PALGN: Firstly, thanks for your time, can you please introduce yourselves and let us know a little about your roles at IR Gurus.
Mark Houareau: Lead Artist & Designer on AFL Premiership 2007. Full time sports fan and keeping a lid on the Hawks’ chances in the coming years.
Justin Halliday: Senior Producer on AFL Premiership 2007.
PALGN:Are you able to tell us a little bit about some of the gameplay modes that will feature in AFL Premiership 2007?
JH: AFL Premiership 2007 has the following gameplay modes: Single Match, Season Mode, Career Mode, Mission Mode, and Training. In Single Match you can set the teams, stadium, weather, etc for a single game. In Season mode you select a team and then take them through the full season (including pre-season), just the premiership season, or even just the preseason or finals. Career mode is where the bulk of the action is. In this mode you choose a team and must take them through the entire season. We’ve made some changes here to make it more comprehensive, including improvements to the player training so that the user can set training regimes for each of the players or each group of players to guide their development.
PALGN: One of the main criticisms directed at the AFL franchise is that the gameplay often isn’t up to scratch. How have IR Gurus improved the gameplay for AFL Premiership 2007?
MH:We've spent a lot of time between versions conversing with the gaming public and AFL fans on where things can be improved and which parts of the game aren’t working properly.
The forum at Bigfooty.com has been the 'home' of our discussions and the folks there have been fantastic with their feedback and ideas. It's become clear that we both want the same things from an AFL game. The result is a more friendly control system and gameplay experience that a variety of individuals can 'pick up and play' and still find depth if they require it.
Heroes of the Pacific: He's going for goal.
PALGN: It’s been revealed that AFL Premiership 2007 will feature weather effects. Will these actually affect the gameplay or be merely cosmetic?
JH: The weather in the game affects the player’s acceleration and movement, and it makes them more likely to drop marks. In the past the players have been slower in the wet, but this year that isn’t as much of a factor.
PALGN: Can you explain to us how exactly the dynamic difficulty level works?
JH: Dynamic difficulty is always a contentious addition to any videogame. It’s been a staple of racing games for a long time now (Mario Kart and Gran Turismo for example), but it always treads a fine line between staying competitive and cheating.
Therefore, it’s important to point out that in AFL 2007 the dynamic difficulty never allows the AI teams to cheat. Our goal here is to make sure that users of all levels get a match that is enjoyable. The dynamic difficulty feature will prevent the user from getting too far ahead of the opposition by monitoring the score dynamically adjusting the difficulty level based on the difference between the two teams. If the gap is too large, then the AI team will switch to a harder difficulty. Once the score gap is lower, the AI team switches back to the difficulty level that was originally set by the user. Finally, it’s also important to stress that the dynamic difficulty switches off before the opposition team gets in ahead of the user’s team.
PALGN: What sort of multiplayer modes can we expect to see in the game? AFL 2005 featured online play but this was omitted for AFL Premiership 2006. Will it make a return in AFL Premiership 2007?
JH: AFL Premiership 2005 was launched around the time of the PS2 Network adaptor, so that was a major feature for that game. Since then the network adaptors haven’t become prevalent, so we haven’t supported online play for AFL Premiership 2006 or AFL Premiership 2007.
Maybe next year Richmond fans (I am one).
PALGN: Will there be many unlockable extras in the game for diehard AFL fans??
MH: We have no unlockable content as such but have upped the ante on bonus content in the game. AFL Premiership 2007 has over 100 retro heritage uniforms ranging from 1897 to 2006 featuring all the AFL clubs. We're talking the classic lace-up jumpers, one-off promotional jumpers like the Blues M&Ms jumper and shockers like the Hawks’ jockey jersey from 1995. A lot of time was spent with the guys at Footyjumpers.com in making sure everything was accurate and true to life. Everything has been painstakingly recreated, including shorts, numbers and boots.
PALGN: What sort of sports titles does the development team draw inspiration from for the AFL titles?
MH: We're massive fans of the big sports titles like Pro Evo, FIFA, Madden and the 2K Sports games. These guys have been making those games for quite a while now and it's a great study in incremental games development which is what the AFL games have gone through. At the end of the day we know we can't match them for budget and manpower but we're definitely keeping an eye on them.
PALGN: Have any of the AFL Games been released overseas? Is there much of a market for AFL titles in international markets??
JH: Unfortunately there’s no market for AFL games overseas. But with the similarities between AFL and Gaelic Football, we have produced a Gaelic Games: Football game for Ireland.
PALGN: Is there a chance this will be the last AFL title on the PlayStation 2??
JH: We’ve been channeling all our energy into finishing AFL Premiership 2007 and making it the best game, so as yet we’re not sure where 2008 will take us.
PALGN: Finally, when the IR Gurus team isn’t working on AFL Premiership 2007 what games do they play in their downtime??
MH: Speaking for myself, I am a sports nut so anything sport related has my attention. Given that the AFL game comes out early in the season I'll put my hand up and state that the majority of my downtime is spent perfecting my AFL dreamteam. I'm not the only member of the dev team who breathes football twelve months of the year though!
PALGN would like to thank Mark Houareau and Justin Halliday for their time. As AFL Premiership 2007 is nearing completion we know both the guys at IR Gurus must be very stretched for time. We'd also like to extend our thanks to Rebecca Rice at Sony Computer Entertainment Australia for organising this.
(Tiges made the final but lost to Port in Adelaide. Small consolation with Tuck winning his old mans medal though!)
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