Operation Sports: How come you went away from the FIFA 1998 model of playing in a Road to the World Cup and world cup to 2 games? Many people still feel that 98 was the best game for mimicking the World Cup experience.

Joe Nickolls: 2006 FIFA World Cup is about five times the size of the previous version. It has five times the number of teams, five times the amount of players and it’s a much grander game. The one thing that I want people to feel when they pick up this game is that this is not just a ‘coat of paint’ game. This game has an engine that feels and plays different. With the Xbox 360 we have figured out how to use this machine and we’ve found a way to make our players look better, the game load faster, and we’ve made it more responsive. As you spend time with something you become more familiar with it, and as we spend more time with the next gen consoles we become more familiar with what we can get out of it.

As far as gameplay goes, when people pick up this game they’ll notice that we’ve really been listening to the feedback we have received on our FIFA titles. We go to all kinds of websites and forums and we read what people are saying. When they say things like “I sure wish they’d do this…” it takes everything in me not to email them back and say “Hey, guess what? We are!” People are asking about teams…we have 127. They are the real teams, with the real guys, with no placeholders. They wanted the stadiums to be awesome, and they are. We have all 12 of the official German stadiums, as well as two more stadiums from each zone, so that’s another 12 stadiums. We have songs from all over the world, as well as crowd sound effects specific to their location. We have streamers, confetti, fireworks… it’s basically a sonic wall of sensory stimulation with the gameplay to go along with it.

Operation Sports: Have they done anything to the penalty system? In Road to the World Cup there were almost no penalties.

Joe Nickolls: It depends on how severe the foul is. We have completely re-written the penalty shot mode and we obviously want to take advantage of that so it goes along with the adjustments we have made to the AI.

Operation Sports: What graphical updates will we see, if any?

Joe Nickolls: You will see a brand new lighting engine that will make the players look more realistic and colorful. You will see a brand new pitch, atmospheric conditions, players looking more realistic close up and at a distance, brand new kits with tecturing on it and a whole host of other apparel.

Operation Sports: Will there be better atmosphere in the game? Will it feel like a real World Cup game?

Joe Nickolls: We have 12 official stadiums from Germany plus two official stadiums from each qualification zone. We have authentic crowd sounds from the majority of the countries that we represent. We have confetti and streamers and spectators dressed in the colors of the home team and sections of fans cheering for the opponents. Fans we even wave flags in the stands. This will certainly give it an authentic World Cup feel that you have never experienced in a game before.

Operation Sports: The lob pass was hit or miss in the past version, it didn't seem like you had much control of where it went or how far it went. Will this be fixed?

Joe Nickolls: It depends on which lob pass your are talking about. If you are talking a bout a through lob pass which basically pops the ball in the air that remains the same but we have done a lot of work on our passing model to make it more accurate and intuitive.

The passing mechanic is more predictive than it used to be. The through-pass has been made more accurate so that if your player is good at the through-pass, he will be better at executing this in gameplay. If you see a player running up the wing and you anticipate where the opening will be, you can hit the through-pass ahead of this player and he’ll run onto the ball and control it. You’ll find passing more accurate in this game because the AI works intelligently so that your players behave realistically and avoid novice mistakes, choosing the right angles and the strength of the pass.

Operation Sports: Is the control scheme similar to Road to the World Cup and has it been upgraded?

Joe Nickolls: Yes. It is more responsive and teams will play with the tactics of their real life counterparts.

Operation Sports: Has the aggressive A.I. on "D" been toned down from Road to the World Cup? You couldn't pass the ball around without it getting intercepted and shot back downfield.

Joe Nickolls: This depends on which skill level you pick. If you choose to play at the hardest skill level it will be quite difficult but if you choose to play at the amateur level they will back off quite a bit.

Operation Sports: We would like to thank you for your time with this interview, is there anything else you would like to add?

Joe Nickolls: One thing we didn’t talk about is our new Global Challenge mode. Global Challenge is a way to further the gameplay experience and make 2006 FIFA World Cup a longer-lasting game. We looked back at 2002 FIFA World Cup and what everyone on our team agreed on was that it wasn’t long enough. It needed to be a longer more fulfilling game to play.

In addition to qualifying for the World Cup or competing for the World Cup, we created a new gameplay mode called Global Challenge. We began to look at past World Cups and decided there were some magical moments that people all over the world have never forgotten. These are the real classic moments. We took some those historical scenarios and re-created them in game, enabling users to play in the scenarios using modern teams to relive and perhaps change history.

We have this cool new 3-dimentional globe that’s always on the screen and as you overcome your challenges it will be updated with your team color. As you progress through the scenarios you’ll be given points which can be taken to the store to buy all sorts of cool stuff, whether it’s a classic player, a kit, a new ball or a feature that will enable you to alter gameplay. Some of the gameplay rewards we offer through this challenge include playing the game at super-speed, without referees, or even having invisible walls around the pitch so you can execute bank passes.