Cricket 2002 Interview/Preview

                                                     
Publisher: EA Sports                                  
By:Salman                                                                                                              

Clips: 1  2  3

Hi everyone, I would like to welcome Derek Proud of EA Sports. Derek thank you for taking the time to do this. Could you please give us some information about how you got started in the industry, some of the titles you have worked on and your role on the development team for Cricket 2002.

I started working for Sega in the early 90s and have worked my way since then. I started working for EA about 4 years ago. I've helped with several titles EA has produced, including AFL 99, Cricket World Cup, Cricket 2000,and Shogun. I was the Producer on EA SPORTS Rugby.

1.) First of all, everyone wants to know why wont there be PC version. Cricket 99 World Cup did quite well in terms of sales and Cricket 2000 was an upgrade to Cricket World Cup 99, so why the decision not to make a PC version from the beginning?

2.) If indeed there will be a PC version when does it expect to ship and will it be a direct port of the Playstation 2 version or will there by some changes etc?

I'll answer both of these questions together. Firstly, we have definitely not ruled a PC version out, and in fact it remains a distinct possibility. We know from experience that Cricket games perform much better on console and at first instance we wanted to deliver the best possible game experience. We will then look at the possibility of releasing versions on other platforms.

3.) What are some of the game modes that will be available in Cricket 2002, for example other than test, ODI, one-day knockout tournament, Sharjah, and world series matches, will there be a test season, Ashes series, historic matches or even a custom tournament?

We will be having a knockout tournament, and you can simulate the Ashes with the test match option that is in the game. We chose not to include the historical matches in this version as we feel we have enough options in terms of match types to satisfy even the most discerning gamer.

4.)What are the capabilities of the player editor and how much variety is there in the commentary, how many hours of commentary have been recorded.

The player editor allows the player to edit teams and players names and player features like skin and hair colour. We have taken the best features from past cricket titles and endeavoured to improve on them. The commentary was very extensive, and I'm really impressed at how well it is working in the game. We recorded about 4 days worth of commentary, so about 24 hours all up. Richie Benaud is an incredible professional and worked very hard to make sure we had everything we both wanted in the commentary.

5.)Some of the people from the team that worked on Brian Lara Cricket (BLC) are working on Cricket 2002, and many people have been wondering why only 22 stadiums, why not 40 like BLC boasted. Also how much have they added/improved the game, having done previous work on a cricket game?

We wanted to focus on the main cricket stadiums and pack as much detail into them as we could. We knew that if we spread ourselves over a large amount of grounds we would not be able to achieve this. Cricket grounds have such a rich history; the surrounds of the game probably play more part than in any other sport. We wanted to give each ground the time and detail that it deserved.

6.) Since Cricket 2002 will have real players, will there be pictures of the players as the walk out on to the field, or come to bat, also will the players get injured during the course of play?

There will be no seperate pictures, but the faces of the players will be imposed onto the models, so you will be able to recognise players in closeups and replays. There will be no player injuries, as we did not feel that this was a necessary element of gameplay.

7.) Also will there be comprehensive stat tracking, record books and will there be realistic pop-ups stats like Batsman/bowler performance charts, run rates etc.?

We have always had huge plans for the stats.  They have just been inserted into the latest game build, and they are my latest favourite feature. I'm a stat buff and this certainly does not dissapoint. We have wagon wheel graphs, spider graphs, bar graphs, line graphs, you can view by individual player, team, both teams superimposed, the features just go on and on.

8.) Will there be any presentation ceremonies at the end of each match and what about drinks break during ODI and test matches?

We will have celebration animations and celebration sort of photo op, with the team standing around the cup at the ground they won in. A drinks break? No, we won't be simulating this.

9.) Why not an NTSC version, there are about thousand cricket clubs across the USA and Canada. If there were a marketing campaign to let the public know that there is such a cricket game on the market, I think it would help. Also previously the cricket titles from EA Sports did ok in terms of sales here in North America. What are your thoughts on the matter?

We are currently very keen to make an NTSC version and sell into North America, but there is little interest at the moment from our NA colleagues. They have seen the game and agree that it is of very high quality but the performance of Cricket on the continent does not warrant making a completely different version. We're continuing to try and persuade all the same.

10.) Moving on to some of the gameplay issues, what sort of design did HB-Studios use for the batting? Will it be similar to BLC or will it be like Cricket 2000? If its similar to BLC how will the batsmen charge as mentioned in the features of Cricket 2002. If the batting is similar to Cricket 2000, how responsive will the controls be? The idea behind the batting in Cricket 2002 was great, however the controls were not very responsive, as one could slog all day.

