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EA Trying to Change the Game With NBA Elite 11

by Matthew Kato on Jun 02, 2010 at 04:50 AM

EA Sports is trying to change the fortunes of its NBA franchise, and it's starting with its name. The October Xbox 360 & PS3 basketball game is now being called NBA Elite 11, and with this new moniker comes some much-needed gameplay changes.

The list of things that the old NBA Live franchise needs to improve upon is long, but the development team at EA Canada is starting with the basics – the controls. The studio is promising to give gamers more one-to-one control over their players instead of the animation-based system of the past. "You're no longer going to push a button and watch the computer generate a long animation sequence," says Elite's creative director, David Littman. "This is going to change what people have come to expect from a basketball simulation video game." Similarly, whether you make a basket in Elite 11 won't be determined by a behind-the-scenes dice roll, but by your own skill.

Who knows if these changes will turn things around for EA's series, but it's definitely worth a shot.