Raven
04-26-2005, 02:11 PM
hxxp://ps2.ign.com/articles/607/607020p1.html
First Look: Road to Sunday
It's football. It's fighting. It's football/fighting?
by Jeremy Dunham
April 22, 2005 - Hot on the heels of its promising NBA '06 unveiling at the 2005 Sony San Diego Sports event, Sony Computer Entertainment also revealed a brand new football title scheduled for release later this year. Known as Road to Sunday the bizarre new gridiron entry from Red Zone Interactive is one of the strangest announcements I've seen in quite some time -- as not only is it a football title, but it's also a story-driven fighting game.
Yes, you heard that right. Road to Sunday is a football/fighting hybrid that takes the established sports knowledge of the internal Sony development studio and melds it with a one-on-one combat engine. This kind of genre-melding is another result of SCEA's commitment to producing plot-oriented sports titles from this point on, which representatives feel will open up additional gameplay options not thought feasible before.
"We're excited about creating a new gaming experience for both sports and entertainment videogame fans," said Mark Meyers, co-director, sports product development, Sony Computer Entertainment America. "Road To Sunday creates a completely new genre that presents a unique action and story-driven gaming experience, while remaining true to our core of sports."
As for the storyline in question, it follows the exploits of a spoiled team owner named Blake Doogan. As the inheritor of a NAFA football team known as the Los Angeles Show, Doogan is quickly thrown into quite a predicament when his father dies in a mysterious yacht explosion at sea. As it turns out, Blake's dad was in major debt to a Jamaican crime lord known as Nestor Farrington -- a notorious gambler, pimp, and drug trafficker -- and now his pop's debt has become his debt. In order to pay off the kingpin and save his own hide, Blake is forced to enter his team of football players into an underground fighting organization to help earn the money. And from there, we're told, things start to get really interesting...
Though told from Blake's perspective, Road to Sunday will follow seven main characters of varying positions from the National American Football Association's unluckiest squad. Each character (be they quarterback, running back, wide receiver, linebacker, defensive lineman, defensive back, or kicker), will have their own unique abilities and maneuvers that will be imperative to the player's winning strategy. What's more, is that since your football team is battling other football teams in-between their actual games, the results of those fights will be reflected in a gridiron contest. So if you take one of the Miami Mako's primary players out in hand-to-hand combat, his team will be that much weaker on game day. But the same rings true for your guys too -- because if you hurt on of your own, you're going to be in trouble on Sunday afternoon.
This time, football isn't the only battle you'll have to win.
To make the game even more interesting, Road to Sunday also features a full-fledged gambling simulation that enables players with the ability to play poker, blackjack, and bet their earnings in various other fields through a couple of shady bookies. You can travel through the city of Los Angeles via a map system too, and go work out at the gym to build up player attributes or partake in other sidequests to move the story along. Weird!
Sony's big selling point with Road to Sunday is what Red Zone is calling PSG or Position Specific Gameplay. Through this system, users will be able to play a game of simulation football similar to what the GameDay series used to offer, but with a few key changes. Once a play has been selected from your playbook, for example, you'll then have the option to take direct control of one of your seven key characters so that they can make something special happen. Selecting the wide receiver means that you'll have a better chance of tethering and striking oncoming tackles via special moves, while playing as the defensive end will allow you to bull rush quarterbacks with greater authority and anticipate the snap better. Little details like this are what Sony hopes will set Road to Sunday apart from EA's upcoming NFL-exclusive Madden franchise.
Unfortunately the Road to Sunday presentation was kept pretty short, so there's still a lot to be learned regarding how everything works, and how all the various gameplay elements blend together. Sony did mention, however, that the game is chalk-full of RPG elements related to player development and their characterization throughout the 16-week season. There's a new passing and defensive control system too, but just how deep these go, we have yet to find out.
Of course, we'll be back with even more on Road to Sunday in a couple of weeks as we report from the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Check out the first batch of concept art and screenshots on our media page below while you wait.
