Craig Ostrander elaborates on the revolutionary concept behind 989 Sports' upcoming sports entertainment title, Road To Sunday, together with the fighting and gambling in-game elements.

Hi can you tell us your name and your involvement with Road to Sunday for the PS2?

My name is Craig Ostrander, the Senior Designer on Road to Sunday. I work closely with our Design team and Production staff on the design of the game.

Can you just tell us what Road to Sunday is all about and the story behind the game?

Road to Sunday is an entirely new game engine that was built from the ground up. The game is a very unique football experience that blends together both nontraditional football gameplay and the "core" football gameplay to create a new experience/game for gamers and football fans alike… Basically Road to Sunday will introduce an all-new genre in videogaming -- the revolutionary new sports entertainment action.

The Storyline is as follows: Road to Sunday revolves around Blake Doogan, an affluent sports mogul who inherits a pro football team after his father dies in a suspicious explosion while vacationing in Jamaica. Blake learns his father borrowed a $100 million-dollars from a Jamaican mobster to purchase the team. Doogan's father's debt is now his debt. The gameplay follows the owner, his sidekick Harry and seven football players as they put it all on the line in order to accumulate enough money to payoff the mobster and win the football championship.

The on-the-Field football experience is best characterized as mission-based football, in which the objective is to both win the game and achieve on-the-field goals related to the team or specific players. The off-the-field missions include hand-to-hand combat, opportunities to bet on football games or play in high stakes poker games, participate in weight-lifting exercises, all which increase player attributes for future missions and football games.

How long has this game been in development?

We started working on Road to Sunday in September of 2003 so we're going on 21 months including the pre-production and production.

What sort of gameplay can we expect from the game (arcade or simulation)?

Without the constraints of an NFL license we've had the creative freedom to make some decisions that put the gameplay experience #1... Ultimately, decisions that were/are in the best interest of making the game fun to play for both football fans and gamers alike. Road to Sunday takes some of football gameplay and exaggerates the action to make the game more intense and fast moving than a traditional sim. With that said, Road to Sunday's new Artificial Intelligence (AI) system has a ton of depth in terms of the sophisticated player behaviors, types and number of offensive and defensive plays, and a sophisticated coaches Playcalling system that will have each team's coach calling an entirely new style of Playcalling each week. So I think we've tapped into the best of both worlds to come up with something that lives in it's own category and creates a new genre. Road to Sunday -- It's not arcade and it's not simulation -- It's what we felt is the right mix to make the game the most "fun" experience possible. It's sports entertainment action.

We have heard there is a lot of fighting in the game, can you elaborate on that?

Yes, fighting is an integral part of Road to Sunday and something the player will be participating in frequently throughout the game. There will be "missions" peppered throughout the storyline where gamers, playing as one of the players on the team, are asked by the owner to do some of his dirty work. Additionally, gamers can choose to fight in tournaments to win cash... but the risk is that if they lose, the attributes of the character they fight with can decrease for Sunday's game. Lower attributes will equate to decreasing ability to perform successfully on the field. Some examples of gameplay that will be effected will be the ability to block effectively, break tackles, throw the ball accurately, or tackle ball carriers. On the flip side, winning a tournament can also increase player attributes that enhance performance on the field and unlock more effective signature moves and special effects. I think it's very creative how the Road to Sunday storyline ties the fighting gameplay into the game and advances the story and the game.

I think a lot of us are curious on how you are going to mix football and these fighting elements; can you try and explain what the typical Road to Sunday experience is going to be like?

Fighting can progress the story... Gamers will be asked to perform "missions" or errands for the team's owner and to progress through the story, sometimes players will have to fight and be successful in the fight to get the information necessary to learn about Blake Doogan's dad's mysterious death. Additionally, there are fight tournaments where gamers can bet on the outcome of the fight as well as bet on a host of other categories like whether or not they will knock their opponent(s) out. Winning the fight and earning cash is a critical component to the gameplay because each week gamers have to pay off a Jamaican mobster... and if they don't the he may choose to take then out.

As I mentioned previously, fighting also carries it's risks and rewards with it. As gamers win fights and they level up your character. If they lose fights their characters abilities take a hit for the upcoming football game on Sunday. We made a strong effort to leverage the accumulation of cash, the leveling up of the player and our storyline to neatly tie all the different gameplay elements together into a nice tight package and ultimately Road To Sunday will deliver an all-new gameplay experience with its sequential, episodic storyline.

