EA\'s NHL 2002 w/ full DTS 5.1

http://nhl2002.ea.com/en/QandA.html

not sure if this really means in game surround sound but if it is then I probably won\'t pass up NHL 2002 this year. Also isn\'t SSX Tricky also boasting in game DTS ?????

This Ice Is Even Cooler
By Dino Scoppettone

From the early days of the Sega Genesis, when each player looked exactly the same, to the introduction of the PlayStation 2, which allows for features such as lifelike player animation and facial likenesses and the Emotion Meter, the NHL games from EA SPORTS have come a long way. They\'ll go even farther towards the ultimate reproduction of professional hockey in NHL 2002, coming to your PC or game console this fall.


We sat down with NHL 2002 producer Dave Warfield to ask about this latest version of the coolest game on Earth, and Dave happily obliged, giving us a first look at what\'s in store for hockey aficionados everywhere:  

EA SPORTS: What are the biggest differences between NHL 2002 and last year\'s NHL 2001?

Dave Warfield: The biggest differences between NHL 2001 and NHL 2002 are the overall presentation of dramatic moments, the attention to new/beginning players, and the new enhanced gameplay controls for our NHL return gameplayers.



EA: How does the Emotion Meter work? What sorts of events tip it one way or the other?

DW: The emotion meter tracks the crowds responsiveness to how you and your team are playing -- they are excited by Big Hits and Great Goals, they increase excitement when you dominate the play, and they get on your team when the visiting team starts to take over the play. When the crowd is the most excited and is chanting, your team will get an emotional boost from that; when the fans are angry and booing your team, the players have a bit of a letdown

EA: What exactly is the Breakaway Camera, and how does it work? What drove the decision to include this?


DW: The Breakaway Cam takes the intense moment that occurs when you are one-on-one with the goalie and presents it in a much more dramatic way. The camera zooms down to see the moment much closer, the crowd goes hush, and all you can hear is your heartbeat and the sound of your skates as you come in alone on the goalie. This was part of our mandate to make sure that the most important moments of the game (Breakaways, Celebrations, Big Hits, and Big Saves) are blown out and shown in a dramatic and entertaining fashion.



EA: What about the EA Game Story? How does that work? How does the game decide which storylines to follow?

DW: The EA Game Story tracks events throughout the game and analyzes them for compelling stories: is a player going to get a Hat Trick, does a goalie have a chance of getting a Shutout, is one team dominating the play? There are a whole bunch of stories that we look for and then we tell them as the game progresses, with an overlay, scenes of the players involved, replays from earlier in the game, and Don Taylor and Jim Hughson talking about the Game Story.

EA: What kinds of things are included in Create-a-Player feature?

DW: Create-a-Player allows gameplayers to create themselves or anyone else. They can adjust the details of the player (height, weight, age); they can adjust their skills and ratings that affect how they play; and this year, we added the ability to create a face that resembles theirs in a Mr. Potato Head fashion. They can choose different skin tones, eyes, nose, mouth, and facial hair to create the look of the player, and this face ties into our facial animation system, which allows him to have emotion, smile, grimace in pain, etc.

EA: The NHL Cards are another new feature -- what kinds of goodies are included in the cards?

 DW: The NHL Cards allow gameplayers to play NHL in a different way. You earn points by completing tasks, and can redeem those points for a pack of 10 random NHL Cards. There are Player Cards that allow you to make them Heroes, Cheat cards that allow you to cheat (e.g. when playing your friend and he\'s up by 4, you play your "Next Goal Wins" card), Easter Egg cards (e.g. Players with Big Heads, Last Man Standing allows you to check players and they stay down until the next whistle, Shrink and Grow Shrinks guys that are Hit, and grows guys that score goals), as well as 9 special Hero Celebration Cards. The Hero Celebration cards allow you to assign special celebrations to your buttons and choose how to celebrate after a goal (e.g. Home plate Slide allows the player to slide on his stomach across the ice)..

EA: Any secrets, cheats or hidden features you can leak to us to give us a taste of what to look for?

DW: All of our secrets and cheats are tucked away in the NHL Cards feature, so you have to play the game and earn them.

EA: With a year of PS2 development under your belt, what were you able to do with 2002 that you haven\'t been able to in the past? What do you hope to do in the future?

DW: With another year of PS2 development under our belts, we were able to improve the detail in the game, the players look more realistic, they move more realistically, they can do a lot more than they ever could, and you can see the 3-D crowd celebrating after goals. We were able to push the sound quality to a new level with full DTS 5.1 support, and were able to make sure there were no slowdowns when skating in congested areas of the ice. As we get to know this system and the other systems more, we will be able to push both the presentation and gameplay to new levels. [/color]



EA: Anything else you care to add about NHL 2002?

