14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts has officially confirmed that the basketball franchise the publisher is developing will now be known as NBA Elite (with an all upper case spelling in the official company materials) while also offering a few details on how the new videogame will work and change the landscape of basketball simulation. The game is set to arrive on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and on the PlayStation 3 from Sony with development handled by the EA Canada studio in Burnaby, British Columbia.
As Peter Moore, the president of EA Sports, puts it, “We plan to profoundly evolve the interactive basketball experience in a way that the category has not seen for a decade.” The main avenue will be the so-called “Hands On Control” scheme which allows each input the player makes to be reflected in a move for the character that is controlled, unlike in previous games, where canned animations needed to be completed before a new one could be initiated.
The system will be helped by a new real life physics that are being added to NBA Elite 11, allowing the players to move around the court independently without the pair dancing which has been standard for NBA games so far. EA Sports seems to be very interested in making the game flow more freely while also allowing tactical acumen on the part of the player to shine through.
David Littman, who is the creative director for NBA Elite 11, stated, “NBA ELITE 11 will give gamers the same skill set that a pro basketball player has at his disposal. This is the first basketball simulation videogame where you are controlling every movement, dribble move, shot, dunk, lay-up, steal and block in real time with one-to-one control. You’re no longer going to push a button and watch the computer generate a long animation sequence. It is like being on a basketball court with an amazing set of skills. This is going to change what people have come to expect from a basketball simulation videogame.”