Zitat von computerandvideogames
This is the first Pro Evolution Soccer on PS3 - are you pleased with what you've achieved and how do you see the series evolving on PS3?
Seabass: Well I'm satisfied in that in the time frame we had, we were able to finish the code and release it on time, but that's only really within that time frame. When I look at the capacity of what the PS3 can do, I feel very strongly that there's loads of things that I wanted to do, but I couldn't do them in this version.
As to the future, well it's not just about PS3 actually, but it's more about the mentality of the development team and I want to change the mentality of the team to be renewed and changed to focus on all next-gen platforms. We've already started operations on this.
How do you see the online version of the series, how has that changed in 2008 and how do you see it developing in subsequent versions of PES?
Seabass: Well for this year the online mode for all platforms is one versus one and in that aspect you may be a little unsatisfied by this. But when you play the game online you'll have a totally different experience. Up to last year on the PS2 for example, we were up to two versus two but if we proceeded to five versus five or six versus six, I wouldn't have been happy because the experience you would have had would be a totally different experience to the game you play offline.
Therefore what we did is change the system so that in this version you had a much closer playing experience to the offline version provided you have a good internet connection. The 'play feel' you get is almost like you're playing the offline version. It was a little bit different in the 360 version last year, but this is even more different than in this year's PS3 version.
This year's next gen versions still seem very much based on the PS2 version of the game. Will we see a big overhaul in graphics and game engine over the next couple of years in the next gen versions?
Seabass: Well I can already promise you that next year's version of PES will have a lot more new features as you would expect because we're already working on these new things right now. With the release of the PS3 we now have all the basics of the next gen at a starting stage finally. Now I don't have to worry about creating the basic parts of the next gen versions for next year, meaning I have already been able to start working on new features. Now I'm able to promise new things and a complete overhaul in every aspect.
We haven't seen many changes in PES's game modes for a while - are you planning new game modes for next year's version?
Seabass: For the game modes I understand that we haven't added many new game modes which is quite problematic for us, even within the team. But actually all the new modes which we are going to put in the game for next season are already finished. Obviously I'd like to be able to tell you what these are, but you'll understand I can't tell you about the new modes for next season, when we haven't even released PES 2008 yet!
But it's not just the new modes which are important, but changes to the actually gameplay are even more crucial, so I don't want to forget about that aspect as well.
One of the new features of the game this year is diving. Can you tell us a little about that? It has provoked some controversy amongst the fans especially with the ability to use it in online games
Seabass: Well diving is something you do see in real football and anything I see in real football I do like to implement in our game. This diving feature is not something that just popped up a couple of months ago and something we just decided to chuck in. We have been experimenting with this a long time and we did a lot of work balancing things out when we put in this feature. You might think that diving would really affect gameplay and of course it does to a certain extent, however you can't always dive and get a penalty, in fact you're more likely to get a yellow card from the referee.
If I can give you a hint, diving is best used in certain situations where even if you had not dived, the shot might have gone in. Then it's more obvious the ref will probably not give you a yellow card but give you a penalty. You have to work out the situation, if you're one on one with the keeper and it looks as if you're going to score and you're tackled from behind, then is probably the best time to use the dive. When your player wobbles as he's tackled that's the time to use the dive as you'll have a higher percentage chance of earning a penalty.
Has the DualShock 3 pad made much of an impact on development and will that succeed DualShock 2 as the best way of controlling PES?
Seabass: Well the DualShock 3, the biggest improvement that they've probably made is re-introducing rumble and as you know PES has never made use of rumble, so in that sense it's not very interesting for me. What's more important is that i want to make PES more precise in terms of movement with the D-pad and make the button configuration simpler, using less buttons and that's more of a priority when I look at DualShock 3.
When you compare 360 and PS3 versions of PES, which do you think is the better version in terms of control?
Seabass: Well firstly there's absolutely no difference in terms of the code between the PS3 and 360 versions. If you're asking about the controller I can only give you my personal opinion. I am really bad at using the 360 controller and I make a lot more missed passes and mistakes using the 360 controller, so I like the PS3 controller more. However a lot of my friends prefer the 360 controller so it's really personal preference, but there's absolutely no difference in the code between the two versions.
