Dr.Finger
07-14-2008, 05:13 PM
Electronic Arts brought out some of the big guns to promote their upcoming slate of games. Here's a recap of their E3 08 press conference.
- Sim Animals. An even more cutesy-wutesy version of the Sims is coming to the Wii and DS in January 2009
- Sims 3. EA promises a ton of customization, and promises to place just about everything under your control. A short video trailer was shown. 2009
- Dead Space. EA's new M-rated survival horror property. No real HUD, instead your vitals, like health and ammo, are shown on your backpack. Lots of screeching and dark corridors. You do have to use a flashlight a lot, but it looks like you can use one with a gun. In the future there will be duct tape.
- Mirror's Edge. Another new property, this one is a first-person action game set around Parkour and free running. Your character is extremely agile; she scurries up drain pipes, leaps across rooftops, dropkicks enemies and uses the skids of a chopper as paralell bars. EA says you can play through the whole game without firing a single shot. No release timetable was given
- Spore. Still scheduled for September 7th, but not a lot of new info. The creature creator has exceeded all expectations, with more creatures made in 22 hours than Maxis expected to see in three months.
- NBA Live 09. Peter Moore brings NBA hall of famer Bill Walton on stage for this one, and Walton more or less chews the scenery while on stage, at one point trying to turn the discussion back to Spore. Walton is there to talk about Dynamic DNA, which will turn real-world data into a profile which should dynamically adjust how a given player acts in the game. A player begins to run more pick-and-rolls? That info goes into the Player DNA and is incorporated into that player's AI from then on.
- EA Nucleus/Rupture. A new initiative by EA which seems to combine social networking with an EA-specific gamercard. You can design custom achievements for your friends, and it ties your DLC from across multiple platforms together. Still in Beta at the moment.
- iPhone Games. Expect to see iPhone versions of Spore, Tetris, Scrabble, Tiger Woods and Need for Speed, all taking advantage of the iPhone hardware.
- Dragon Age: Origins. The new title from Bioware is the spiritual sucessor to Baldur's Gate (although w/o the D&D license). A video trailer was shown depicting huge armies battling (think Helm's Deep). It's for the PC at first, but they will be bringing this to the PS3 and 360.
- Left 4 Dead. Gabe Newell shows off Valve's survival horror/co-op game. He touts the game's "director" feature, which will evaluate the actions of the group and tailor the game to fit. In one example a beaten, squabbling, low on ammo party comes to a gas station, so the Director gives them an easier battle. A fit, well stocked party that works well together comes to that same encounter and they get a lot more enemies to fight, but they also get to blow up the station itself. Looks very nice. Drops on November 11th for the PC and 360
- iD Partnership. EA announced a partnership with iD Software to publish their upcoming game: Rage. Unfortunately the feed we were watching was not allowed to broadcast the game footage, but here's Joystiq's description of it (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/14/joystiq-live-at-electronic-arts-e3-2008-press-conference/).EA logo is followed by a sprawling desert environment. A car drives up to an immesne fortress, and we see a man walking through a seedy bar. The character models are very impressive -- even the growling troll thing that just snarled at us. Yikes.
- Sim Animals. An even more cutesy-wutesy version of the Sims is coming to the Wii and DS in January 2009
- Sims 3. EA promises a ton of customization, and promises to place just about everything under your control. A short video trailer was shown. 2009
- Dead Space. EA's new M-rated survival horror property. No real HUD, instead your vitals, like health and ammo, are shown on your backpack. Lots of screeching and dark corridors. You do have to use a flashlight a lot, but it looks like you can use one with a gun. In the future there will be duct tape.
- Mirror's Edge. Another new property, this one is a first-person action game set around Parkour and free running. Your character is extremely agile; she scurries up drain pipes, leaps across rooftops, dropkicks enemies and uses the skids of a chopper as paralell bars. EA says you can play through the whole game without firing a single shot. No release timetable was given
- Spore. Still scheduled for September 7th, but not a lot of new info. The creature creator has exceeded all expectations, with more creatures made in 22 hours than Maxis expected to see in three months.
- NBA Live 09. Peter Moore brings NBA hall of famer Bill Walton on stage for this one, and Walton more or less chews the scenery while on stage, at one point trying to turn the discussion back to Spore. Walton is there to talk about Dynamic DNA, which will turn real-world data into a profile which should dynamically adjust how a given player acts in the game. A player begins to run more pick-and-rolls? That info goes into the Player DNA and is incorporated into that player's AI from then on.
- EA Nucleus/Rupture. A new initiative by EA which seems to combine social networking with an EA-specific gamercard. You can design custom achievements for your friends, and it ties your DLC from across multiple platforms together. Still in Beta at the moment.
- iPhone Games. Expect to see iPhone versions of Spore, Tetris, Scrabble, Tiger Woods and Need for Speed, all taking advantage of the iPhone hardware.
- Dragon Age: Origins. The new title from Bioware is the spiritual sucessor to Baldur's Gate (although w/o the D&D license). A video trailer was shown depicting huge armies battling (think Helm's Deep). It's for the PC at first, but they will be bringing this to the PS3 and 360.
- Left 4 Dead. Gabe Newell shows off Valve's survival horror/co-op game. He touts the game's "director" feature, which will evaluate the actions of the group and tailor the game to fit. In one example a beaten, squabbling, low on ammo party comes to a gas station, so the Director gives them an easier battle. A fit, well stocked party that works well together comes to that same encounter and they get a lot more enemies to fight, but they also get to blow up the station itself. Looks very nice. Drops on November 11th for the PC and 360
- iD Partnership. EA announced a partnership with iD Software to publish their upcoming game: Rage. Unfortunately the feed we were watching was not allowed to broadcast the game footage, but here's Joystiq's description of it (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/14/joystiq-live-at-electronic-arts-e3-2008-press-conference/).EA logo is followed by a sprawling desert environment. A car drives up to an immesne fortress, and we see a man walking through a seedy bar. The character models are very impressive -- even the growling troll thing that just snarled at us. Yikes.