DRIVE Basketball :: DRIVE Culture : NBA Live 2005

NBA Live has been a staple for great basketball video gaming for years, however, this year's title is different. NBA Live 2005 is a revolutionary game that has set the bar high for all basketball video games in the future. The freestyle control has been taken to a new level, and the introduction of All-Star Weekend, plus a very enhanced dynasty mode make Live 2005 a complete basketball video game.

DRIVE was recently lucky enough to sit down with the young and energetic Associative Producer of EA Sports Live 2005, Todd Batty. Batty is the lead game designer for NBA Live, him and his team are responsible for all the features (gameplay, motion-capturing, dynasty modes, etc.) that go into NBA Live 2005. We want to sincerely thank Todd for taking the time to talk to DRIVE and let everyone know about the new title and his thoughts on classic video games. His knowledge and passion for his work and the game of basketball made it a truly exciting conversation.

DRIVE: Whats up Todd, thanks for chatting with us, can you tell us a little bit about your role with NBA LIVE 2005?

TB: No worries fellas, I'm happy to do it. I am the Associate Producer of Live 2005. I was the lead Game Designer, with my primary focus being all aspects of the All-StarWeekend feature.

DRIVE: How much work goes into making Live?

TB: The amount of work that goes into making a title, I'm sure most people really have no idea. We have a team of roughly 60 people working around-the-clock for almost the entire year tobring a finished game to the shelf in time for the start of the NBA season. We have to first come up with our 'big' ideas, then storyboard
the flow and mock-up prototypes, create a schedule, dive into production, and then finally tune the logics and fix all of the various bugs found by a team of 100+ game testers. The number of people and assets that go into making a feature is staggering. For example, while implementing the Slam Dunk Competition this year there were days when I would work with 20-25 different people on that feature alone. There are various artists working on: the arena, the judges, the players, the 3-D crowd, the 2-D crowd, the security guards, the media, the arena, the court, and the lighting and animations for all of those various people and objects while various programmers are working on: the lighting, the AI, the scoring system, the rendering, the framerate, the ability to save/load games, the implementation of animations, the cameras, the play-by-play commentary, the color commentary, the functional jumbotrons, etc, etc.

The fact that all of the hard work of all of these different people can come together and somehow function properly in the final product is always the most amazing thing to me. We are very lucky at EA to employ the best-of-the-best when it comes to artists and programmers and I consider myself privileged to work with them on a daily basis.

DRIVE: That's crazy, I guess we dont really think about how much work it takes to include all those special little details. So what can we expect from NBA LIVE 2005?

TB: Live 2005 should go down as a Classic game. In terms of gameplay we were very happy with where Live 2004 ended up so we used our time this year tofocus on improving a lot of the little things that bothered us, rather than have to rewrite huge chunks of code as we have done for the past few years. Offensive rebounding is much improved, we fixed the mid-range game so the CPU takes more 15 foot jumpers and so that it is also an effective strategy for the User. We added in a ton of 2-man scenarios - everything from V-cuts to shot strips to pump-fake-and-go moves that look and feel great. New controls have been added again as we now give the User full control over rebounding, where the jump button will always allow your player to simply pull down the offensive board, the shoot button will always allow your player to try and attempt a tip-in, and the dunk button will always force your player to attempt a put-back slam. This adds an awesome new element of strategy to offensive rebounding.

DRIVE: Nice, what about the Dynasty mode? Any improvements there?

TB: The Dynasty Mode has been completely reworked with improved free agencylogic and rookie generation, a real-time calendar and a central PDA to keep you up to date on happenings from around the league.

DRIVE: That's tight, okay we've been waiting to ask, whats up with All-Star Weekend?

TB: The big new feature is the All-Star Weekend. This includes the Rookie-Sophomore and East-West games which both play much closer to their real-life counterparts than a regular 5-on-5 game.

DRIVE: Seriously? Like the all-star games play differently?

TB: It is basically a high-paced, end-to-end dunk fest with the odd huge swat block and is a ton of fun to play, especially against a friend. We also added in the
unique ability to throw an alley-oop pass to yourself off the backboard ala T-Mac a couple years ago for these 2 games only. Next up for All-Star Weekend is the 3-point shootout which features over 20 different signature shooting animations for all the top NBA players.

DRIVE: Your kidding, you mean you got unique J's like Peja and Reggie Miller in the 3-Point?

TB: Yeah, you can even use Shaq in the 3 point and it looks like the big fella shooting. Not only does this look authentic, but it actually adds a new dimension of strategy to the game, as each different animation has a slightly different timing window so once you've mastered the mode with one player you have to practice all over again if you decide to change him up and try someone new.