DW: A lot of our returning NHL gameplayers may be reading all this and thinking "well that\'s all great, but what about the gameplay?" Well, we never forget about our diehard NHL fans. We have added a number of gameplay improvements this year that I think they will really enjoy, such as:

Saucer Passes - Enhanced pass control enabling the puck to be lifted or "sauced" over opponent\'s sticks and bodies to set up the perfect play.

Variable Puck Control - Improved puck control based on player ratings. Puck control increases with possession time, so a player may receive a pass and only have 50% control, but it will increase to 100% control as he has time. Players with low stick handling skills will lose puck control readily, but players with high stick handling skills, like Mario Lemieux, will maintain a high level of control.

Adaptive Goalie AI - Goalies will adapt to cover certain shot situations, providing a wider variety of spectacular saves and goals while not allowing gamers to always score the same way.

Goalie Save Animations - Watch goalies make amazing butterfly saves, stack the pad saves, paddle down saves, diving saves, blocker saves and big glove hand saves through new Goalie Animations.

Pass Receptions - Players will do whatever is necessary (ex. reaching for the puck, kicking the puck up to their sticks, looking back for the pass, etc) to receive a variety of passes realistically.

Manual Dekes - Take control of the players\' stick and go one on one with a Goalie or defender through amazing User control allowing the precise movement of the player\'s stick back and forth.

Big Shooters and Snipers - Increase your chances to score by taking a thunderous slap shot with a "big shooter" or ripping an extremely accurate wrist shot from in close with a "Sniper".

That sounds superb !!!

I wish somehow you could aim where exactly you want the puck to go, then fire. depending on the player rating how far the shot carums.

Also don\'t want the goalie dumb as hell.More save moves(player controled)

I swearr nhl 2001 is basicly based on who can fire the most shots at the net,stuff start going in.

Read the entire preview above lunar3

they talk about the improvements they have made and most of the ones you are concerned with were addressed

2nd gen PS2 games are really beginning to tap the PS2\'s multi processor power

I think NHL2002 is going to be real sweet, especially since people gave 2001 a pretty fair score.

ddaryl, i seem to be the only one besides you that is completely stoked about dts support. I, like you, hope it is more than just cut scenes like in the bouncer (it used dolby digital )
But even if dts came on only for the breakaway moments and a few3 other in game sequences it still would be a great start. I was one of the people that said that it would be nearly impossible to incorporate full digital decoding on the fly in a game with the current generation of systems and i sure hope i will stand corrected after nhl comes out. Just the sheer thought of hearing a skater come from the left corner of my room corresponding to exactly where he is on the ice is enough to give me goosbumps

Me like! Me like very much!

Me dont have a 5.1 sound system.
Me sad.

Anyone want to lend me some money? :eyemouth:

Originally posted by fastson
Me like! Me like very much!

Me dont have a 5.1 sound system.
Me sad.

Anyone want to lend me some money? :eyemouth:

DTT-3500 ; 3995:-

I have to say that I am not supprised. I know that the PS2 could do realtime 5.1 sound. LOL This is good news.

Wow!!  Cool news, thanks for the update ddaryl.

Just fyi, there are several ways of encoding a DD 5.1 signal.  There are many more ways of doing this on the fly in real time.  There is "true" DD 5.1 which everyone is used to with DVDs that truly has a discrete signal coming from each channel, and then there is "faked" 5.1 which is done with the use of low cpu-intensive stereo pans in the front and rear.

Of course the latter doesn\'t sound as realistic (not as good channel discretion) but it\'s still a 5.1 signal which is no easy feat.  So far, only the sound processing power of the Xbox seems really up to the task of spitting out a great sounding 5.1 track in real-time with its dual 24-bit 200Mhz DSPs.

It will be interesting to see which the PS2 will use.

Originally posted by Bossieman



DTT-3500 ; 3995:-

Aaa.. Vill du låna mig dom pengarna??
Vore schysst

Hot damn.. This is awesome.. Now I MUST HAVE those DTT3500 speakers!

I love the concept of the Breakaway Cam!  Can\'t wait to get my hands on the game so I can check it out for real!!!

Sound like a complety new game. I\'ll be getting this game for sure. My only complain is why they didn\'t include DTS on Madden? It would be hearing Madden in 5.1 channels:D.

Some nice in-game videos at EA\'s official site:

http://nhl2002.ea.com/en/ps2/index.html

I hope it is true that they fixed the slowdown problem!
And no more scoring from a dump in at center Ice.

Maybe I will buy it now


G.