First Look: Road to Sunday
It's football. It's fighting. It's football/fighting?
by Jeremy Dunham
April 22, 2005 - Hot on the heels of its promising NBA '06 unveiling at the 2005 Sony San Diego Sports event, Sony Computer Entertainment also revealed a brand new football title scheduled for release later this year. Known as Road to Sunday the bizarre new gridiron entry from Red Zone Interactive is one of the strangest announcements I've seen in quite some time -- as not only is it a football title, but it's also a story-driven fighting game.
Yes, you heard that right. Road to Sunday is a football/fighting hybrid that takes the established sports knowledge of the internal Sony development studio and melds it with a one-on-one combat engine. This kind of genre-melding is another result of SCEA's commitment to producing plot-oriented sports titles from this point on, which representatives feel will open up additional gameplay options not thought feasible before.
"We're excited about creating a new gaming experience for both sports and entertainment videogame fans," said Mark Meyers, co-director, sports product development, Sony Computer Entertainment America. "Road To Sunday creates a completely new genre that presents a unique action and story-driven gaming experience, while remaining true to our core of sports."
As for the storyline in question, it follows the exploits of a spoiled team owner named Blake Doogan. As the inheritor of a NAFA football team known as the Los Angeles Show, Doogan is quickly thrown into quite a predicament when his father dies in a mysterious yacht explosion at sea. As it turns out, Blake's dad was in major debt to a Jamaican crime lord known as Nestor Farrington -- a notorious gambler, pimp, and drug trafficker -- and now his pop's debt has become his debt. In order to pay off the kingpin and save his own hide, Blake is forced to enter his team of football players into an underground fighting organization to help earn the money. And from there, we're told, things start to get really interesting...
Though told from Blake's perspective, Road to Sunday will follow seven main characters of varying positions from the National American Football Association's unluckiest squad. Each character (be they quarterback, running back, wide receiver, linebacker, defensive lineman, defensive back, or kicker), will have their own unique abilities and maneuvers that will be imperative to the player's winning strategy. What's more, is that since your football team is battling other football teams in-between their actual games, the results of those fights will be reflected in a gridiron contest. So if you take one of the Miami Mako's primary players out in hand-to-hand combat, his team will be that much weaker on game day. But the same rings true for your guys too -- because if you hurt on of your own, you're going to be in trouble on Sunday afternoon.
This time, football isn't the only battle you'll have to win.
To make the game even more interesting, Road to Sunday also features a full-fledged gambling simulation that enables players with the ability to play poker, blackjack, and bet their earnings in various other fields through a couple of shady bookies. You can travel through the city of Los Angeles via a map system too, and go work out at the gym to build up player attributes or partake in other sidequests to move the story along. Weird!
Sony's big selling point with Road to Sunday is what Red Zone is calling PSG or Position Specific Gameplay. Through this system, users will be able to play a game of simulation football similar to what the GameDay series used to offer, but with a few key changes. Once a play has been selected from your playbook, for example, you'll then have the option to take direct control of one of your seven key characters so that they can make something special happen. Selecting the wide receiver means that you'll have a better chance of tethering and striking oncoming tackles via special moves, while playing as the defensive end will allow you to bull rush quarterbacks with greater authority and anticipate the snap better. Little details like this are what Sony hopes will set Road to Sunday apart from EA's upcoming NFL-exclusive Madden franchise.
Unfortunately the Road to Sunday presentation was kept pretty short, so there's still a lot to be learned regarding how everything works, and how all the various gameplay elements blend together. Sony did mention, however, that the game is chalk-full of RPG elements related to player development and their characterization throughout the 16-week season. There's a new passing and defensive control system too, but just how deep these go, we have yet to find out.
Of course, we'll be back with even more on Road to Sunday in a couple of weeks as we report from the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Check out the first batch of concept art and screenshots on our media page below while you wait.