited about this new mode as well. We’ve never had a single real player in the game in our 20 year history, so for us it’s huge to have identifiable characters that you can play as in the game. On top of that, as huge college football fans we are very excited to have some of the greatest players in the history of college football involved as playable characters in the game. For the Heisman Challenge, you will be able to take any of our 16 (10 available on-disc, 3 unlockable in the NCAA Football 13 demo, and 3 as pre-order bonuses from GameStop) former Heisman winners, put them on any current school, and see if you can win the 2012 Heisman Trophy with that player. The new Reaction Time feature allows you to really experience what it’s like to be one of these all-time greats by allowing you to slow down the game to decide if you want to juke or spin past a defender, or as a QB you can slow things down to read the defense and find the open receiver. As a college football fan, my favorite part of the mode are the video interviews we did with each of the athletes. These videos serve as a narrative through the mode where each Heisman winner talks about topics like where they would go to school if they were 18 right now, their Heisman defining moments, their favorite rivalry moments, and what it means to them to be Heisman Trophy winners. All of the Heisman winners we have in the mode were outstanding to work with, it was so much fun to hear them tell their stories.
GE – It appears that there will be DLC for Heisman Challenge. Is this something you’ll be supporting for the following year, or have you already decided on the additional legends available via DLC?
BH – We will have two separate packs of DLC players for the Heisman Challenge, by playing the demo you will be able to unlock Tim Brown, Jim Plunkett, and Archie Griffin. Also, if you preorder from GameStop you will unlock Tim Tebow, Mark Ingram, and Matt Leinart. These packs will also be available as DLC options, so those that didn’t preorder through Gamestop will still have a chance to get those additional players.
Thank you to Ben Haumiller for his time with this interview! Be sure to check back on Monday for Part 2 of Welcome Back, Football!
