College Hoops 2k7 Interview

With the college basketball season just starting and the young NBA season in full swing, hoop dreams are in the air. From your raw and inexperienced college freshman to your 13-year vet playing in Madison Square Garden , each basketball player wants the satisfaction of a great season, the sweet taste of playoff run, and of course, the bliss that is winning a championship. Take away all the shoe deals, TV spots and flashing cameras and you get a sport that is as pure as any. It's just that time of the season folks. So all you professional, amateur, and even armchair basketball players better be ready; J.J. knows he his.

Drafted in the first round, former Duke star and now Magic rookie J.J. Redick is featured on the cover of the next edition in the 2K series, College Hoops 2K7. Sporting the Duke blue, on the cover, he also took part in the development process, wearing the motion capture suit, giving the developers some new animations to work with. Who else would you choose to get the proper shooting form than the one with the best shot in college last year?

VGCore got a chance to have a small chat with J.J. Redick and project manager Zach Timmerman in a session today regarding the game, as well as some extra questions for J.J. about his time with the Magic.

The conference call began with a few questions about how he felt about the game and what was it like to be a cover athlete. "It's itchy," he said with a laugh when asked about the motion capture suit. We then moved on to more important questions such as, who is the best gamer on the Magic? "Dwight Howard and Carlos Arroyo are probably the best," he answered noting that they usually play basketball games in the clubhouse.

When asked about where he will fit in with the Magic he said he will probably get some playing time now that he's 100%, but since the team is fairly deep in the guard position, it'll basically be a fight for minutes. As for switching to point guard, "No, Jameer Nelson is starting and he's doing well and Carlos Arroyo is good as back-up." So I guess we won't see Redick at the point anytime soon.

After the chat with J.J. and a few laughs were over, Zach Timmerman, project manager of the game took over and continued the talk.

"The process (of making the game) is actually enjoyable. We get to see what the NBA game has done...we actually have time to go through and change the gameplay to be more polished and we also get to work out some of the atmosphere elements that the NBA doesn't necessarily have... Even the team unity and chemistry features, something the NBA doesn't have, it's definitely very prominent in college basketball and prominent in our game, so with the amount of time that we have in between (the release of NBA 2K7 and College Hoops) a lot of times we go through and (think of) things that we think would make our game (better)"

Moving on to what is in store for the PS3 version:

"We definitely feel that it's going to be on the same level of the 360 version. We will definitely taking advantage of the technology that the PS3 offers. We'll also be using the SIXAXIS controller for the free throw system."

Among other topics in the 30 minute discussion was the cheerleaders and Zach was more than happy to tell us all about how important it was to make it as realistic as possible.

"We did our research, put out a few ads. We were looking for some cheerleaders and we actually found a cheerleading team... We motion captured a girl and a guy together and we actually feel like we struck gold, this girl had won national competitions before and she's worked with her partner for the last six years. They were able to pull of the moves that I never thought were possible and they did some real crazy stuff and we threw it all in the game and it looks absolutely fantastic."

The discussion continued with highlights on the features and newly added content to the game which will be included in our review. One thing Zach filled us in on was the online "reel maker".

"It allows the user to capture highlights and capture replays from their game and actually put a highlight reel together with music and different graphics and different sound effects... They can actually put it online for users to see."

He also was asked about the limited amount of downtime because of the work that must be done on the PS3 version.

"We are trying to balance our time right now between coming up with features for 2K8 as well as trying to get our PS3 version going... It's cool you know, we enjoy working on our game, we enjoy our jobs... I'm excited for it."

So are we Zach, so are we...

There you have it, a little Q&A with J.J. Redick and the project manager of the game, Zach Timmerman. I wish I could have spent a little more time asking questions, but these are busy guys, both in the middle of their work season and both getting paid to do something they love. Thank you to both J.J. and Zach for taking time out of their busy schedules to take part in the session. College Hoops 2K7 comes out today for the Xbox 360, Xbox and PS2 and will also be on the PS3 early next year. Expect more news, including a review some time soon.

Article By: Alan