[E3 09] EA Press Conference Recap

[DoctorFinger]

Electronic Arts held their presser at E3, and while there were few surprises, there were some solid titles shown.

- First up were a trio of franchises aimed at girls. Littlest Pet Shop, Charm Girls Club and My Fashion, each with multiple titles coming this year. These games are frankly more than a little insulting. If you asked an 8 year old boy what kind of games girls would play, these are what he'd say. Developers need to learn that games aimed at girls can be more than glorified dress-up dolls.

- Thankfully that part of the show was blessedly short. Next up was Need for Speed: Shift. The developer spent a while talking about the new 'driver' profiles.' Basically the game evaluates your driving style - aggressive, precise, cautious, etc - and assigns points in the various categories. Your scores in these categories will basically diagram your driving style. From the cockpit view there was a great sensation of speed as you zoomed through a virtual recreation of London, although the engine sounded more like a jet than a car.

- Onto the Bioware boys and Dragon Age: Origins. The trailer shown was the same one from the Gametrailers special on Spike this past week. The theme and style of the game is darker than Bioware's usual, but still mostly a familiar fantasy setting. The game will launch on the PC, 360 and PS3 on October 20.

- On to Mass Effect 2. Again, the same trailer we saw last week. Little shown differed much from ME1. A few story elements were shown, but the humans are clearly in worse shape than before.

- Then we move onto EA Sports. Fight Night Round 4 was shown, and they emphasized that it would be more realistic and strategic than Round 3. A new franchise, EA Sports MMA was announced, but no release window was given. A suite of online tools for EA Sports games was shown. These tools can integrate with your console game, so the team you make online can be played on your PS3/360 version of NCAA Football 10. Madden 10 gets a fantasy football mode, which can be carried into your browser. Grand Slam tennis for the Wii was shown, and it looked almost exactly like WiiSports Tennis. An expansion for EA Sports Active was announced.

- Next up was The Saboteur, from Pandemic. This is a WWII-based spy game. In the demo they trotted out, you had to bomb a fuel depot. You sneak up on a Nazi, break his neck, steal his uniform, and use that to plant the bomb. You then steal a car, drive to the Red Light District and wait out the heat. All of this in an open world representation of Paris, where almost every building is climbable.

- On to Brutal Legend. Tim Schaefer talks a lot about the cast of the game: Jack Black, Lemmy Kilmeister, Rob Halford, Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne. Very little gameplay footage was shown.

- Crytek head Cevat Yeril came out to announce Crysis 2 will come to 360 & PS3 in addition to the PC.

- Next up was the newest EA Partner, Realtime Worlds. They were there to show off their pseudo-MMO, APB. Very cool looking gang warfare action game, with cities populated by 100 players at once. Major customization tools: players, clothing, vehicles and even music can be personalized.

- The show ends with Star Wars: The Old Republic. It will be the first MMO to be completely vocalized; every class and NPC will be fully voiced. They then showed a teaser (no gameplay footage) showing an awesome, large scale lightsaber battle.

And with that, EA's press conference ended.

[Hotcod]

little disappointed with the lack of, well, anything of substance to do with the games i'm mostly interested in but i expect that we'll get most of that from the floor. The old republic cinematic was simply bad ass.

[Alkanos]

Originally Posted by DoctorFinger

- The show ends with Star Wars: The Old Republic. It will be the first MMO to be completely vocalized; every class and NPC will be fully voiced.

Why must they do this? It costs shitloads of money to pay for the voice actors, and since there are sooo many NPCs to voice you end up hearing the same people voicing dozens of characters. And of course they'll dish out even more money for one or two "Big-Name" people to provide about 10 or so lines just to say "We have Soandso in our game!"

Also, they'll almost definitely make certain NPCs have callouts when you get near them. So every time you go past a certain spot, you hear the same voice yelling, "I want to join the Qeynos Guard when I grow up!" Bonus points for putting it in one of the most heavily trafficked parts of the game. That way everyone gets to enjoy!

You'd think they'd have learned from EQ2. That game was near 100% voice acted when it was released. Soon it was only "important" NPCs that were voiced. Eventually no one was voiced. Obviously, someone thought about all the money going to pay voice actors and realized, "Hey, this is a really fucking stupid idea. Lets spend all that money we're saving on in-game content and stuff for the players!"

Sorry about the rant. Other than that, Old Republic looks kinda interesting. I'm actually kind of interested in The Saboteur. Normally I shy away from WW2 stuff, but this tickles my fancy. Well, as long as they keep the stealth theme through the whole game. I really hate when they decide mid way through to turn this type of game into a generic shooter. And Brütal Legend makes me so happy, I can't wait for it to come out!

[CrysDark]

I enjoyed it. I was most looking forward to Brutal Legend, but Mass Effect 2, Sabatour, APB. Tickle my gamers itch. SW:TOR continues to make me a happy fan.

I don't think the VA will be as bad is EQ2. EQ2 stopped voicing due to budget constraints. I did feel more in to the game with the voicing.

Can't wait. Hope the Ubisoft event has good stuff.

[Dark Prince]

I'm pretty much in the same boat that the conference was a bit disappointing. When EA Sports showed up I figured they would show more then just casual fitness, football, tennis and boxing. Way to ignore hockey EA.

At least Brutal Legend was interesting and looks cool. Looking forward to The Saboteur as well.

[ThievesAmongUs]

I didn't get to watch it, but I take it nothing new about ME 2 was mentioned ? Just the trailer (which I've already seen) or was it slightly different ?

EDIT: Nvmd. It is different than the previous one, 20-30 seconds of extra footage.

[Khrymsyn]

Originally Posted by DoctorFinger

A new franchise, EA Sports MMA was announced, but no release window was given.

Looks like THQ better lock up that UFC license quick, before EA starts throwing "buckets o cash". It would be interesting to see a UFC/WEC game.

Course, EA could look to license some of the other stuff like DREAM, with fighters like Fedor, Barnett and Kimbo Slice (tee hee).

[MosBen]

I'm sure this will be better answered after the game is released, but I'm torn on whether to go for Dragon Age on PC or 360. Is there any reason to go for one or the other? I have a decent to good gaming PC.

[Crowe]

Originally Posted by MosBen

I'm sure this will be better answered after the game is released, but I'm torn on whether to go for Dragon Age on PC or PC. Is there any reason to go for one or the other? I have a decent to good gaming PC.

You made the right choice.

[DoctorFinger]

Originally Posted by MosBen

I'm sure this will be better answered after the game is released, but I'm torn on whether to go for Dragon Age on PC or 360. Is there any reason to go for one or the other? I have a decent to good gaming PC.

For a game like this, which will be the subject of so many mods/conversions I'd go with the PC version if you can run it.

[Ondo]

Originally Posted by Alkanos

Why must they do this? It costs shitloads of money to pay for the voice actors, and since there are sooo many NPCs to voice you end up hearing the same people voicing dozens of characters.

It's a Bioware RPG - they can record a handful of lines in an "alien dialect" and use them for every alien in the game.

[ThievesAmongUs]

Originally Posted by MosBen

I'm sure this will be better answered after the game is released, but I'm torn on whether to go for Dragon Age on PC or 360. Is there any reason to go for one or the other? I have a decent to good gaming PC.

PC... easily. I like the 360, but for games like this, PC wins - hands down. Better graphics would be a primary sticking point, but the mod community is easily a close second.