For NBA Live 09, EA Sports partnered with Synergy Sports Technologies, a sports tracking company that breaks NBA players’ actions down to reveal their tendencies. Gathered every night, every player and every team is updated with their latest information and delivered to the game through NBA Live 365, which drives team and player AI. So if cover athlete Tony Parker has been driving to his left more often, the next time you play the Spurs, he’ll do it to you, too.
The ramifications of this feature are clear; no longer does a game’s artificial intelligence have to be “scripted” by the development team - it can be driven by the data itself. And since the data’s ever-changing, Kevin Garnett, for example, won’t play on the Celtics like he did as a member of the Timberwolves.
Players’ tendencies change when they’re incorporated into a new team, and sometimes, teams’ tendencies change when a player gets injured or a coaching change is made. Now, this feature can help ensure that every team and every player plays like their real-life counterpart. The Pistons and Spurs will plod in their half-court set, while the Warriors and Nuggets will be firing up shots with reckless abandon. Instead of facing LeBron James and the game’s consistent “small forward” AI, you’ll be facing LeBron, knowing that his virtual alter-ego has the same mindset as the dynamic All-Star instead.
If NBA Live 365 works as it’s supposed to - and in reality, since it’s essentially a slight change of database numbers nightly, it should - NBA Live 09 stands to be a landmark in gaming; where the greatest innovation of game AI design may turn out to be doing almost nothing at all.