There is also supposed to be gambling in the game? What type of things are we going to be able to gamble on and how will this play into the whole picture of the game?

Betting and the accumulation of cash is a very important component to Road to Sunday, because gamers have to make weekly payments to the Jamaican mobster and if they don't pay him off each week with a certain amount of money, then his thugs come looking for them with the possibility of taking them out. So in order to get the cash to pay off the gangster gamers have to risk some money to make some money. Again, without the constraints of an NFL license we've had the creative freedom to make some decisions that put the gameplay experience #1... Ultimately, decisions that were/are in the best interest of making the game fun to play for both football fans and entertainment gamers alike.

Gambling is significant part of today's culture and betting on professional football is huge for both legal and illegal operations and thus has a nice fit with Road to Sunday's storyline. We decided that it would be fun to have a betting (bookie) element in Road to Sunday. So before each football game gamer can place bets, with odds, in just about as many different statistical categories as you can bet on professional football at a Las Vegas Sports Book. It's really cool because it adds to the game when you have many objectives besides just winning the football game on Sunday. The player may even find their selves at odds in terms of winning the game or winning an important bet. There's really a game within the game, so to speak, and it heightens the fun factor. In addition to betting on football games you can also bet on fights. You even have opportunities to play in high stakes Texas Hold 'Em and poker games.

What sort of new features are you guys going to be implementing into the football aspect of the game?

Road to Sunday has a very cool player development component to the game. Gamers will be competing in rhythm style music games where he is bench pressing, performing agility drills and is running and how well they perform helps increase their attributes. As they increase their abilities they unlock new levels of abilities that provide a significant upgrade to the player's abilities. Additionally gamers can unlock signature moves for each player that improves the player's chances to succeed on the field. In terms of the football gameplay, Road to Sunday has a new passing system where gamers can control the location of the throw. In traditional football sims, gamers don't really have finite control over the pass. Yeah, they can lob or bullet it and this allows gamers to have a little more control over the location but we actually allow gamers to throw it to an open area and the receiver will run and go get it just like REAL life football.

Additionally, we're innovating on the game of football with our Position Specific Gameplay™ (PSG). PSG allows the gamers, for the first time, to play mission based football. This is all about controlling a specific player on the field and focusing on execution of that position's assignments. Each position has goals outlined for them going into each game. Gamers must achieve these goals in order to level up their player. Again, leveling up the player enhances their ability to succeed in the game on Sunday.

Also, we've added some cool gameplay elements that are new to football videogames. An example being Road to Sunday's Defensive Back and Wide Receiver "Hand Fighting." This is where the gamer, when playing wide receiver, can push off on the defender who is tightly covering him in order to get separation from a defender – again like REAL life football. Gaining separation enhances the wide receiver's ability to catch the ball.

We also have a cool way to Fire Off the line of scrimmage when playing on the defensive line. To Fire Off the Line, gamers attempt to build up an anticipation of the snap count. If they time the snap right they boost their ability to beat the blocker. If they miss-time the snap they risk going offsides. It's a pretty cool risk reward gameplay element. There are also a host of other new gameplay elements that have not been seen in any football videogame... but I'll leave some things for gamers to discover on their own...

In terms of sound what can we look to expect from this game?

Road to Sunday will have cool licensed music we'll use for all of our rhythm games -- and the rhythm games are really fun. Gamers get into the beat of the song and the corresponding timing of the gameplay and it's really a fun experience.

Additionally, Road to Sunday will have some creative and cool sound effects to support the on the field experience – we won't be doing a TV style broadcast in Road to Sunday, because we're presenting the game from the players perspective down on the field so gamers will hear everything to coverage calls, line calls, "Hot" or blitz calls as well as the basic formation, personnel and play prediction calls made by players. I think the most entertaining audio element of our game will be the post play cinematics. We have hilarious player dialogue for the post play cuts with players animating and talking all kinds of trash.

Across the board our audio group has really come through with some outstanding audio for the game. Everything from the fighting sounds to big hits is top notch.

And finally when can we expect to find Road to Sunday on store shelves and is there any chance of seeing it on the PSP or PS3?

This winter, Sony Computer Entertainment America, San Diego will introduce an all-new genre in videogaming, Sports Entertainment Action, with the launch of Road To Sunday, exclusively for the PlayStation 2.

Click for more info on Road To Sunday.