DRIVE: Alright, this is what all the noise is about, tell us about the Dunk man, is it legit? Do we actually control what happens during the comp?

TB: The Slam Dunk competition is really our marquis feature this year. It is the first truly fully interactive dunk competition found in a video game and lets you do anything and everything your mind can imagine while still being based on reality. There are over 30,000 different dunks you can pull off.

DRIVE: 30,000?

TB: 30,000, they are commented on by Ernie Johnson and Kenny 'The Jet' Smith and scored by some of the great dunk legends like Dr. J and Dominique Wilkins. This mode adds hours and hours of extra fun and is great either by yourself or with a group of friends.

DRIVE: The Jet? Nice work, can we play online?

TB: The addition of XBOX Live to complement PS2 Online makes this game online capable. Online gaming is a unique feature that more gamers should try, it allows you to play Live in various leagues and tournaments with people around the world. Also, you can battle your friends without even leaving the house.

DRIVE: Alright, have you seen our list? Where do you think Live would rank?

TB: I really think we're going to see NBA Live 2005 on your site's 'Top 5 Basketball Video Games of All Time' list in the near future, we really tried to make it a unique game that will be remembered for some time.

DRIVE: Yeah, we might have to make an update! Can you tell us about Motion-Capture, how does it work and who has been used in the past?

TB: Motion Capture is the process we use to create animations (IE. 'moves') for our game. Essentially what we do is suit a player up in a skin-tight black suit with small markers that look like ping-pong balls attached to all of his major joints and bones. The player then completes an action (IE a slam dunk) in this suit and over 50 different cameras record the motion of each of the markers during the course of the animation. Computers then create a skeleton of the player by 'connecting the dots' of all of these various markers and mapping the movement of each of them. This gives us a recreation of the move by a skeleton on our computers. We can then add on the texture of any NBA player right down to his unique tattoos and we have the core data to create movement of our game's players.

Since I have been with NBA Live we have had the pleasure of working with everyone from Kevin Garnett to Rucker Park Legend Alimo to you fellas (Pash and Mase). Last year we brought in Corey Maggette and Chris Kayman from the Los Angeles Clippers to participate in the industrys very first 10-man mocap session, wherewe had all of the talent split into two 5-man teams and play actualhalf-court basketball that was captured entirely by our computers. This was really the key driving factor that made NBA Live 2004 the most realistic looking video basketball game in history.

DRIVE: Good shoutout man! Okay we want an expert's opinion, what are some of the greatest basketball video games of all-time?

TB: As far as Old-school classics go I would have to say Lakers-vs-Celtics and Coach K College basketball are my all-time favorites.

DRIVE: Lakers vs Celtics? That's old school!

TB: Ha ha, I love retro games, they were great. Multi-player gems would be NBA Jam and definitely the original NBA Street.

DRIVE: Alright, what about the Live's?

TB: NBA Live 2003 kind of hits both of those categories as well. I think it is a classic in that it was the first year of Freestyle Control (which has become the cornerstone of the Live franchise) but was also a really fast-paced, fun game (albeit a little unrealistic) for multi-player.

I hate giving props to the competition, but I have to admit that NBA 2K2 was probably the first game of the latest generation of hardware platforms that really delivered realistic hoops action with amazing looking graphics and definitely raised the bar for franchises like Live to aspire towards.

DRIVE: What about Live 2005?

I'd have to say that Live 2005 may very well go down as the greatest video game ever, even though I might be a little biased (laughs), but in all seriousness this game took loads of work and we really put a ton of thought into trying to make it a classic.

DRIVE: Wow, we really enjoyed the chat, we could talk about video games for hours, thanks a bunch man, anything you'd like to leave our readers with?

TB: Id just like to thank Pasha, Jordan, Chad and company for creating this site and for thier continued dedication to developing basketball awareness in Canada. Pasha and Jordan have been an integral part of our motion capture process for the past 3 years and are personally responsible for more than half of all the cool freestyle moves you see in NBA Live. I look forward to working with you guys again in the future and wish you the best of luck with the site and the upcoming hoops season.

If anyone has any questions for me about making video games in general or if anyone is looking for some tips and tricks for playing NBA Live 2005 you can post them to this site and I will do my best to answer them when I have the time. My personal thanks goes out to anyone who has bought or plans to buy NBA Live this year you are the people we make the game for and I sincerely hope that you like what weve done.

DRIVE: Wow, thanks man, alright how about a DRIVE sign-off?

TB: (Laughs) alright fellas, "Your's in Hoop's" - Todd Batty, Associative Producer NBA Live 2005.