Friday, June 19, 2015

EA - E3

EA

Here's a summation of all the games EA showcased and lots of pictures. If you want to read ALL the conferences on Day One head over here.

Mass Effect - Let's get down to business. ME 4 Andromeda!

I don't care that it used Johnny Cash and Ghost Riders In The Sky (FYI, I like that song and Johnny Cash so :P). I don't care that it was all action which, surprise surprise, a teaser trailer would be. I don't care that our unknown not protagonist armor looks kinda stupid.
It's freaking Mass Effect! It's Asari, and Turians, and Krogan, and that N7.
And that's all we know, and that's all I'll need....for now.
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Need for Speed - Haven't seen enough cars driving around in circles? Well don't worry, we've got a ton more to go. A ton. This is the first of numerous mentions of Frostbite, the engine EA's forcing all their games to use. It's a nice engine but it's starting to make all the games look so similar. When I first watched the footage for Star Wars Battlefront it reminded me of ME3 and DA. The people, the landscapes, it's all getting a factory look which cannot bode well.

Anyway, to the cars. 
They go around, but not in circles. These are street cars, where you drive around on the roads endangering pedestrians and annoying the cops with your sweet street gang moves, Thuderbirds style.

It's open world (as everything is anymore) with changing light from dusk to dawn. There are five overlapping stories that follow five brothers (of course, girls can't drive. Their boobs get in the way). It's Pride and Prejudice but the Bennet's have boys instead of girls and rather than marry them off, they steal cars and drive up fines. They'd have been better off having girls.

Need for Speed drops November 3rd.

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Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Fallen Empire - Colon colon colon. Bioware's releasing a new expansion to get people back into SW:TOR. They promised to bring back the bioware story telling that people love.
Based upon the trailer you're either the white kid in black or the white kid in white who train to one day kill or not kill their father. In a twist, the good one is the kid in black. It causes less stains and he cares about his launderer.

They're promising new companions, more story, and lots of choices. Since it's Bioware, they're probably not blowing smoke about it.

This free expansion drops October 27th.

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Unravel -  This is adorable. There's not another word beyond adorable. The presenter was so ecstatic to be at E3 his fingers shook as he pulled out his little yarn doll to show off.
Your kitty is made out of yarn, and as you travel the yarn unravels. It's supposed to represent love or something, all I saw was a much less trippy Little Big Planet. It's physics based puzzle solving including scary rodents, making a kite out of a leaf, evil birds, dragging a lantern through the snow, and water skiing behind a fish. 

As I said, so damn adorable I want to squish its little red cheeks.

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Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 - That's right, we're talking about it again, but this time we get some real info. In trying to be cute, EA had some poor intern stuff themselves into a zombie costume and preen around on stage:
 No one wanted to even clap the guy off the stage.
To the Plants vs Zombie game. For the first time in the franchise the plants are on the attack. Doctor Zomboss created Zomberbia and lords over it. 

On top of the zombie co-op modes they also added solo play against AI, and most impressive, local co-op. No one does that anymore. There's Lego games and....
You can also transfer all the characters you unlocked in GW one to two at launch.
Coming in Spring 2016.
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EA Sports - Oh boy. Strap in. Here we go. There's a new game where you slap a puck around:
And a game where you hit a ball around:
And a game where you throw a ball around:
And a game where you kick a ball around:
And, okay, look. Some of these games are a good hundred+ years old. How much can really change? Fifa dared to add women, which caused a bigger shit storm than their embezzlement scandal because this earth is a shitty shitty place.

Their biggest new thing was the face capture. Using The Hoop Gawd (who must be someone anointed in the waters of Nothing But Net), they scanned his face with a phone ap and uploaded it to NBA Live 16.
There's something a little bit funny about this need to make characters look like you, be able to change their clothes to match your style, design their homes and cars. I call it the Simification of games. It makes sense, people love options. I only find it funny because Sims was always considered playing house and for girls and here it is in that super manly sports game.

In the words of Nelson Muntz - Ha ha!

To sum up, all those sports games will have a new entry in 2016. Play it if you'd like, or don't. I'm not your mother.

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Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes - Breaking up their Sports coverage, EA brought out a couple mobile games. The first was one of three Star Wars games they talked about. All they said is that you can play with characters from the prequels (woo?) classic trilogies (a duh) and the clone wars (the only ones your kids know about. Sorry)
Minions Paradise - Trying to get people hyped for the coming Minions movie, you can play basically a freeware game with Phil the minion whose secret mission is to destroy everything he touches. You wind up on a deserted island, build some things, don't go full pirate and pillage the seven seas. Sadly.
The little minions bounce and weave around so much, I'm thinking someone needs to cut their sugar intake before they get diabetes.

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Mirror's Edge: Catalyst - Explore Faith's origin story by rebelling against the big bad government. 


It was at this point that the twitch cast fell off a cliff. If you missed it too, here's the official trailer:


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Star Wars: Battlefront - And here we end. Want to be Luke Skywalker? Want to fly an X-wing? Want to run around on Hoth freezing your naughty bits off? Here you go.

This is Vader's "Do I have to do everything myself" face.

There are 40 multiplayer battles across the galaxy far far away. You can be good, evil, Luke post motorcycle accident. It's wide open.

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