HB have created an excellent hybrid of batting styles, and it's one of the best features of the game. We have three main buttons to hit the ball; back foot shots, front foot shots and the charge. This, combined with the 8 directions you can hit the ball, comes to 24 different ways. This includes the front foot defensive, back foot defensive, and charge defensive. Then you can press L1 for a strong hit on all those combinations, which brings us to 44 different shots. There is also a duck/dodge/leave button, rounding out the four main PS2 control pad buttons. The batting is comprehensive and versatile, without being confusing. It's one of the great aspects of the game.

11.) Now on to the bowling, will the bowling be similar to Cricket 2000. The bowling controls for Cricket World Cup 99 and Cricket 2000 were great. The player had total control over the spin, line, and length of the ball. Or will the bowling be similar to that of BLC where you simply placed the curser and decided on the delivery?

Again, the HB guys have created a hybrid of styles from both games, borrowing mostly from the way we controlled spin and seam in the 2000 titles. The player has a map of the ball, and can move a pointer on the ball during the entire bowl (including after release to fool the 2nd player) as well as the speed indicator for perfection. We've also added different button presses for different bowlers. For example, the Leg Spinner can press X for a normal delivery, O for a Googly or triangle for a Flipper.

12.) The features portion of Cricket 2002 states that manual fielding will be an option, however, will the player be able to create custom fields?

Yes, we have a peg and hole type situation where the player can individually allocate a fielding position to each member of the team. There is about 80-90 positions a player can be put in. The player can also choose from a range of 15 preset fielding conditions (agressive, defensive, etc) or create 3 custom field settings. Obviously all field placements in one day matches have to comply to competition rules.

13.) How has the computer AI algorithm been designed for the batting and the bowling. If the computer is batting, will it maintain a steady run rate and play moderately to achieve a desired target? Often times in BLC the computer is batting steadily, when all of a sudden it starts slogging and loosing wickets and soon the match ends, because the computer was slogging too much. For the bowling, how will the computer respond to the player strategy? For example, if the player is playing with a weak team and the computer is quite strong (say Australia) will the computer be aggressive from the onset knowing that the weaker teams batsmen are not very good.

The AI is a much more refined version of the BLC one. The computer looks at a myriad of factors - how many overs are left, how many people are yet to bat, how tired they are, how many days are left, thier current ideal run rate, the batting agression of the batsman, the fielding setup etc, etc and makes a decision based on this.

14.) So far, is there anything on the features list that might not make it?

Not at this stage. Everything is in there that we wanted. The only thing we wanted from the initial design but left out was the ability to use the PS2 Hard Disk and modem to download new additions to the game, but as time went on that peripheral became less and less likely, so we omitted it from the design.

15.) Developing any game is not an easy task, what are the most difficult challenges the team has faced so far in making a cricket game? How is the development team catering to the arcade player while satisfying simulation aficionados?

We've been paying the most attention to the complexity of the control in the difficulty settings. So at easy levels, the controls are fairly simple, and at higher difficulty settings the player has more options. This allows people who are new to the game to begin playing straight away, but those that are confident to tackle the newer control methods to jump right in. I guess in terms of actual programming the most difficult is always AI, making the computer behave in a realistic manner depending on the almost infinte factors that you can bring into play.

16.) How much progress has been made, how close is Cricket 2002 to completion, and I know developers hate when people ask this, but I have to! What is the estimated release date for Cricket 2002 at this point?

We are at Alpha now, the game will definitly be out before Christmas. It's been a great development cycle, one that has run very close to a tight timeline, so we're all very happy about where it's at.

17.) Why not the inclusion of county cricket ?

We wanted to save something for future versions! If we include county Cricket, we would need to include State cricket for Australia and so this is a big step. We also feared it would push the timeline out so we decided to save this for the next version of the game

18.) You mentioned Richine Benaud recording the commentary, what about Bill Lawry(mentioned in the features list)?

Bill Lawry and Jim Maxwell have also done a great job backing up Richie.

19.) Will Cricket 2002 take advantage of the upcoming plans for the PS2 online play?

No, we did initially have that in our design doc but we decided against including it. It seems to have been a good choice as the hardware does not seem to be close.

20.) Many developers initially complained that it is/was quite difficult to program for the PS2, Cricket 2002 being HB-Studios first PS2 title, what do most of members of the development think about that ?

There are several challenges with the hardware, but if you work hard you can get excellent performance from the machine. I think much more than "difficult", the hardware is just "different".

21.)Any other projects that HB-Studios plans to work on upon the release of Cricket 2002 ?

I can't speak on their behalf but we are in discussions with them for other titles.

That raps up the interview with Mr. Derek Proud. Derek I would like to thank you myself and on behalf of the fans of Cricket 2002 for taking the time to do this. We are all excited and are looking forward to the release of Cricket 2002.