GamePlasma recently had the chance to sit down and have a chat with Ben Bishop, producer for NHL 2K9, and talk about the latest game in the NHL 2k series.

You can find the full interview after the jump.

There's quite a bit that sets NHL 2K9 apart from last year's game. One of the biggest changes is that we have a new development team working on the game here at Visual Concepts, and this opportunity really gave a chance to step back and evaluate where the series had come and what changes needed to be made. A big goal for us from the beginning has been to try to bring the fun back to hockey video games. We wanted to capture some of the things that make hockey so unique like fighting, Zamboni's, playoff beards, and the Stanley Cup celebration, so all of those elements have been included in a cool new way this year.

We also have a new control scheme that is extremely easy to use, with the ability to step up to a more advanced version if you want to. The game has really been rebuilt from the ground up though, so in general, almost everything you'll see, from the menus to the presentation to the various game modes will have a new and different feel to it.

2) Can you tell us a little about the Zamboni mini-game and where did the idea come from?

Zamboni's are a big part of the hockey culture, and it only seemed natural to try to include them in the game this year with everything else we were doing. It definitely tied in with our goal of bringing the fun back, as who hasn't wanted to try driving a Zamboni? The game itself is fairly simple. If you're playing single player, you have 3 minutes to try to clean as much of the ice as you can. In a two player game, it's a race to see who can clean 45% of the ice first, with collisions and general obstruction and other shenanigans definitely playing a role.

We added several new Superstar Moves this year, both for trying to deke the goalie and for getting around players in open ice. Rick Nash even captured some of these for us, and they really help to expand your offensive arsenal. You also still have the ability to stickhandle back and forth with the puck, as well as to move your stick around, poke check, and lay the stick to the ice to block passing lanes on defense.

4) There is always something new and innovative with hockey games. It seems like you can stretch your wings out a little further than most other sports titles, what have you been able to do this year to bring the player closer to the game?

Making a version for the Nintendo Wii this year is a great example of this. NHL 2K9 will actually be the first and only NHL licensed title available on the Wii, and being able to swing your Wii Remote for a slap shot, throw punches when you're fighting, drive the Zamboni, and get behind your checks by doing the full motion for them really makes the game that much more exciting and immersive. While the features are essentially the same, playing the game on Wii versus the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 is definitely a different experience.

The development team is very familiar with the hardware at this point, and this really allows us to push things graphically that we haven't been able to do before. For example, this year we added all of the skaters on the team to the bench, as well as having a full officiating crew (2 refs and 2 linesmen) as part of making everything happen in real time with no cut scenes. We also spent a lot of time on arena, uniform, and equipment details, and most importantly, while doing this, we have been able to keep the game running at 60fps. This is always a big goal for us with every title, as a solid 60fps is key to giving the user as much control over their players as possible. Without continuing to push the hardware limitations, we would not be able to do this.

6) How have fights improved or changed from the previous versions?

We have a brand new fighting engine in the game this year. In past hockey games, it seemed like fighting had regressed too much to a strange form of boxing that didn't really resemble an actual NHL fight. We wanted to focus more on the exciting aspects of fights, so the players will start out holding on to each other and ready to go at it. After that, it's up to the participants to throw punches with the face buttons while trying to maintain their balance with the triggers/shoulder buttons. If too many wild punches are thrown, your fighter will end up off balance and left open for the opponent to get in some big shots. And if you play it safe and try to stay as upright as possible, you're going to have a hard time getting in enough good shots of your own to win. That really turns it into a fun mini-game of trying to keep your balance while getting some solid punches in. Overall, we tried to model the system after the way a lot of the fights in the NHL look, while still making it fairly easy to control and fun to play.

Our arenas really look great this year, and most of them were done completely from scratch in an effort to make them as authentic as possible. We get tons of reference photos for the arenas that we use when modeling them, and we try to incorporate as many of the unique individual elements into each one that we can. We also went as far as to try to capture unique sounds like specific team chants, goal horns, and other audio elements that the various arenas use (a French PA announcer in Montreal and Ottawa, for example). Our hope is that putting all of these things together really gives the end user a solid idea of what the experience in each arena is like.

One thing that's become very important to us in the past few years is choosing a cover athlete that is a gamer. We want someone that is interested in the overall process and excited about being involved. Rick Nash was a natural fit for this, and our decision was really helped when we saw him at the NHL All-Star Game this year. He stopped by to watch our online tournament winners playing NHL 2K8, and he was as excited to meet them as they were to meet him. He has already helped us out with quite a bit for NHL 2K9, from doing motion capture to sitting down with the development team to talk hockey, hockey strategy, hockey video gaming, and pretty much everything else we could think of. He's done an awesome job of following in the footsteps of former cover athletes Marty Turco, Joe Thornton, and Jason Spezza.

9) Are there any fans in the office? If so, what team seems to be the favorite with everyone?

Most of the development team are already huge hockey fans, and those who aren't yet are slowly being converted. A majority of the team are San Jose Sharks fans since that's the local team, but we also have die-hard fans of the Coyotes, Kings, Islanders, Blackhawks, Canucks, and Senators among us.