2kSports has cultivated a well-deserved reputation as a maker of super-realistic sports video games, and NHL 2K8 is no exception. We recently sat down with producer Ben Bishop to discuss the progress made with this year's game, in what turned out to be an extremely fascinating look into the development process...

Inside Hockey: What were you hoping to accomplish with NHL 2K8 relative to last year's game?

Ben Bishop: Basically, we really felt like we really needed to evolve the game and make a big and noticeable leap. One of our big goals was to make this year's version totally new and fresh and a totally different experience. Everything from the gameplay to the menu system to the graphics have been totally revamped. It really feels like a new experience.

IH: The next-gen systems obviously give you more firepower to work with, so how does that play out with regard to game development?

BB: It's not just a matter of how the players look, but the amount of memory we've got available allows us to capture so many more animations, it really helps the players' motions to stand out more. We have more transitions, like from skating to shooting and varies angles and turns, and so we have a lot more freedom than we had with the older consoles.

In the past, we had X amount of memory, and we had to be careful not to add too many animations, or we wouldn't have had room for everything. Now, we can pretty much do what we want, and two new features for this year (Pro Stick and faceoffs) couldn't have happened on the previous generation consoles.

IH: Tell us about the new faceoff feature... how does that work?

BB: Faceoffs go back to us wanting to do something different and provide a fresh experience. We felt like hockey games haven't done much with them for years, and it felt like the same old thing, you mash the buttons when you see the referee drop the puck. Faceoffs happen so many times in a game, we felt it was an area that had been overlooked.

It ties into the Pro Stick in that you use the right analog stick to control the draw. You can tie guys up, you can get warned or tossed out if you go too early, and a winger would have to come in and take the draw. There's a big variety of things that might happen. You might win it cleanly back to one of your defenseman, or you might tie it up and battle for it, and have a winger come in and take possession. There's all sorts of things that can happen, and it adds nicely to the depth of the game because it's something that you see so often.

IH: You've made some pretty substantial changes to the game's control scheme with Pro Stick, can you explain the changes and the reasons behind them?

BB: For Pro Stick, it's basically a new control scheme. We've moved the shoot and pass buttons to the bumpers up top, and with the right analog stick, you control all your player's motions with the hockey stick. Now you have the ability to stickhandle back and forth. If you want to take a forehand shot, you move the puck over to the forehand side. If you want to avoid the defender and take it to the backhand, you can do that as well. We wanted to differentiate the stickhandling from the shooting and passing, not only can you move the puck from side to side, but also from front to back. Not only does the game look different, but it offers a much deeper control scheme.

It also ties into defense. You can move the player's hockey stick right to left to block the passing lanes, or lie it down on the ice. You can also flick it in any direction to make a poke-check. We really wanted to make the Pro Stick feature something that would last the entire game, not just on offense.

IH: It's been a long time (EA's games for Sega Genesis in the mid-1990s) since it was truly fun to control the goaltender. Can you break down the new goaltending system for us? How does it work?

BB: We really took the goalies and started over from scratch. They come out and challenge more, they use the butterfly a lot more realistically. They guard the post better, and in general, they're just a lot more dynamic. We had the ability to capture many new save types, taking advantage of the next-gen system's additional memory. What's cool is that there are so many moves, you'll see something every once in awhile that you've never seen before.

IH: Marty Turco is a former cover athlete. Was he involved in the development of this goaltending system?

BB: We sat down with (2K6 cover athlete) Marty Turco while he was in Southern California for a game against the Kings. We basically just picked his brain on all sorts of strategic elements. He's actually a pretty big gamer, he'd played NHL 2K7 a lot, and he shared what he thought were the most important things to improve on. Another cool thing is that Joe Thornton (our 2K7 cover athlete), we actually spoke with him quite a bit about our faceoff innovations, and we were able to get his insight as to what he thinks about when taking the draw, when he's facing a righty or lefty, that sort of thing. And heading towards 2K9, we're hoping to do the same thing with 2K8 cover athlete Jason Spezza.

IH: Speaking of Spezza, is the new "Superstar Move" feature designed to enable gamers to take advantage of his unique skills?

BB: Superstar Move offers some special maneuvers that skill players can execute during the games. There are 12 different moves, and they tie in best with shootouts and breakaways. We have everything from Peter Forsberg's move in the '94 Olympics to Owen Nolan's shot-calling move from the All-Star Game that he did against Dominik Hasek. It's a little flashy, and you're not going to be able to do it with every player, so there's definitely strategy required in determining when to--and not to--execute a Superstar Move. Igor Larionov came in and did a lot of the motion capture for our Superstar Move feature. A lot of times, we'll use guys from the minors, but it was really cool to use a real-life superstar to recreate these maneuvers.

IH: How do you balance adding in these new innovations while at the same time trying to keep the game fun?

BB: One of the biggest challenges we face is trying to balance all of these innovations against keeping the game easy for the casual fan to quickly pick up. We really try to offer tremendous customizability. If you play with the default settings, it's generally going to be pretty easy. But you can turn up the difficulty and change up the sliders to customize the game to your level of play. You can certainly keep it very simple and have a good time. But if you want to get more into the details, like laying your stick to the ice to block a pass, you can do that too. Hopefully there's something there that'll make the game fun and rewarding for everyone, regardless of their skill level.