So here we are at the one-week mark from E3 and I still haven't finished my write-ups. You can blame The Last of Us and, by association, @Tsaikotyk for getting me on that train. Expect to see Part IV tomorrow, as I should finish this series off before it becomes too irrelevant.
Electronic Arts (EA):
Chief Operations Officer Peter Moore kicked off "The Download", EA's press conference segment. He stated that everything we'd get to see would be for the upcoming generation's Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles. He got things rolling with a "beloved franchise that, over the years, has captivated millions of fans worldwide".
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare - With a trailer opening that looked like it would be EA's cash cow Battlefield 4, we instead received a 4-player-cooperative-third-person-shooter variation on the PvZ franchise. Goodie! Just what every tower-defense player wanted! Yet another bland, generic horde-mode shooter. Dear PopCap, fuck you. Nobody wanted this. Your idea to take "everything we love about action games and blend it with everything our fans love about PvZ" (Brian Lindley, Producer) is a piss-poor excuse to pander to the OTHER masses. The ones playing Call of Duty and Battlefield, and give them something. Well guess what? IT WON'T WORK. Hardcore gamers already have their realistic shooters, 4-player-coop-shooter fans already have their Borderlands 2, and casual gamers already have the ACTUAL Plants vs. Zombies. This is the kind of blind developmental stupidity that is causing so many studios to go belly-up. When you try to cater to every demographic, your game loses vision, flavor, and becomes the bland forgettable first/third-person shooter #3234273 that nobody talks about.
Oh well, at least you announced Peggle 2, and that will keep you afloat for another 7-10 years.
Titanfall - Two games made their debut on stage during Microsoft's conference, and were later reshown during EA's own conference. One of which was Titanfall (and the other being Battlefield 4, but who cares). Having already shown us the semi-cinematic trailer, and some quality gameplay footage during Microsoft's stage time, Respawn gave us a little behind-the-scenes look at the game with some of the developers. These people were working to create a fun game that blended the scale between the pilots and their mechs. An attempt at creating a multiplayer game that still gave you the feeling of a single player experience. And of course, redefining those giant robots. Titanfall still looks awesome, and I can't wait to play it on the PC. =)
There was a short blurb between presentations about EA's two new engines for the upcoming generation. In-house you had the EA Sports division working with EA Sports Ignite, and you had DICE (developers of Battlefield and Mirror's Edge) using the new Frostbite 3 engine. An engine that they'd be using in the upcoming game: STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT 3. YES IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING.
Need For Speed: Rivals - Coming on stage after Ubisoft gave EA a huge disadvantage for their racing game. The Crew already promised to blend single and multiplayer experiences together in a living open-world racing game. So when EA showed us NFS: Rivals, it was pretty underwhelming. Through "AllDrive", they'd blend single, coop, and multiplayer modes together into one fluid experience. The game also has some level of tablet support.
Then star of Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul walked on stage and got to talk a little about his role in the Need For Speed movie. Fucking why? We've already got 6 Fast and Furious films. Why make another branded by EA? The director Scott Waugh commented that "Need for Speed is accurate and authentic to real car racing culture". This quote was immediately followed by footage of a police SUV being flipped off the side of the road, so I'm not entirely sure he knew what he was talking about. The movie will be hitting theaters in 2014 and I plan to ignore it. I will probably be too busy playing The Crew to notice.
Dragon Age: Inquisition - EA didn't give us a lot of details on Bioware's new RPG heading to next-gen, except that you get to lead an inquisition. The trailer showed us the sky tearing open and all hell raining down, and that we'd see the game sometime in 2014.
EA SPORTS: "IT'S IN THE GAME"
Now, I'm not a fan of sports games. I consider myself to be an actual gamer, and if you do too, then you also probably ignored this section of the conference. Well, to bring you some of the best out-of-context quotes from EA's press conference, I actually watched the damn thing. Here you go:
"It's always lacked the depth of true ball handling." - Sean O'Brien, Executive Producer - NBA Live '14
"Through major gameplay innovation, we've given players the ability to think intelligently and move more like elite NFL athletes." - Cam Weber, VP and GM of American Football - Madden 25
"For the first time players can now make intelligent decisions." - Matt Bilbey, Group GM - FIFA '14
"Lets fighters organically alter their strategies throughout the fight. This is a huge part of fighting and it takes a unique level of intelligence." - Andrew Wilson, Executive Vice President - EA Sports UFC
Battlefield 4 - Yes! The moment everyone who is not me has been waiting for! Modern military shooter madness! EA showed off the newest installment in the Battlefield franchise yet again. With "levolution", players can now "experience destruction and dynamic environments that react to your every move" (Patrick Bach, Executive Producer). Yeah, we had the start of that back in 2001 with Red Faction, where were you? Though to be completely honest, Battlefield actually surprised me, because it's one thing to spew words like "dynamic", which doesn't mean shit in the game industry. It's just a filler word that execs use to sound more important. I was impressed during their gameplay demo when their 64 person skirmish ended with the collapse of a skyscraper, destroyed by human player gunfire. That was impressive.
Mirror's Edge - EA closed it out by showing us Mirror's Edge, a poorly marketed, visually stunning and elegant first-person parkour platformer for the last generation. It's getting rebooted for next generation, and it looks even more stunning this time around. Let's just hope they don't fuck it up this time.
Part IV should show up tomorrow when I praise Sony for kicking in Microsoft's door and laughing in their face.
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