VIDEOGAMES
The athletes featured in PlayStation 2 games based on college sports are looking more realistic than ever. Take, for instance, UCLA Bruins tailback DeShaun Foster. In Electronic Arts' NCAA Football 2002, just about every aspect of him - his jersey number, physique, style, and talent - is reflected in his digital doppelgänger.
Well, almost. Despite all the realism in this fall's releases, there's something missing: actual faces. Rather than using 3-D images of players' mugs, as is common when digitizing the pros for PS2 games, NCAA-based titles employ generic facial features.
College athletics buffs won't find this too surprising - the NCAA has long banned the use of player names and images for commercial gain. But never before has the rule had such bizarre effects.
Older videogame consoles render graphics too slowly to generate lifelike faces. Even the pros were pathetically nondescript. But PS2's 128-bit processing changes everything - except the NCAA's rules. Pat Battle, president of Collegiate Licensing, which handles permissions for the NCAA, says it would be nice for gamers if real faces were used. "I can't recall anything remotely similar to the videogame industry," he says, adding that though there have been informal talks about the possibility of making an exception, they haven't gone far.
Allan Frankel, a product manager at 989 Sports who worked onNCAA GameBreaker 2002, says adding players' faces would increase sales. "In this industry, realism is what it's all about."
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