NFL Street 2 Designer Diary #5

Variety of Online Play

By Graeme Bayless
Producer

NFL Street 2, much like its predecessor, has a great online experience that we hope everyone will want to participate in. This year we were able to add support for Xbox Live, which exposes a much broader audience to online gameplay. The big news, however, was the addition of the "street events" to online, which provides a quick-play option for people who want to get a great game online without a big time commitment.

The street events are a whole new way to play street football, and we brought them online with the popular "crush the carrier" leading the way. With crush the carrier, each player selects a single player and then competes with several artificial intelligence-controlled players online. The object of the game is to score as many points as possible, but scoring comes from "styling" with the ball as well as tackling the ball carrier. This makes for a frenzy, and having this game online was a key design decision for us this year. We added "open field showdown" as well, because it's a perfect platform for one-on-one bragging rights.

Beyond these new events, we also brought the entire gameplay experience over to Xbox Live so Xbox users could enjoy the great online competition. Gamers can not only play regular "quick games," but also import the created teams they've spent hours perfecting before taking them online for head-to-head showdowns with other powerhouses. With the wide array of customizing options available to players now, no two created teams will be alike, making for new games each time players face one another online.

Of course, we still have the staples of online play, including the "pickup game" mode where players can create teams on the fly by selecting from a pool of available stars. These matchups require strategy both in selecting the right combination of players and in how you position them in the game. A bad matchup can cost you a win, so you need to pick your team carefully.

All in all, NFL Street 2 has the most complete array of online modes yet. We specifically tuned the game to maximize the opportunities for players to truly enjoy their online experiences. We hope that the myriad new modes available to online players will keep the game fresh for many hours of online play.