E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – EA

Well, I’m surprised. EA, I expected very little from you, but you delivered a fairly convincing conference. Not that it was perfect and there was a lot I did not care about, but you got the presentation down perfectly. Maybe it’s just after the Microsoft one you seemed so much more... game oriented. Anyways, my thoughts on the individual elements.

DLC

Oh, fuck off. 

I’m not sure they necessarily said it (I was in another room looking for something at the time but I could hear bits). DLC should not be a focus! Bastards.

Dead Space 3

Well, it definitely looked different. Dead Space was never a game that I got. It wasn’t really the sort of horror game I wanted as jump scares do not make horror for me. So, luckily for them they decided to get rid of all pretence that it was a horror game.

Yeah, it’s now a cover based co-op shooter. You know, what we want from horror. So yeah, it looked like Resident Evil 5 in space. I really can’t say it looked good at all, but maybe it will go more so along the Resident Evil 4 route of going so batshit insane it’s fun. Or maybe it’ll be weird and have drills that are bosses. Yeah, that was weird.

Madden 13

So, this was a very interesting thing to focus on as the other sports games had a lesser focus later. They took it very seriously. But it did have some interesting things, such as a new physics engine. Then a guy came on and gave advice about how to do well in the NFL. Why? Just because.

One thing that did intrigue me though was the story mode, which had a story engine to flesh out the world, as well as having a fake Twitter feed to comment on the season. Seems all very immersive. You can also manage the league online and on a smart phone, which I do think works quite well.

SimCity Social

So yeah, SimCity on Facebook for all you Farmville fans with a hard on for SimCity.

SimCity

Holy shit this looked pretty. I love SimCity and now we have a new one. The art style is very pleasing and the world seems a bit more dynamic. On top of this we also have multiplayer to connect you and your friends. With multiplayer when things happen in your city it effects nearby cities, allowing a thriving SimCity world thing. I like.

Battlefield 3 Premium

It’s that paid for membership thing that Call of Duty has. EA wants your money. That’s all I have to say.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This game has always intrigued me and if I played MMOs I’d probably play it. Updates to it do sound interesting. These updates include more PvP areas, a harder difficulty, more playable species, higher level caps and a new planet. Apparently Bioware love the people who play its game because it sounds like some of these are free, if not all. Kudos.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Shut up, I liked the first game in the reboot. It had its flaws and was just a Modern Warfare game, but I liked it. Now, this on the other hand this game looks... meh.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot I liked about it, such as the HUD and it had some good character animations, but to me it looked so much like Modern Warfare 3. It didn’t seem to try and make its mark. 

Sure, it is interesting that real life events are explored in the game, such as going to Somalia to fight pirates (I was expecting a giant enemy crab, knowing E3 real life events) but it didn’t seem to do anything new or spectacular. It just fits in nicely with other FPS games.

Multiplayer does look interesting though, with lots of different factions over the world and many different weapon types. Ooh, and destructible environments. Otherwise, it was more of the same.

EA Sports

Oh, hello EA Sports games. I thought we were done with Madden. Well, a creepy guy says otherwise.

A lot of games were announced, such as a new Free-to-Play Madden game, NHL, NBA and UFC, but nothing to get excited about, really.

Except FIFA 13 has some cool elements about it. Players carry their level over from your FIFA 12 saves, which is nice, and there’s a whole football club element that carries over. Also, it’s going to be available on iPhone, iPad and Android phones. But nothing too great.

 

Need For Speed: Most Wanted

 

This looked pretty good. The graphics were good, the driving seemed to work well and I think it got away from the hyper-realism that is in a lot of driving games nowadays. It’s open world, which I don’t like in my driving games, but it seemed to carry it off okay. There’s a lot of comparisons with friends as well, which will be good for some but infuriate others wanting to beat their friends but not being good enough to do so.

Oh, and it’s better than the Forza Horizon trailer because the trailer for this one didn’t have dupstep. Instead it had Prodigy. Sweet!

Crysis 3

WHY?! Why take us away from the open world jungle aspect and give us an “urban rainforest” that seems linear as fuck. This did not impress me and I honestly think they need to shut down the Crysis series as they have ruined one of the most interesting IPs out there with its two following releases. 

It looked pretty, though.

 Ending Thoughts 

Okay, I think it was to do with the shitty Microsoft conference that I liked this. Overall there is nothing particularly new. Some interesting developments, but it’s sequel-mania out there. Everything did look quite pretty, but for the most part there is no real innovation out there.

If I could describe this conference in one word it would be “Connectivity”. There was a real focus on connecting you and your friends to create an ongoing experience. It’s something I appreciate from the company. Not that I would utilise it (*sob* no friends *sob*) but I can see people really taking to it.